L'Anse aux Meadows: Evidence of Vikings in North America

L'Anse aux Meadows is the name of an archaeological site representing a failed Viking colony of Norse explorers from Iceland, in Newfoundland, Canada, and occupied for between three and ten years. . It was the first European colony to be identified in the New World, predating Christopher Columbus by almost 500 years.

Key takeaways: L'Anse aux Meadows

- L'Anse aux Meadows is an archaeological site in Newfoundland, Canada, where the first evidence of Vikings (Northern Europe) was discovered in North America.

- The colony lasted only three to norse clothing 10 years before it failed.

- There are at least half a dozen other short-lived occupations in the Baffin Island area that appear to be Norse sites of the same age, 1000 CE.

- The ancestors of Canada's First Peoples have lived in the area since at least 6,000 years ago and were using the island of Newfoundland as a summer home at the time of the Viking landings.

Climate and Occupation before Nordic

The site is located in Newfoundland on the edge of the Belle Isle, across which is the southern Labrador coast and the lower north coast of Quebec. The climate is largely arctic, a forested tundra and it is frequently locked in ice during the long winters. Summer is foggy, short and cool.

The area was first occupied about 6,000 years ago, by the Maritime Archaic peoples, who practiced an extensive subsistence strategy, hunting both terrestrial and marine animals. and plants. From 3,500 to 2,000 years ago, humans were mainly dependent on hunting for cetaceans that lived in the Belle Isle Strait area, and about 2,000 years ago this area was shared by both hunting and hunting. terrestrial populations of recent Indian and Paleoeskimo populations.

When the Norse arrived, the Paleoeskimos had already left: but the recent Indians were still using the land. These Straits residents probably visited the area for short periods of time during the summer, hunted birds (cormorants, nightingales, eiders and black ducks), and lived in oven-heated tents stone heating. 

The historical story of l'Anse aux Meadows 

Around the turn of the 19th century, Canadian historian WA Munn studied medieval Icelandic manuscripts, as reported by 10th century AD Vikings. Two of them, "the Greenlander Saga" and "Erik's Saga" reported on the discoveries of Thorvald Arvaldson, Erik the Red (or rather Eirik) and Leif Erikson, three generations of a family of Northern sailors Europe is quite irritable. According to the manuscripts, Thorvald fled a murder charge in Norway and eventually settled in Iceland; his son Erik fled Iceland under a similar charge and settled in Greenland; and Eirik's son Leif (the Lucky) still took the family west, and around AD 998 he colonized a land he called "Vinland," Old Norse meaning "

Leif's colony remained in Vinland for between three and ten years, before they were driven away by constant attacks from the inhabitants, the ancestors of Canada's First People known to the Norse as Skraelings ; and The Recent Indians of Archaeologists. Munn believes that the most likely site for the colony is on the island of Newfoundland, arguing that " Vinland " does not refer to grapes, but to grass or grazing land, since grapes do not grow in Newfoundland.

Rediscover the site

In the early 1960s, archaeologists Helge Ingstad and his wife Anne Stine Ingstad conducted a close survey of the coastlines of Newfoundland and Labrador. Helge Ingstad, a Norse investigator, has spent most of his career studying northern and arctic civilizations and is following the study of Viking expeditions in the 10th and 11th centuries. In 1961, the survey was successful and the Ingstads discovered a Viking settlement near Epave Bay and named the site "L'Anse aux Meadows", or Jellyfish Cove, a reference to the jellyfish. stingrays are found in the bay.

Eleventh-century Norse artefacts recovered from l'Anse aux Meadows number in the hundreds and include a soapstone spindle and a bronze ring pinning process, as well as utensils of iron, copper, stone and other bones. Radiocarbon dating places an occupation at this site between ~990-1030 AD.

Lives in L'Anse aux Meadows

L'Anse aux Meadows is not a typical Viking village . The site includes three building complexes and a flower garden, but no barns or barns related to agriculture. Two of the three complexes consist of only a large hall or longhouse and a small hut; The third person adds a small house. It seems that elites resided at one end of the great hall, ordinary sailors slept in the sleeping areas in the lobby and servants, or more likely slaves lived in huts.

The buildings are constructed in the Icelandic style, with heavy clay roofs supported by internal buttresses. The Blooming Plant is a simple iron smelter in a small underground hut and an underground brazier. In large buildings are sleeping quarters, carpentry workshops, living rooms, kitchens and storage rooms.

L'Anse aux Meadows has between 80 and 100 individuals, possibly up to three crews; All buildings were occupied at the skull sweater same time. Based on Parks Canada's reconstruction of the site, a total of 86 trees were cut for posts, roofs and fixtures; and 1,500 cubic feet of soda is required for the roof.

L'Anse aux Meadows Today

Since the discovery of l'Anse aux Meadows, archaeological research has found further evidence of Norse settlement in the area, a handful of sites on Baffin Island and Labrador. Norse occupation artefacts include thread, rod-shaped whetstones, wooden counters, and a broken stone cup containing traces of bronze and tin for bronze. Only one building was found, a rectangular platform of stone and grass, and a stone-lined drainage basin.

L'Anse aux Meadows is now owned by Parks Canada, who carried out excavations at the site in the mid-1970s. The site was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1978; and  Parks Canada have rebuilt some of the older buildings and maintained the site as a "living history" museum, complete with formal interpreters.