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Norse colonization of North America

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This article is about the Viking presence in the western Arctic. For the Swedish, see Swedish colonization of the Americas. For Danish-Norwegian, see Danish colonization of the Americas.

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The Norse exploration of North America began in the late 10th century, when Norsemen explored areas of the North Atlantic colonizing Greenland and creating a short term settlement near the northern tip of Newfoundland. This is known now as L'Anse aux Meadows where the remains of buildings were found in 1960 dating to approximately 1,000 years ago.[1][2][3] This discovery helped reignite archaeological exploration for the Norse in the North Atlantic.[4] This single settlement, located on the island of Newfoundland and not on the North American mainland, was abruptly abandoned.

The Norse settlements on Greenland lasted for almost 500 years. L'Anse aux Meadows, the only confirmed Norse site in present-day Canada,[5] was small and did not last as long. Other such Norse voyages are likely to have occurred for some time, but there is no evidence of any Norse settlement on mainland North America lasting beyond the 11th century.

The Norse exploration of North America has been subject to numerous controversies concerning the European exploration and settlement of North America.[6] Pseudoscientific and pseudohistorical theories have emerged since the public acknowledgment of these Norse expeditions and settlements.[6]

Norse Greenland

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Main article: Norse settlements in Greenland
Hvalsey Church ruins in Greenland

Icelandic sagas

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The two Vinland sagas, the Saga of the Greenlanders and the Saga of Erik the Red, cover Norse explorations into the Western Atlantic within the genre of Icelandic sagas. They are heroic narratives originally shared orally and written down centuries later in Iceland during the 13th and 14th centuries.[7] Written within the literary tradition of and according to the literary expectations for Icelandic sagas, they portray Greenland as a place at the edge of the world where people were exiled and tested. This limits their reliability as a historical record.[8]

The earliest mention of Greenland in the sagas is a group of rocky islands in the Atlantic reported by Gunnbjörn Ulfsson when his ship was blown off course from Iceland in the early 900s.[9] Named after him, Gunnbjarnarsker or "Gunnbjörn's skerries", were likely near modern-day Kulusuk just off the eastern coast of Greenland,[10] but their exact location is unknown.[11] According to the Landnámabók, Snæbjörn Galti led the earliest recorded intentional Norse voyage to Greenland and started a failed settlement on the eastern coast of Greenland. The colony struggled, Snæbjörn Galti was murdered, the settlment was abandoned, and only 2 colonists survived the return to Iceland.[12][13] Ívar Bárðarson, a Catholic priest sent to Greenland in 1341, wrote that the skerries were about "two days and two nights sailing due West" from Iceland and the halfway point on trips to the later more successful colonies on the western coast. After the end of the Medieval Warm Period, the area began to freeze over and became hazardous to ships.[14]

According to the sagas, Erik the Red (Old Norse: Eiríkr rauði) was banished from Iceland for manslaughter, and sailed West to the lands reported by Gunnbjorn. His crew continued past the skerries, down the coast of Greenland, and settled on an island near Tunulliarfik Fjord; he named the fjord Eiriksfjord after himself.[15] He remained for three years, explored the area, and decided to found a settlement.[16][17] He named the area Greenland, and returned to Iceland to recruit settlers, promising tracts of land to his followers. Erik established his estate Brattahlíð along the inner reaches of Eiriksfjord.[18]

Life

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A map of the Eastern Settlement on Greenland, covering approximately the modern municipality of Kujalleq. Eiriksfjord (Erik's fjord) and his farm Brattahlíð are shown, as is the location of the bishopric at Gardar.

Norse Greenland consisted of two main settlements. The Eastern Settlement was at the southwestern tip of Greenland, while the Western Settlement was about 500 km up the west coast, near present-day Nuuk.[19] A smaller settlement later founded near the Eastern Settlement is sometimes considered the Middle Settlement.[20] The combined population peaked around 2,000–3,000.[21] At least 400 farms have been identified by archaeologists.[18]

Remains of stables on Greenland

Norse Greenlanders were limited to scattered fjords on the island that provided a spot for their animals (such as cattle, sheep, goats, dogs, and cats) to be kept and farms to be established.[22][23] In these fjords, the farms depended upon stables (byres) to host their livestock in the winter, and routinely culled their herds so that they could survive the season.[22][23][24] The coming warmer seasons meant that livestock were taken from their byres to pasture, the most fertile being controlled by the most powerful farms and the church.[23][24][25] What was produced by livestock and farming was supplemented with subsistence hunting of mainly seal and caribou as well as walrus for trade.[22][23][24] The Norse mainly relied on the Nordrsetur hunt, a communal hunt of migratory harp seals in the spring.[22][25]

There is evidence of Norse trade with the Thule, the ancestors of the Inuit, and the Beothuk, related to the Algonquin. These were (called the Skrælingjar by the Norse). The Dorset had withdrawn from Greenland before the Norse settlement of the island. Items such as comb fragments, pieces of iron cooking utensils and chisels, chess pieces, ship rivets, carpenter's planes, and oaken ship fragments used in Inuit boats have been found far beyond the traditional range of Norse colonization. A small ivory statue that appears to represent a European has also been found among the ruins of an Inuit community house.[26]

Trade was highly important to the Greenland Norse and they relied on imports of lumber due to the barrenness of Greenland. In turn they exported goods such as walrus ivory and hide, live polar bears, and narwhal tusks.[24][25] Ultimately these setups were vulnerable as they relied on migratory patterns created by climate as well as the viability of the few fjords on the island.[23][25] A portion of the time the Greenland settlements existed was during the Little Ice Age and the climate was, overall, becoming cooler and more humid.[22][23][24] As climate began to cool and humidity began to increase, this brought more storms, longer winters and shorter springs, and affected the migratory patterns of the harp seal.[22][23][24][25] Pasture space began to dwindle and fodder yields for the winter became much smaller. This combined with regular herd culling made it hard to maintain livestock, especially for the poorest of the Greenland Norse.[22] Closer to the Eastern Settlement, temperatures remained stable but a prolonged drought reduced fodder production.[27] In spring, the voyages to where migratory harp seals could be found became more dangerous due to more frequent storms, and the lower population of harp seals meant that Nordrsetur hunts became less successful, making subsistence hunting extremely difficult.[22][23] The strain on resources made trade difficult, and as time went on, Greenland exports lost value in the European market due to competing countries and the lack of interest in what was being traded.[25] Trade in elephant ivory began competing with the trade in walrus tusks that provided income to Greenland, and there is evidence that walrus over-hunting, particularly of the males with larger tusks, led to walrus population declines.[28]

A runestick from Herjolfsnes[a]

Norse Greenland had a bishopric (at Garðar) and exported walrus ivory, furs, rope, sheep, whale and seal blubber, live animals such as polar bears, supposed "unicorn horns" (in reality narwhal tusks), and cattle hides. In 1126, the population requested a bishop (headquartered at Garðar), and in 1261, they accepted the overlordship of the Norwegian king. They continued to have their own law and became almost completely politically independent after 1349, the time of the Black Death. In 1380, the Kingdom of Norway entered into a personal union with the Kingdom of Denmark.[26]

The settlements began to decline in the 14th century. The Western Settlement was abandoned around 1350, and the last bishop at Garðar died in 1377.[26] After a marriage was recorded in 1408, no written records mention the settlers. It is probable that the Eastern Settlement was defunct by the late 15th century. The most recent radiocarbon date found in Norse settlements as of 2002 was 1430 (±15 years).[30] Several theories have been advanced to explain the decline.

Climate and decline

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Map showing the expansion of the Thule people (900 to 1500)

The Little Ice Age of this period would have made travel between Greenland and Europe, as well as farming, more difficult; although seal and other hunting provided a healthy diet, there was more prestige in cattle farming, and there was increased availability of farms in Scandinavian countries depopulated by famine and plague epidemics.[31] In addition, Greenlandic ivory may have been supplanted in European markets by cheaper ivory from Africa.[32] Despite the loss of contact with the Greenlanders, the Norwegian-Danish crown continued to consider Greenland a possession.

Not knowing whether the old Norse civilization remained in Greenland or not—and worried that if it did, it would still be Catholic 200 years after the Scandinavian homelands had undergone the Reformation—a joint merchant-clerical expedition led by the Norwegian missionary Hans Egede was sent to Greenland in 1721.[33] Though this expedition found no surviving Europeans, it marked the beginning of Denmark's re-assertion of sovereignty over the island.[34]

Replica garments of those found in graves in Herjolfsness, Greenland

To an extent, it seemed that the Norse were unwilling to integrate with the Thule people of Greenland, through either marriage or culture. There is evidence of contact as seen through the Thule archaeological record, including ivory depictions of the Norse as well as bronze and steel artifacts. In the 20th century, there was little evidence for Thule artifacts among Norse habitations,[22] however it is now known that Thule artifacts are found among Norse habitations, indicating that both groups acquired material goods from each other.[35] The older research posited that it was not climate change alone that led to Norse decline, but also their unwillingness to adapt.[22] For example, if the Norse had decided to focus their subsistence hunting on the ringed seal (which could be hunted year round, though individually), and decided to reduce or do away with their communal hunts, food would have been much less scarce during the winter season.[23][24][25][36] Also, had Norse individuals used skins instead of wool for their clothing, they would have fared better nearer to the coast, and would not have been as confined to the fjords.[23][24][25]

However, more recent research has shown that the Norse did try to adapt in their own ways. This included increased subsistence hunting. A significant number of bones of marine animals can be found at the settlements, suggesting increased hunting with the absence of farmed food. In addition, pollen records show that the Norse did not always devastate the small forests and foliage, as previously thought. Instead they ensured that overgrazed or overused sections were given time to regrow and moved to other areas. Norse farmers also attempted to adapt; with the increased need for winter fodder and smaller pastures, they would self-fertilize their lands to try to keep up with the new demands caused by the changing climate.[37] However, even with these attempts, climate change was not the only thing putting pressure on the Greenland Norse. The economy was changing, and the exports they relied on were losing value.[25] Current research suggests that the Norse were unable to maintain their settlements because of economic and climatic change happening at the same time.[37]

A 2022 study indicates that gravitational effects from a readvance of the Southern Greenland Ice Sheet caused a relative sea level rise of "up to ~3.3 m outside the glaciation zone during Viking settlement, producing shoreline retreat of hundreds of meters. Sea-level rise was progressive and encompassed the entire Eastern Settlement. Moreover, pervasive flooding would have forced abandonment of many coastal sites. These processes likely contributed to the suite of vulnerabilities that led to Viking abandonment of Greenland. Sea-level change thus represents an integral, missing element of the Viking story."[38]

Norse settlements in Canada

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A reconstruction of Norse buildings at the UNESCO listed L'Anse aux Meadows site in Newfoundland, Canada. Archaeological evidence demonstrates that iron working, carpentry, and boat repair were conducted at the site.[39]

Greenland lacked natural resources like forests and iron ore.[40][41] The Greenlanders' oral history, recorded in the Saga of the Greenlanders and Saga of Erik the Red, mentions several places to the south or west that could supplement what was available on Greenland, notably Markland, Helluland, and Vinland.[42] There is generally believed to be a historical basis for Norse voyages to these places, despite some fantastical elements in the sagas, like Great Ireland and the uniped who kills Thorvald Asvaldsson in Vinland.[43] In Adam of Bremen's 11th-century chronicle Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum, he briefly mentions Greenland and islands beyond Norway including one "called Vinland". [b][45] Icelandic annals record that, in the year 1347, a ship arrived from Greenland that had drifted off course while sailing to Markland for wood.[46] A 13th-century Icelandic description of the world gives the rough order of the lands described in the sagas as Greenland, Helluland, Markland, and Vinland, which the author suspected was part of Africa.[c][49] In Europe, several medieval works reproduced this general description as far away as Milan where Dominican chronicler Galvano Fiamma mentioned terra que dicitur Marckalada 'the land called Markland' west of Greenland circa 1345.[49] Where these places would correspond to in modern-day Canada is still debated.[50] Greenland colonists used timber for their boats and homes, so they likely made many unrecorded trips south for wood.[40][41] Microscopic analysis of the materials used at 5 Norse sites on Greenland, shows that many families relied on driftwood and the sparse local trees, while the larger farms sourced lumber from Europe and North America.[46]

Bog iron was widely used and smelted in forges on Greenland, but because no ores were present near the Eastern or Western Settlements, the iron had to be shipped from Labrador, Newfoundland, Iceland, or Europe. One indicator that iron was being extracted from North America rather than imported from the east was the usage of porous iron and slag blooms. Iron shipped from the east would have likely been products (tools, nails, axes) or iron bars.[41]

There is one confirmed Norse settlement in modern day Canada, L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland.[51] A ruined stone and sod building at Tanfield Valley on Baffin Island may have been a medieval Norse home. It contained whet stones that had been used to sharpen copper-alloy blades.[52] The indigenous Dorset cold-hammered copper as well as meteoric iron, but did not smelt metals.[53] Dating the Tanfield Valley site is complicated by it having been inhabited and abandoned multiple times.[52][54][55] No settlements have been found in mainland Canada. No Norse materials have been recovered from excavations in mainland Labrador, which implies a lack of trading and a low likelihood for larger Norse sites south of Newfoundland.[56] Surveys in the 1970s and 1980s could find no evidence of Norse settlements on the coasts of modern-day Quebec.[41]

Historians have found that the Greenlanders had limited incentives and capabilities to expand south into a long-term colony in Canada.[57] Population pressure was one of the factors that affected migrations out of Scandinavia and medieval Iceland, where as many as 70,000 Icelanders competed for limited resources.[58][59] The same pressure never manifested in Greenland. The population gradually rose from a few hundred to a few thousand before populations declined across the North Atlantic due to climate change and plague.[58][59]

Newfoundland

[edit]
The location of L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland

Evidence of the Norse west of Greenland came in the 1960s when archaeologist Anne Stine Ingstad and author Helge Ingstad excavated a Norse site at L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland. They found a bronze, ring-headed pin like those the Norse used to fasten their cloaks inside the cooking pit of one of the larger dwellings. A stone oil lamp and a small spindle whorl, used as the flywheel of a handheld spindle, were found inside another building. A fragment of a bone needle believed to have been used for knitting was discovered in the firepit of a third dwelling. A small, decorated brass fragment, once gilded, was also discovered. Much slag formed as a by-product from the smelting and working of iron was found on the site along with many iron boat nails or rivets.[60]

The site is different from the colonies in Greenland; it was not a permanent continuous settlement.[61][62] Archaelogists have found no burials, no farmland, no stables for livestock, and a near absence of soapstone, which was widely used by the Greenlanders for household tools.[62][61]

Burgitta Wallace has said that location of the site and the type of buildings present "suggests that seafaring was the most important function of the settlement."[63] The buildings include several large living halls and specialized workshops including one for boat repair and construction.[63] According to historian Eleanor Barraclough, one major purpose of the site was boat repair.[64] The land is bare and open now, but it was forested during the time the Norse were active.[65] The presence of wood and nuts from the Juglans cinerea walnut tree, which grows wild on the continental mainland but not Newfoundland itself, indicates that the site was used as a staging area for further voyages.[63]

It's unlikely that there were any permanent settlements on the scale of L'Anse aux Meadows on Newfoundland or in nearby areas of Canada. The sailing season from Greenland was short, the trip was long, and Greenland had a limited population for further colonies.[66] L'Anse aux Meadows itself may have drawn 10 to 20 percent of the total Greenland colonists;[67] the communal living halls could hold from 30 to 160 people.[68] Point Rosee was identified by archaeologist Sarah Parcak as a possible Norse settlement based on near-infrared satellite images and high-resolution aerial photographs, but archaeological excavations in 2015 and 2016 showed no signs of Norse occupation.[69]

Trees at L'Anse aux Meadows were felled by the Norse in 1021.[70] Chunks of wood from the site were dated in 2021 using the 993–994 carbon-14 spike and tree rings.[71] This provided the first certain date for the Norse presence at the site.[72] Although not inhabited for long stretches of time, the site may have been used as late as 1145 AD.[61] When they left, the Norse intentionally and deliberately abandoned the site, leaving behind no tools and mostly waste.[67]

Baffin Island

[edit]
Norse colonization of North America is located in Baffin Island
Nunguvik
Willows Island
Willows Island
Nanook
class=notpageimage|
Locations of possible Norse artifacts or ruins on Baffin Island

By 2012, Canadian researchers identified possible signs of Norse outposts from several areas on and around Baffin Island, notably possible Norse artifacts at the Nanook site in Tanfield Valley.[52][73][74] They also suspected yarn from Willows Island and Nunguvik (near Pond Inlet) to be Norse, but these were not corroborated by later dating methods.[75] Despite early theories that the Norse introduced the practice of spinning thread to the native peoples, a 2018 study demonstrated an indigenous spinning tradition. The study employed a new dating technique to separate oils that could potentially contaminate the date from the spun fibers.[76] On Willows Island, archaeological sites contained strands of Dorset yarn spun between 15 BC and 725 AD possibly from Arctic hare or muskox. This predates all known European arrivals. Unlike European cordage, the Dorset yarn was spun at a consistent diameter and was never woven into fabric.[77]

A team led by archaeologist Patricia Sutherland excavated a ruined stone and sod building in Tanfield Valley and found a range of artifacts that indicate a possible Viking presence on the island. Moreau Maxwell had begun a dig in the 1960s and described the structure as "very difficult to interpret." Due to the presence of artifacts on the island that have a possible Norse origin, Sutherland suspected the building itself was Norse.[52] Spun cordage found on Baffin Island in the 1980s and stored at the Canadian Museum of Civilization led to a more comprehensive exploration of the Tanfield Valley archaeological site for points of contact between Norse Greenlanders and the indigenous Dorset people.[78][79] At the site, Sutherland's team found whet-stones used to sharpen blades. They analyzed the metal fragments still in the whet-stone and found bronze, an alloy used by the Norse but unknown to the native peoples. They also found stones cut in a European fashion, Old World rat fur, and whalebone shovels similar to those used on Greenland.[52] While there are indicators of an early Viking presence, radiocarbon dating could not conclusively identify the site as it had been occupied and abandoned several times, with the earliest material culture dating to before the arrival of the Vikings.[52]

A stone crucible was found at the Nanook site in 2014. The crucible used very high heat to melt down metal alloys like bronze. Indigenous North Americans did not practice this type of metal-working, but the Norse regularly did. Radiocarbon dating placed it between 754 BC and 1367 AD. Sutherland said, "It may be the earliest evidence of high-temperature nonferrous metalworking in North America to the north of what is now Mexico."[80]

Labrador

[edit]
class=notpageimage|
Avayalik Islands off the coast of Labrador

When Martin Frobisher explored Labrador in the 1570s, the native peoples had an oral history of people they called the kablunat 'white men' whose behaviors and customs resembled the Norse.[56] The colonists in Greenland regularly used timber for houses and boats,[40] and the most viable logging sites from Greenland were the heavily forested coasts of northern Labrador.[81] Labrador also contained bog iron ore in proximity to lumber for smelting.[41]

The Dorset culture extended down to the northern edge of Labrador.[82] The Native Americans who inhabited the southern portion were the ancestors of the Innu; they would have spoken one of the Algonquian languages and were possibly related to the indiginous Beothuk of Newfoundland.[83][40] Archaeologists refer to them as the "Point Revenge" culture.[84] At the Sandnæs farmstead in Greenland, arrowheads were found that resembled nothing in Norse culture but matched the arrows used by the Point Revenge peoples.[81]

On the Avayalik Islands, off the very northern tip of Labrador, Patricia Sutherland found yarn being excavated that was distinct from the sinew-based cordage typically used by indigenous arctic hunters.[52] Later dating showed that it predated the Norse arrival.[85][75] Analysis of the yarn showed evidence for the Dorset spinning their own cordage and trading in a network that included the Norse, but not for a Norse settlement on the island.[86] Norse materials have not been found in Native American archaeological sites in mainland Labrador, which indicates a lack of trading and a low possibility that Norse sites as large as L'Anse aux Meadows will be found south of Newfoundland.[56] Patrick Plumet led many coastal surveys west of Labrador in the Ungava Bay during the 1970s and 1980s but found no evidence of Norse settlements.[41]

Vinland sagas

[edit]
Main articles: Vinland and Vinland sagas

According to the Icelandic sagas—Saga of Erik the Red,[87] plus chapters of the Hauksbók and the Flatey Book—the Norse started to explore lands to the west of Greenland only a few years after the Greenland settlements were established. In 985, while sailing from Iceland to Greenland with a migration fleet consisting of 400–700 settlers[18] and 25 other ships (14 of which completed the journey), a merchant named Bjarni Herjólfsson was blown off course, and after three days' sailing he sighted land west of the fleet. Bjarni was only interested in finding his father's farm, but he described his findings to Leif Erikson who explored the area in more detail and planted a small settlement fifteen years later.[18]

The sagas describe three areas beyond Greenland: Helluland, "land of the flat stones"; Markland, "the land of forests"; and Vinland, either "the land of wine" or "the land of meadows".[42] Helluland is generally thought to correspond to Baffin Island but may include northern areas of Labrador.[40] Markland is generally thought to be an area in Labrador.[40] Vinland likely includes Newfoundland and possibly other areas around the Gulf of Saint Lawrence.[40] There has long been debate about identifying any of the three "lands" to actual, known locations in North America. Vinland in particular has been the topic of widely divergent claims and theories.[50]

In 2019 archaeologist Birgitta Wallace wrote:

L'Anse aux Meadows cannot be Vinland. Vinland was a land, the same way Iceland and Greenland are lands, countries. But L'Anse aux Meadows is a place described in the sagas as part of Vinland. It is the Straumfjord of Eric's Saga. It is the same kind of settlement, with the same kind of occupants and type of activities, a winter base from where expeditions went south in the summer. Although artifacts and buildings are typically Norse, the layout, location, and artifacts are different from the sites we know elsewhere in the Norse world. Just such a site is described in the sagas: Straumsfjord. A compelling reason why L'Anse aux Meadows has to be the main site in Vinland lies in demography.[88]

Historiography

[edit]
The 1590 Skálholt Map[89][d]

For centuries, it remained unclear whether the Icelandic stories represented real voyages by the Norse to North America. Although the idea of Norse voyages to, and a colony in, North America was discussed by Swiss scholar Paul Henri Mallet in his book Northern Antiquities (English translation 1770),[90] the sagas first gained widespread attention in 1837 when the Danish antiquarian Carl Christian Rafn revived the idea of a Viking presence in North America.[91] North America, by the name Winland, first appeared in written sources in a work by Adam of Bremen from approximately 1075.[92] The most important works about North America and the early Norse activities there, namely the Sagas of Icelanders, were recorded in the 13th and 14th centuries. In 1420, some Inuit captives and their kayaks were taken to Scandinavia.[93][94] The Norse sites were depicted in the Skálholt Map, made by an Icelandic teacher in 1570 and depicting part of northeastern North America and mentioning Helluland, Markland and Vinland.[95]

Locations proposed
Theorist Helluland Markland Vinland
Carl Christian Rafn (1837)[50] Labrador or Newfoundland Nova Scotia Cape Cod
Gustav Storm (1887)[50] Labrador Newfoundland Nova Scotia
William Henry Babcock (1913)[50] Labrador Newfoundland Nova Scotia[e]
William Hovgaard (1914)[50] Baffin Island or Newfoundland Labrador or Nova Scotia Cape Cod area, south shore.
Hans Peder Steensby (1918)[50] Labrador Labrador New England or New Brunswick
G. M. Gathorne-Hardy (1921)[50] Labrador or Newfoundland Nova Scotia Cape Cod
Matthías Þórðarson (1929)[50] Labrador Labrador New England or New Brunswick
Halldór Hermansson [sv] (1936)[50][97] Northern Labrador Southern Labrador New England
John R. Swanton (1947)[98] Northern Labrador Southern Labrador New England
Tryggvi J. Oleson[99]

(1963)

Baffin Island Labrador Cape Cod
Johannes Kr. Tornoe (1964)[100][101] Baffin Island Labrador Waquoit Bay, Cape Cod
John R. L. Anderson[102] Northern Labrador or Baffin Island Southern Labrador Martha's Vineyard, Mass.
Anne Stine Ingstad (1969)[50] Baffin Island Labrador L'Anse aux Meadows
Samuel Eliot Morison (1971)[50] Baffin Island Labrador L'Anse aux Meadows
Erik Wahlgren (1986)[50] Baffin Island Labrador or Newfoundland Bay of Fundy area
Birgitta L. Wallace[103]

(1991)

Baffin Island Labrador Newfoundland and New Brunswick
Pall Bergthorsson [is] (1997)[50] Baffin Island Labrador Saint Lawrence Estuary
Robert Kellogg (2000)[104] Baffin Island or Labrador Southern Labrador St. Lawrence Valley or New England

Pseudohistory

[edit]

Purported runestones have been found in North America, most famously the Kensington Runestone. These are generally considered forgeries or misinterpretations of Native American petroglyphs.[105] There are many poorly founded claims of Norse colonization in New England.

Gordon Campbell's book Norse America, published in 2021, develops his thesis that the "fleeting and ill-documented" idea that Vikings "discovered America" quickly seduced Americans of northern European Protestant descent, some of whom went on to deliberately manufacture evidence to support it.[106] There is no physical evidence of a Norse presence in North America except for the far east of Canada.[107] Other so-called discoveries, mostly in the United States, have been rejected by scholars.[108] Supposed physical evidence has been found to be deliberately falsified or historically baseless, often to promote a political agenda. Literary critic Annette Kolodny criticized attempts to evoke what she termed "plastic vikings". These were fictional characters treated as historical figures, but "depicted variously as heroic warriors and empire builders, barbarous berserker invaders, fighters for freedom, courageous explorers, would-be colonists, seamen and merchants, poets and saga men, glorious ancestors, bloodthirsty pagan pirates, and civilized Christian converts" depending on the speaker or author.[109][110]

Monuments claimed to be Norse include:[111]

Kensington Runestone

[edit]
Main article: Kensington Runestone

In late 1898, Swedish immigrant Olof Öhman stated that he found this rune in Kensington, Minnesota, while clearing land he had recently acquired.[112] He stated that the rune was lying face down and tangled in various roots near the crest of a small knoll within an area of wetlands. After Olaus J. Breda (1853–1916), professor of Scandinavian Languages and Literature in the Scandinavian Department at the University of Minnesota analyzed the inscriptions, he declared the rune-stone to be a forgery and published a discrediting article in Symra in 1910.[113] Breda also forwarded copies of the inscription to various contemporary Scandinavian linguists and historians, such as Oluf Rygh, Sophus Bugge, Gustav Storm, Magnus Olsen and Adolf Noreen. They "unanimously pronounced the Kensington inscription a fraud and forgery of recent date".[114]

Horsford's Norumbega

[edit]
Main article: Eben Norton Horsford § Viking

The nineteenth-century Harvard chemist Eben Norton Horsford connected the Charles River Basin to places described in the Norse sagas and elsewhere, notably Norumbega.[115] He published several books on the topic and had plaques, monuments, and statues erected in honor of the Norse.[116] His work received little support from mainstream historians and archeologists at the time, and even less today.[117][118]

Other nineteenth-century writers, such as Horsford's friend Thomas Gold Appleton, in his A Sheaf of Papers (1875), and George Perkins Marsh, in his The Goths in New England, seized upon such false notions of Viking expansion history also to promote the superiority of white people (as well as to oppose the Catholic Church). Such misuse of Viking history and imagery reemerged in the twentieth century among some groups promoting white supremacy.[119]

Vinland map

Vinland Map

[edit]
Main article: Vinland Map

During the mid-1960s, Yale University announced the acquisition of a map purportedly drawn around 1440 that showed Vinland and a legend concerning Norse voyages to the region.[120] However certain experts doubted the authenticity of the map, based on linguistic and cartographic inconsistencies. Chemical analysis of the map's ink later shed further doubts on its authenticity. Scientific debate continued until in 2021 the university finally acknowledged that the Vinland Map is a forgery.[121]

Misattributed archeological findings

[edit]

Archeological findings in 2015 at Point Rosee,[122][123] on the southwest coast of Newfoundland, were originally thought to reveal evidence of a turf wall and the roasting of bog iron ore, and therefore a possible 10th century Norse settlement in Canada.[124] Findings from the 2016 excavation suggest the turf wall and the roasted bog iron ore discovered in 2015 were the result of natural processes.[125] The possible settlement was initially discovered through satellite imagery in 2014,[126] and archaeologists excavated the area in 2015 and 2016.[126][124] Birgitta Linderoth Wallace, one of the leading experts of Norse archaeology in North America and an expert on the Norse site at L'Anse aux Meadows, is unsure of the identification of Point Rosee as a Norse site.[127] Archaeologist Karen Milek was a member of the 2016 Point Rosee excavation and is a Norse expert. She also expressed doubt that Point Rosee was a Norse site as there are no good landing sites for their boats and there are steep cliffs between the shoreline and the excavation site.[128] In their 8 November 2017 report,[129] Sarah Parcak and Gregory Mumford, co-directors of the excavation, wrote that they "found no evidence whatsoever for either a Norse presence or human activity at Point Rosee prior to the historic period"[123] and that "none of the team members, including the Norse specialists, deemed this area as having any traces of human activity."[122]

Duration of Norse contact

[edit]

Settlements in continental North America aimed to exploit natural resources such as furs and in particular lumber, which was in short supply in Greenland.[130] It is unclear why the short-term settlements did not become permanent, though it was likely in part because of hostile relations with the indigenous peoples, referred to as the Skræling by the Norse.[131] Nevertheless, it appears that sporadic voyages to Markland for forages, timber, and trade with the locals could have lasted as long as 400 years.[132][133]

James Watson Curran writes:

From 985 to 1410, Greenland was in touch with the world. Then silence. In 1492 the Vatican noted that no news of that country "at the end of the world" had been received for 80 years, and the bishopric of the colony was offered to a certain ecclesiastic if he would go and "restore Christianity" there. He didn't go.[134]

See also

[edit]

Notes

[edit]
  1. ^ In memory of Gudveg who died at sea, it reads: "This woman, whose name was Gudveg, was laid overboard in the Greenland Sea."[29]
  2. ^ "In the ocean there are very many other islands of which not the least is Greenland, situated far out in the ocean opposite the mountains of Sweden and the Rhiphaean range. [...] He spoke also of yet another island of the many found in that ocean. It is called Vinland because vines producing excellent wine grow wild there. That unsown crops also abound on that island we have ascertained not from fabulous reports but from the trustworthy relation of the Danes. Beyond that island, he said, no habitable land is found in that ocean, but every place beyond it is full of impenetrable ice and intense darkness."[44]
  3. ^ "In the outermost part of Italy, we find Apulia, which northern peoples call Pulsland. In middle Italy lies Romaborg. North in Italy is Langobardia, which we call Langbardaland. North of the mountains in the east, lies Saxland, and to the southwest, Fracland. Hyspania, which we refer to as Spanland, is a grand kingdom to the south, stretching down to the Mediterranean, between Langbardaland and Fracland. Rin [the Rhine] is a huge river running from Mundia in the north, in between Saxland and Fracland. Near the mouth of the Rhine lies Frisland, to the north by the sea. North of Saxland we find Danmork. The ocean swells into Austrveg (Østersjøen) by Denmark. Sviþjóð is east of Denmark; Noregr to the north. In the north of Norway lies Finnmörk. From here the coast bends towards the northeast and then to the east to Bjarmaland, which pays taxes to the kings of Garda. From Bjarmaland there is unbuilt land (löndobygd) stretching north up to where Grænland begins. Past Grænland, to the south, is Helluland, past which lies Markland, and from there it is not far to Vinland, which some people still believe is connected to Africa. England and Scotland are one island, but each a kingdom of their own. Írland is a great island. Ísland is also a large island, north of Ireland. All these countries belong to the part of the world called Europe."[47][48]
  4. ^ Latinized Norse placenames:
  5. ^ "Wineland seems to have been understood as beginning with Cape Breton, below the Strait of Cabot, and extending a long way south ward."[96]

References

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