Posted on 10/20/2021 12:59:46 PM PDT by Theoria
By studying tree rings and using a dash of astrophysics, researchers have pinned down a precise year that settlers from Europe were on land that would come to be known as Newfoundland.
Six decades ago, a husband-and-wife team of archaeologists discovered the remains of a settlement on the windswept northern tip of Newfoundland. The site’s eight timber-framed structures resemble Viking buildings in Greenland, and archaeological artifacts found there — including a bronze cloak pin — are decidedly Norse in style.
Scientists now believe that this site, known as L’Anse aux Meadows, was inhabited by Vikings who came from Greenland. To this day, it remains the only conclusively identified Viking site in the Americas outside of Greenland.
But many questions remain about L’Anse aux Meadows: Who exactly settled it? Why? And, perhaps most importantly, when was the site occupied? Pinning down the settlement’s age has been a challenge — radiocarbon measurements of artifacts from L’Anse aux Meadows span the entire Viking Age, from the late eighth through the 11th centuries.
But in results published Wednesday in Nature, scientists presented what they think are new answers to this mystery. By analyzing the imprint of a rare solar storm in tree rings from wood found at the Canadian site, scientists have decisively pinned down when Norse explorers were in Newfoundland: the year A.D. 1021, or exactly 1,000 years ago.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Fascinating what Dendrochronology (Study of tree rings / wood) can tell you about the past weather for very specific localities as well as wide-area climate conditions. While not a new “-ology” (1800s), the building of databases for tree ring matches has become a big thing since the 1960s.
I was going by memory from reading Maclean’s. I am sure you are correct. Thank you for the correction.
In hindsight, you are right that they did not. However, the number of buildings, 8, indicates that their intent might have been to do so. The Scandinavian Viking settlements in Greenland lasted about 500 years from Eric the Red's first efforts in 980.
Every time you read about Vikings in Canada and Greenland then not staying, think about the fact that the global warming we've been experiencing for the past 100+ years (the Current Warm Period) is part of a normal mini-cycle of warming (last one was the Medieval Warm Period) and cooling (before that it was the Dark Ages), that itself is part of a larger cycle of warming and cooling (real Ice Ages and Fire Ages before mankind).
When Erik the Red discovered Greenland and the Vikings made settlements there, it was during the Medieval Warm Period. His son, Leif Erikson explored west of there and to modern day Canada (although the jury is still out on if they settled there or just made a few trips for exploring and gathering timber). Then the Little Ice Age came and made Greenland and Newfoundland inhospitable.
The only difference between the Current Warm Period and prior warm periods like the Medieval Warm Period and the Roman Warm Period (the time of Christ) is that only in the Current Warm Period do we have a political class complaining about it. I promise you that everybody who lived during the cooling periods and experienced centuries lower crop rates, less predictable rains, and higher plague rates would gladly swap climates with any of us in the Current Warm Period.
Sweden is the reason why there’s blonde hair blue eyed Russians today. They operated from the Baltic to the Volga and essentially had a hand in creating “Rus” Russian identity. It was a massive trade route they operated for hundreds of years even prior to the Viking raids.
No kidding. What about the Buccaneers?
Columbus discovered America FOR THE LAST TIME. And that is why he was important. Before him, Europeans visited. And forgot.
First? There were those from Beringia And possibly those ancients from Spain Portugal that used skin boats to follow the other Ice sheets the Solutrean hypothesis. (Or perhaps St Brendan of Ireland)
Wherever the Indians came from. They were First.
Fudging a bit. I’ve been to L’ans aux Meadows. Newfoundland is an island, not North America. Close, but no cigar.
Newfoundland and Greenland are both islands on the North American tectonic plate. So they discovered America in Greenland.
Concur. It is one thing to attack some agrarian/fishing coastal towns a few days ride to home and move one, versus, putting down roots thousand of miles away in the midst of a stone age people that did not like you. Heck, 100 people with current technology and poor manners would be slaughtered by thousands of stone age people who wanted you dead.
I would have never guessed that there were 1,000+ yr old trees up there.
Eric the Red and Leif Erickson ...
Damn.... why couldn’t the Vikings have visited Texas.....
But did they bring their Norwegian Forest Cats with them?
I worked in South Yorkshire, England about 25 years ago. I don’t know what language they speak there, but it sure isn’t English.
We’ll certainly not the Maine Coon Cat.
Yup. And 500 years later we had another set of Europeans with big, fast ships arriving at the Americas, this time without a little ice age but with one new element: Firearms. So Hernando Cortez took out the Aztecs with about 40 men.
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