“L’Anse aux Meadows was founded nearly 1000 years ago and was the only Norse settlement in the New World. “
That we KNOW of.
The Vinland Saga tells of grape vines found on one of their trips. And grape vines don;t grow in Newfoundland - only much further south.
They were in wildly profuse abundance on the Outer Banks of NC in early explorer accounts, giant vines that seemed to have been cultivated reaching down to the surf itself. One of them is still alive, the Mother Vine.
It’s such a storm-tossed place that finding artifacts from that long ago would be almost a fluke, though. New inlets get cut, old ones fill in. Always moving, those islands.
I love them, but they’re basically just very large sandbars, stable only where large stands of live oak and juniper are. Cut them down and it’s like a windy desert, entire houses buried under the dunes. Happened on Ocracoke in the late 19th century, possibly other islands in the chain.