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126-487: In 1960, archaeological evidence of the only known Norse site in North America, L'Anse aux Meadows , was found on the northern tip of the island of Newfoundland. Before the discovery of archaeological evidence, Vinland was known only from the sagas and medieval historiography. The 1960 discovery further proved the pre-Columbian Norse exploration of mainland North America. L'Anse aux Meadows has been hypothesized to be

252-556: A Norse presence or human activity at Point Rosee prior to the historic period" and that "none of the team members, including the Norse specialists, deemed this area as having any traces of human activity." Settlements in continental North America aimed to exploit natural resources such as furs and in particular lumber, which was in short supply in Greenland. It is unclear why the short-term settlements did not become permanent, though it

378-656: 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. In 2012, Canadian researchers identified possible signs of Norse outposts in Nanook at Tanfield Valley on Baffin Island , as well as on Nunguvik, Willows Island, and Avayalik . Unusual fabric cordage found on Baffin Island in

504-493: A cape where they saw the keel of a boat (Kjalarnes), then continued past some extraordinarily long beaches ( Furðustrandir ) before they landed and sent out two runners to explore inland. After three days, the pair returned with samples of grapes/currants and wheat. After they sailed a little farther, the expedition landed at an inlet next to an area of strong currents ( Straumfjörð ), with an island just off shore (Straumsey), and they made camp. The winter months were harsh, and food

630-428: A defensive position, a short distance from their camp. Pregnancy slowed Freydis down, so she picked up the sword of a fallen companion and brandished it against her bare breast, scaring the attackers into withdrawal. One of the local people picked up an iron axe, tried using it, but threw it away. The explorers subsequently abandoned the southern camp and sailed back to Straumsfjord, killing five natives they encountered on

756-665: A guess that Leif Erikson camped at Passamaquoddy Bay and Thorvald Erikson was killed in the Bay of Fundy . On the other hand, Sir Wilfred Grenfell , a medical missionary and scholar living in Newfoundland and Labrador in the early 20th century wrote of the issue of the location of Vinland that, No reason has ever been shown why the Vikings would want to fare any farther than our beautifully wooded bays, with their endless berries, salmon, furs, and game, except that most people think of

882-423: A guest at a farm on Greenland with Gudrid, Thorstein died of disease, reviving just long enough to make a prophecy about her future as a Christian. The next winter, Gudrid married a visiting Icelander named Thorfinn Karlsefni, who agreed to undertake a major expedition to Vinland, taking livestock. On arrival, they soon found a beached whale which sustained them until spring. In the summer, they were visited by some of

1008-677: 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. In addition, Greenlandic ivory may have been supplanted in European markets by cheaper ivory from Africa. Despite the loss of contact with the Greenlanders, the Norwegian-Danish crown continued to consider Greenland a possession. Not knowing whether

1134-623: A hole for stringing on a necklace, was found in Maine . Its discovery by an amateur archaeologist in 1957 is controversial; questions have been raised whether it was planted as a hoax. Numerous artifacts attributed to the Norse have been found in Canada, particularly on Baffin Island and in northern Labrador . Other claimed Norse artifacts in the area south of the St. Lawrence include a number of stones inscribed with runic letters. The Kensington Runestone

1260-488: A knot whenever they needed a good wind. Neither mentioned grapes, and the Malmesbury work specifically states that little grows there but grass and trees, which reflects the saga descriptions of the area round the main Norse expedition base. More geographically correct were Icelandic texts from about the same time, which presented a clear picture of the northern countries as experienced by Norse explorers: north of Iceland

1386-468: A large force in hide boats, and Thorvald died from an arrow-wound. After the exploration party returned to base, the Greenlanders decided to return home the following spring. Thorstein, Leif's brother, married Gudrid, widow of the captain rescued by Leif, then led a third expedition to bring home Thorvald's body, but drifted off course and spent the whole summer sailing the Atlantic. Spending the winter as

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1512-521: A migration fleet consisting of 400–700 settlers 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. The sagas describe three separate areas that were explored: Helluland , which means "land of

1638-475: 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

1764-583: A river and a lake that had an abundance of fish. The sagas specifically mention salmon, and note how the salmon that was encountered was larger than any salmon they had seen before. Before arriving in Vinland, the Norsemen imported their lumber from Norway while in Greenland and had occasional birch trees for firewood. Therefore, the timber they acquired in North America increased their supply of wood. An authentic late-11th-century Norwegian silver penny , with

1890-416: A single piece from the east coast of Newfoundland was found. These finds appear to confirm the saga claim that some Vinland exploration ships came from Iceland and that they ventured down the east coast of the new land. In 2021, wood from the site was shown to have been cut in 1021, using metal blades, which the local indigenous people did not have. Although it is now generally accepted that L'Anse aux Meadows

2016-611: A twin in the Icelandic Museum. Kent believed he had confirmed Kristjansson's theory. Newfoundland marine insurance agent and historian William A. Munn (1864–1939), after studying literary sources in Europe, suggested in his 1914 book Location of Helluland, Markland & Vinland from the Icelandic Sagas that the Vinland explorers "went ashore at Lancey [ sic ] Meadows, as it is called to-day". In 1960,

2142-727: A vast, barren plain (which we now know to be the Polar ice-cap) extended from Biarmeland (northern Russia ) east of the White Sea , to Greenland, then further west and south were, in succession, Helluland , Markland and Vinland. The Icelanders had no knowledge of how far south Vinland extended, and they speculated that it might reach as far as Africa. The " Historia Norwegiae " (History of Norway), compiled around 15th–16th century, does not refer directly to Vinland and tries to reconcile information from Greenland with mainland European sources; in this text Greenland's territory extends so that it

2268-543: Is "almost touching the African islands, where the waters of ocean flood in". Icelandic chronicles record another attempt to visit Vinland from Greenland, over a century after the saga voyages. In 1121, Icelandic bishop Eric Gnupsson , who had been based on Greenland since 1112, "went to seek Vinland". Nothing more is reported of him, and three years later another bishop, Arnald, was sent to Greenland. No written records, other than inscribed stones, have survived in Greenland, so

2394-482: Is called Winland , for the reason that grapevines grow there by themselves, producing the best wine." This etymology is retained in the 13th-century Grœnlendinga saga , which provides a circumstantial account of the discovery of Vinland and its being named from the vínber, i.e. " wineberry ", a term for grapes or currants (black or red), found there. There is also a long-standing Scandinavian tradition of fermenting berries into wine . The discovery of butternuts at

2520-523: Is evidence that walrus over-hunting, particularly of the males with larger tusks, led to walrus population declines. In addition, 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

2646-464: Is identified as the land found by Leif Erikson . Karlsefni and his men subsequently find "vín-ber" near the Wonderstrands. Later, the tale locates Vinland to the south of Markland, with the headland of Kjalarnes at its northern extreme. However, it also mentions that while at Straumfjord, some of the explorers wished to go in search for Vinland west of Kjalarnes . In Grænlendinga saga or

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2772-696: Is not a Vinland, there are many Vinlands". According to a 1970 reply by Matti Kaups in the same journal, Certainly there is a symbolic Vinland as described and located in the Groenlandinga saga ; what seems to be a variant of this Vinland is narrated in Erik the Red's Saga . There are, on the other hand, numerous more recent derivative Vinlands, each of which actually is but a suppositional spatial entity. (...) (e.g. Rafn 's Vinland, Steensby's Vinland, Ingstad 's Vinland, and so forth). In geographical terms, Vinland

2898-470: 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). Several theories have been advanced to explain the decline. 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

3024-468: Is sometimes used to refer generally to all areas in Atlantic Canada . In the sagas, Vinland is sometimes indicated to not include the territories of Helluland and Markland , which appear to also be located in North America beyond Greenland. Moreover, some sagas establish vague links between Vinland and an island or territory that some sources refer to as Hvítramannaland . Another possibility

3150-453: Is the reference to two different men named Bjarni who are blown off course. A brief summary of the plots of the two sagas, given at the end of this article, shows other examples. The sagas report that a considerable number of Vikings were in parties that visited Vinland. Thorfinn Karlsefni 's crew consisted of 140 or 160 people according to the Saga of Erik the Red , 60 according to the Saga of

3276-427: Is thought that a number of sagas are now lost, including the supposed Gauks saga Trandilssonar – The saga of Gaukur á Stöng. In addition to these, the texts often referred to as the "Tales of Icelanders" ( Íslendingaþættir ) such as "Hreiðars þáttr" and "Sneglu-Halla þáttr" of the kings' saga Morkinskinna could be included in this corpus, as well as the contemporary sagas (written in the 13th century and dealing with

3402-426: Is to interpret the name of Vinland as not referring to one defined location, but to every location where vínber could be found, i.e. to understand it as a common noun , vinland, rather than a toponym , Vinland. The Old Norse and Icelandic languages were, and are, very flexible in forming compound words . Sixteenth century Icelanders realized that the "New World" which European geographers were calling "America"

3528-786: The Skrælingjar by the Norse). The Norse would have encountered both Native Americans (the Beothuk , related to the Algonquin) and the Thule , the ancestors of the Inuit . 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

3654-536: The Saga of the Greenlanders , which are known collectively as the Vinland Sagas. These stories were preserved by oral tradition until they were written down some 250 years after the events they describe. The existence of two versions of the story shows some of the challenges of using traditional sources for history, because they share a large number of story elements but use them in different ways. A possible example

3780-594: The Annals of the Association of American Geographers , The study of the early Norse voyages to North America is a field of research characterized by controversy and conflicting, often irreconcilable, opinions and conclusions. These circumstances result from the fact that details of the voyages exist only in two Icelandic sagas which contradict each other on basic issues and internally are vague and contain nonhistorical passages. This leads him to conclude that "there

3906-428: 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. 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. However, more recent research has shown that

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4032-584: 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. There is no physical evidence of a Norse presence in North America except for the far east of Canada. Other so-called discoveries, mostly in the United States, have been rejected by scholars. Supposed physical evidence has been found to be deliberately falsified or historically baseless, often to promote

4158-507: The "northern islands". The etymology of the Old Norse root vin- is disputed; while it has usually been assumed to be "wine", some scholars give credence to the homophone vin , meaning "pasture" or "meadow". Adam of Bremen implies that the name contains Old Norse vín (cognate with Latin vinum ) "wine" (rendered as Old Saxon or Old High German wīn ): "Moreover, he has also reported one island discovered by many in that ocean, which

4284-533: The 'Saga of the Greenlanders', Bjarni Herjólfsson accidentally discovered the new land when traveling from Norway to visit his father, in the second year of Erik the Red's Greenland settlement (about 986 CE). When he managed to reach Greenland, making land at Herjolfsness , the site of his father's farm, he remained there for the rest of his father's life and didn't return to Norway until about 1000 CE. There, he told his overlord (the Earl, also named Erik) about

4410-511: The 11th century. The Norse exploration of North America has been subject to numerous controversies concerning the European exploration and settlement of North America . Pseudoscientific and pseudohistorical theories have emerged since the public acknowledgment of these Norse expeditions and settlements. According to the Sagas of Icelanders , Norsemen from Iceland first settled Greenland in

4536-424: The 1880 Sephton translation of the saga, Rafn and other Danish scholars placed Kjalarnes at Cape Cod , Straumfjörð at Buzzards Bay , Massachusetts , and Straumsey at Martha's Vineyard . An Icelandic law text gives a very specific explanation of "eykt", with reference to Norse navigation techniques. The eight major divisions of the compass were subdivided into three hours each, to make a total of 24, and "eykt"

4662-540: The 1980s and stored at the Canadian Museum of Civilization was identified in 1999 as possibly of Norse manufacture; that discovery led to more comprehensive exploration of the Tanfield Valley archaeological site for points of contact between Norse Greenlanders and the indigenous Dorset people . In 2021, some wood from L'Anse aux Meadows that was chopped by an axe was dated to 1021, thus providing for

4788-446: The 20th century, there was little evidence for Thule artifacts among Norse habitations, however it is now known that Thule artifacts are found among Norse habitations, indicating that both groups acquired material goods from each other. The older research posited that it was not climate change alone that led to Norse decline, but also their unwillingness to adapt. For example, if the Norse had decided to focus their subsistence hunting on

4914-461: The 980s. There is no special reason to doubt the authority of the information that the sagas supply regarding the very beginning of the settlement, but they cannot be treated as primary evidence for the history of Norse Greenland because they embody the literary preoccupations of writers and audiences in medieval Iceland that are not always reliable. Erik the Red (Old Norse: Eiríkr rauði), having been banished from Iceland for manslaughter , explored

5040-460: The Greenlanders . Still according to the latter, Leif Ericson led a company of 35, Thorvald Eiriksson a company of 30, and Helgi and Finnbogi had 30 crew members. According to the Saga of Erik the Red, Þorfinnr "Karlsefni" Þórðarson and a company of 160 men, going south from Greenland traversed an open stretch of sea, found Helluland , another stretch of sea, Markland , another stretch of sea,

5166-460: The Icelander, wanted to sail north around Kjalarnes to seek Vinland, while Thorfinn Karlsefni preferred to sail southward down the east coast. Thorhall took only nine men, and his vessel is swept out into the ocean by contrary winds; he and his crew never returned. Thorfinn and Snorri, with Freydis (plus possibly Bjarni), sailed down the east coast with 40 men or more and established a settlement on

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5292-549: 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), 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. North America, by

5418-615: The Kensington inscription a fraud and forgery of recent date". The nineteenth-century Harvard chemist Eben Norton Horsford connected the Charles River Basin to places described in the Norse sagas and elsewhere, notably Norumbega . He published several books on the topic and had plaques, monuments, and statues erected in honor of the Norse. His work received little support from mainstream historians and archeologists at

5544-523: The New World to retrieve his dead brother's body, but he died before leaving Greenland. A few years later, Thorfinn Karlsefni , also known as "Thorfinn the Valiant", supplied three ships with livestock and 160 men and women (although another source sets the number of settlers at 250). After a cruel winter, he headed south and landed at Straumfjörð . He later moved to Straumsöy , possibly because

5670-514: 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

5796-519: 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

5922-601: 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. 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

6048-404: The area. There are varying explanations for Leif apparently describing fermented berries as "wine." Leif spent another winter at " Leifsbudir " without conflict, and sailed back to Brattahlíð in Greenland to assume filial duties to his father. A couple of years later, Leif's brother Thorvald Eiriksson sailed with a crew of 30 men to Vinland and spent the following winter at Leif's camp. In

6174-630: The barrenness of Greenland. In turn they exported goods such as walrus ivory and hide, live polar bears, and narwhal tusks. 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. 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. As climate began to cool and humidity began to increase, this brought more storms, longer winters and shorter springs, and affected

6300-670: The camp Straumfjörð mentioned in the Saga of Erik the Red . Vinland was the name given to part of North America by the Icelandic Norseman Leif Eriksson, about 1000 AD. It was also spelled Winland , as early as Adam of Bremen 's Descriptio insularum Aquilonis ("Description of the Northern Islands", ch. 39, in the 4th part of Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum), written circa 1075. Adam's main source regarding Winland appears to have been king Svend Estridson , who had knowledge of

6426-416: The current was stronger there. A sign of peaceful relations between the indigenous peoples and the Norsemen is noted here. The two sides bartered with furs and gray squirrel skins for milk and red cloth, which the natives tied around their heads as a sort of headdress . There are conflicting stories but one account states that a bull belonging to Karlsefni came storming out of the wood, so frightening

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6552-501: The early 14th Century, a geography encyclopedia called Geographica Universalis was compiled at Malmesbury Abbey in England, which was in turn used as a source for one of the most widely circulated medieval English educational works, Polychronicon by Ranulf Higden , a few years later. Both these works, with Adam of Bremen as a possible source, were confused about the location of what they called Wintland —the Malmesbury monk had it on

6678-441: The east coast of Labrador as all barren, forbidding wastes, and forget that no part of it lies north of England and Scotland. Other clues appear to place the main settlement farther south, such as the mention of a winter with no snow and the reports in both sagas of grapes being found. A very specific indication in the Greenlanders' Saga of the latitude of the base has also been subject to misinterpretation. This passage states that in

6804-590: 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. Sagas of Icelanders The sagas of Icelanders ( Icelandic : Íslendingasögur , modern Icelandic pronunciation: [ˈislɛndiŋkaˌsœːɣʏr̥] ), also known as family sagas , are a subgenre, or text group, of Icelandic sagas . They are prose narratives primarily based on historical events that mostly took place in Iceland in

6930-438: The few reasonably consistent pieces of information is that exploration voyages from the main base sailed down both the east and west coasts of the land; this was one of the factors which helped archaeologists locate the site at L'Anse aux Meadows , at the tip of Newfoundland's long northern peninsula. Erik Wahlgren examines the question in his book The Vikings and America , and points out clearly that L'Anse aux Meadows cannot be

7056-574: The first time a certain date with regard to the Norse presence at the site. Purported runestones have been found in North America, most famously the Kensington Runestone . These are generally considered forgeries or misinterpretations of Native American petroglyphs . There are many claims of Norse colonization in New England, none well founded. Gordon Campbell 's book Norse America , published in 2021, develops his thesis that

7182-405: The first vowel spoken as /iː/, but as vin-land, spoken as /ɪ/; a short vowel . Old Norse vin (from Proto-Norse winju ) has a meaning of "meadow, pasture". This interpretation of Vinland as "pasture-land" rather than "wine-land" was accepted by Valter Jansson in his classic 1951 dissertation on the vin-names of Scandinavia, by way of which it entered popular knowledge in the later 20th century. It

7308-611: The flat stones"; Markland , "the land of forests", definitely of interest to settlers in Greenland where there were few trees; and Vinland , "the land of wine", found somewhere south of Markland. It was in Vinland that the settlement described in the sagas was founded. Markland was first mentioned in the Mediterranean area in 1345 by the Milanese friar Galvaneus Flamma . He probably derived it from oral sources in Genoa. Using

7434-760: The following winter led to the abandonment of the venture. On the way home, the ship of Bjarni the Icelander was swept into the Sea of Worms (Maðkasjár in Skálholtsbók, Maðksjár in Hauksbók) by contrary winds. The marine worms destroyed the hull, and only those who escaped in the ship's worm-proofed boat survived. This was the last Vinland expedition recorded in the saga. The oldest commonly acknowledged surviving written record of Vinland appears in Descriptio insularum Aquilonis by Adam of Bremen written in about 1075. Adam

7560-461: The headland of Kjalarnes , the Wonderstrands , Straumfjörð and at last a place called Hóp , a bountiful place where no snow fell during winter. However, after several years away from Greenland, they chose to turn back to their homes when they realized that they would otherwise face an indefinite conflict with the natives. This saga references the place-name Vinland in four ways. First, it

7686-514: The heroic age. Eventually, many of these Icelandic sagas were recorded, mostly in the 13th and 14th centuries. The 'authors', or rather recorders, of these sagas are largely unknown. One saga, Egil's Saga , is believed by some scholars to have been written by Snorri Sturluson , a descendant of the saga's hero, but this remains uncertain. The standard modern edition of Icelandic sagas is produced by Hið íslenzka fornritafélag ('The Old Icelandic Text Society'), or Íslenzk fornrit for short. Among

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7812-560: 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. 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. Current research suggests that the Norse were unable to maintain their settlements because of economic and climatic change happening at

7938-405: The inscription as: ᚢᛁᚿ᛫(ᛚ)ᛆ(ᛐ)ᛁᚭ᛫ᛁᛌᛆ uin (l)a(t)ią isa Vínlandi á ísa "from Vinland over ice". This is highly uncertain; the same sequence is read by Magnus Olsen (1951) as: ᚢᛁᚿ᛫ᚴᛆ(ᛚᛐ)ᚭ᛫ᛁᛌᛆ uin ka(lt)ą isa vindkalda á ísa "over the wind-cold ice". The main sources of information about the Norse voyages to Vinland are two Icelandic Sagas : the Saga of Erik the Red and

8064-488: 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, 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

8190-470: The island. 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. 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. The coming warmer seasons meant that livestock were taken from their byres to pasture,

8316-573: 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. This discovery helped reignite archaeological exploration for the Norse in the North Atlantic. This single settlement, located on

8442-433: The local inhabitants who were scared by the Greenlanders' bull, but happy to trade goods for milk and other products. In autumn, Gudrid gave birth to a son, Snorri. Shortly after this, one of the local people tried to take a weapon and was killed. The explorers were then attacked in force, but managed to survive with only minor casualties by retreating to a well-chosen defensive position, a short distance from their base. One of

8568-434: The local people ( Skrælings ) examined the Norse ships and departed in peace. Later a much larger flotilla of boats arrived, and trade commenced (Karlsefni forbade the sale of weapons). One day, the local traders were frightened by the sudden arrival of the Greenlanders' bull, and they stayed away for three weeks. They then attacked in force, but the explorers managed to survive with only minor casualties, by retreating inland to

8694-564: The local people picked up an iron axe, tried it, and threw it away. The explorers returned to Greenland in summer with a cargo of grapes/currants and hides. Shortly thereafter, a ship captained by two Icelanders arrived in Greenland, and Freydis , daughter of Eric the Red, persuaded them to join her in an expedition to Vinland. When they arrived at Vinland, the brothers stored their belongings in Leif Eriksson's houses, which angered Freydis and she banished them. She then visited them during

8820-486: The location of Vínland, as the location described in the sagas has both salmon in the rivers and the 'vínber' (meaning specifically 'grape', that according to Wahlgren the explorers were familiar with and would have thus recognized), growing freely. Charting the overlap of the limits of wild vine and wild salmon habitats, as well as nautical clues from the sagas, Wahlgren indicates a location in Maine or New Brunswick. He hazards

8946-452: The lower population of harp seals meant that Nordrsetur hunts became less successful, making subsistence hunting extremely difficult. 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. Trade in elephant ivory began competing with the trade in walrus tusks that provided income to Greenland, and there

9072-458: The main historical sources that grapes were found in Vinland suggests that the explorers ventured at least to the south side of the St. Lawrence River , as Jacques Cartier did 500 years later, finding both wild vines and nut trees. Three butternuts were found at L'Anse aux Meadows, another species which grows only as far north as the St. Lawrence. The vinviðir (wine wood) the Norse were cutting down in

9198-495: The migratory patterns of the harp seal. 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. Closer to the Eastern Settlement, temperatures remained stable but a prolonged drought reduced fodder production. In spring, the voyages to where migratory harp seals could be found became more dangerous due to more frequent storms, and

9324-486: The most fertile being controlled by the most powerful farms and the church. What was produced by livestock and farming was supplemented with subsistence hunting of mainly seal and caribou as well as walrus for trade. The Norse mainly relied on the Nordrsetur hunt, a communal hunt of migratory harp seals in the spring. Trade was highly important to the Greenland Norse and they relied on imports of lumber due to

9450-613: The name Winland , first appeared in written sources in a work by Adam of Bremen from approximately 1075. 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 . 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. Evidence of

9576-404: The natives that they ran to their skin-boats and rowed away. They returned three days later, in force. The natives used catapults, hoisting "a large sphere on a pole; it was dark blue in color" and about "the size of a sheep's stomach", which flew over the heads of the men and "made an ugly din when it struck the ground". The Norsemen retreated. Leif Erikson's half-sister Freydís Eiríksdóttir

9702-414: The new land and was criticized for his long delay in reporting this. On his return to Greenland he retold the story and inspired Leif Eriksson to organize an expedition, which retraced in reverse the route Bjarni had followed, past a land of flat stones ( Helluland ) and a land of forests ( Markland ). After having sailed another two days across open sea, the expedition found a headland with an island just off

9828-475: The next reference to a voyage also comes from Icelandic chronicles. In 1347, a ship arrived in Iceland, after being blown off course on its way home from Markland to Greenland with a load of timber . The implication is that the Greenlanders had continued to use Markland as a source of timber over several centuries. The definition of Vinland is somewhat elusive. According to a 1969 article by Douglas McManis in

9954-648: The ninth, tenth, and early eleventh centuries, during the so-called Saga Age . They were written in Old Icelandic , a western dialect of Old Norse . They are the best-known specimens of Icelandic literature . They are focused on history, especially genealogical and family history. They reflect the struggle and conflict that arose within the societies of the early generations of Icelandic settlers. The Icelandic sagas are valuable and unique historical sources about medieval Scandinavian societies and kingdoms, in particular regarding pre-Christian religion and culture and

10080-510: The northern tip of Vinland was taken up by later Scandinavian scholars such as bishop Hans Resen. Although it is generally agreed, based on the saga descriptions, that Helluland includes Baffin Island , and Markland represents at least the southern part of the modern Labrador, there has been considerable controversy over the location of the actual Norse landings and settlement. Comparison of the sagas, as summarized below, shows that they give similar descriptions and names to different places. One of

10206-521: The ocean east of Norway, while Higden put it west of Denmark but failed to explain the distance. Copies of Polychronicon commonly included a world map on which Wintland was marked in the Atlantic Ocean near Iceland, but again much closer to the Scandinavian mainland than in reality. The name was explained in both texts as referring to the savage inhabitants' ability to tie the wind up in knotted cords, which they sold to sailors who could then undo

10332-542: 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. Though this expedition found no surviving Europeans, it marked the beginning of Denmark's re-assertion of sovereignty over

10458-512: The people of Vinland relied on were wheat, berries, wine and fish. However, the wheat in the Vinlandic context is sandwort and not traditional wheat, and the grapes mentioned are native North American grapes, because the European grape ( Vitis vinifera ) and wheat ( Triticum sp.) existing in the New World before the Viking arrival in the tenth century is highly unlikely. Both the sagas reference

10584-529: 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 . There is evidence of Norse trade with the natives (called

10710-488: The remains of a small Norse encampment were discovered by Helge and Anne Stine Ingstad at that exact spot, L'Anse aux Meadows in northern Newfoundland, and excavated during the 1960s and 1970s. It is most likely this was the main settlement of the sagas, a "gateway" for the Norse Greenlanders to the rich lands farther south. Many wooden objects were found at L'Anse aux Meadows, and radiocarbon dating confirms

10836-419: The result of natural processes. The possible settlement was initially discovered through satellite imagery in 2014, and archaeologists excavated the area in 2015 and 2016. 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. Archaeologist Karen Milek

10962-562: The routes, landmarks, currents , rocks, and winds that Bjarni had described to him, Leif sailed from Greenland westward across the Labrador Sea, with a crew of 35—sailing the same knarr Bjarni had used to make the voyage. He described Helluland as "level and wooded, with broad white beaches wherever they went and a gently sloping shoreline." Leif and others had wanted his father, Erik the Red, to lead this expedition and talked him into it. However, as Erik attempted to join his son Leif on

11088-413: The runic alphabet does not in itself guarantee a Viking age or medieval connection, as it has been suggested that Dalecarlian runes have been used until the 20th century. Point Rosee , on the southwest coast of Newfoundland, was thought to be the location of a possible Norse settlement. The site was discovered through satellite imagery in 2014 by Sarah Parcak . In their November 8, 2017, report, which

11214-494: The sagas may refer to the vines of Vitis riparia , a species of wild grape that grows on trees. As the Norse were searching for lumber , a material that was needed in Greenland, they found trees covered with Vitis riparia south of L'Anse aux Meadows and called them vinviðir. L'Anse Aux Meadows was a small and short-lived encampment; perhaps it was primarily used for timber-gathering forays and boat repair, rather than permanent settlements like Greenland. The main resources that

11340-556: The same time. 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

11466-473: The scientific journal Acta Archeologica , which assumes that the headland of Kjalarnes referred to in the Saga of Erik the Red is at L'Anse aux Meadows, suggests that Straumfjörð refers to Sop's Arm, Newfoundland , as no other fjord in Newfoundland was found to have an island at its mouth. Kent Budden (1962-2008) a resident of Sop's Arm, did extensive exploration in the area, contacted Jonas to show him some artifacts, including an axe head that Jonas said had

11592-490: The several literary reviews of the sagas is the Sagalitteraturen by Sigurður Nordal , which divides the sagas into five chronological groups (depending on when they were written not their subject matters) distinguished by the state of literary development: This framework has been severely criticised as based on a presupposed attitude to the fantastic and an over-estimation on the precedence of Landnámabók . It

11718-428: The shore of a seaside lake, protected by barrier islands and connected to the open ocean by a river which was navigable by ships only at high tide. The settlement was known as Hóp , and the land abounded with grapes/currants and wheat. The teller of this saga was uncertain whether the explorers remained here over the next winter (said to be very mild) or for only a few weeks of summer. One morning they saw nine hide boats;

11844-427: The shore, with a nearby pool, accessible to ships at high tide, in an area where the sea was shallow with sandbanks. Here the explorers landed and established a base which can plausibly be matched to L'Anse aux Meadows; except that the winter was described as mild, not freezing. One day an old family servant, Tyrker , went missing and was found mumbling to himself. He eventually explained that he found grapes/currants. In

11970-404: The shortest days of midwinter, the sun was still above the horizon at "dagmal" and "eykt", two specific times in the Norse day. Carl Christian Rafn , in the first detailed study of the Norse exploration of the New World, "Antiquitates Americanae" (1837), interpreted these times as equivalent to 7:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m., which would put the base a long way south of Newfoundland. According to

12096-463: The site implies that the Norse explored Vinland further to the south, at least as far as St. Lawrence River and parts of New Brunswick , the northern limit for both butternut and wild grapes ( Vitis riparia ). Another proposal for the name's etymology, was introduced by Sven Söderberg in 1898 (first published in 1910). This suggestion involves interpreting the Old Norse name not as vín-land with

12222-445: The site's occupation as being confined to a short period around 1000 CE. In addition, small pieces of jasper , known to have been used in the Norse world as fire-strikers , were found in and around the different buildings. When these were analyzed and compared with samples from jasper sources around the North Atlantic area, it was found that two buildings contained only Icelandic jasper pieces, while another contained some from Greenland;

12348-500: The speaker or author. Monuments claimed to be Norse include: In late 1898, Swedish immigrant Olof Öhman stated that he found this rune in Kensington, Minnesota , while clearing land he had recently acquired. 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

12474-452: The spring, Leif returned to Greenland with a shipload of timber, towing a boatload of grapes/currants. On the way home, he spotted another ship aground on the rocks, rescued the crew and later salvaged the cargo. A second expedition, one ship of about 40 men led by Leif's brother Thorvald, sets out in the autumn after Leif's return and stayed over three winters at the new base ( Leifsbúðir (-budir), meaning Leif's temporary shelters), exploring

12600-438: The spring, Thorvald attacked nine of the native people who were sleeping under three skin-covered canoes . The ninth victim escaped and soon came back to the Norse camp with a force. Thorvald was killed by an arrow that succeeded in passing through the barricade . Although brief hostilities ensued, the Norse explorers stayed another winter and left the following spring. Subsequently, another of Leif's brothers, Thorstein, sailed to

12726-628: The suite of vulnerabilities that led to Viking abandonment of Greenland. Sea-level change thus represents an integral, missing element of the Viking story." According to the Icelandic sagas — Saga of Erik the Red , 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

12852-421: The survivors from a wrecked ship and gained a reputation for good luck; his religious mission was a swift success. The next spring, Thorstein, Leif's brother, lead an expedition to the new land, but drifted off course and spent the whole summer sailing the Atlantic. On his return, he met and married Gudrid, one of the survivors from a ship which made land at Herjolfsnes after a difficult voyage from Iceland. Spending

12978-492: The time, and even less today. 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

13104-406: 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. 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. After a marriage was recorded in 1408, no written records mention the settlers. It

13230-491: The twentieth century among some groups promoting white supremacy . 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. 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

13356-495: The uninhabited southwestern coast of Greenland during the three years of his banishment. He made plans to entice settlers to the area, naming it Greenland on the assumption that "people would be more eager to go there because the land had a good name". The inner reaches of one long fjord , named Eiriksfjord after him, was where he eventually established his estate Brattahlíð . He issued tracts of land to his followers. Norse Greenland consisted of two settlements. The Eastern

13482-494: The university finally acknowledged that the Vinland Map is a forgery. Archeological findings in 2015 at Point Rosee , 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. Findings from the 2016 excavation suggest the turf wall and the roasted bog iron ore discovered in 2015 were

13608-432: The voyage towards these new lands, he fell off his horse as it slipped on the wet rocks near the shore; thus he was injured and stayed behind. Sometime around AD 1000, Leif spent the winter, probably near Cape Bauld on the northern tip of Newfoundland , where one day his foster father Tyrker was found drunk, on what the saga describes as "wine-berries." Squashberries , gooseberries , and cranberries all grew wild in

13734-573: The way, lying asleep in hide sacks. Karlsefni, accompanied by Thorvald Eriksson and others, sailed around Kjalarnes and then south, keeping land on their left side, hoping to find Thorhall. After sailing for a long time, while moored on the south side of a west-flowing river, they were shot at by a one-footed man , and Thorvald died from an arrow-wound. Once they reached Markland, the men encountered five natives, of whom they kidnapped two boys, baptizing them and teaching them their own language. The explorers returned to Straumsfjord, but disagreements during

13860-461: The west coast of the new land during the first summer, and the east coast during the second, running aground and losing the ship's keel on a headland they christen Keel Point ( Kjalarnes ). Further south, at a point where Thorvald wanted to establish a settlement, the Greenlanders encountered some of the local inhabitants ( Skrælingjar ) and killed them, following which they were attacked by

13986-475: The winter and asked for their ship, claiming that she wanted to go back to Greenland, which the brothers happily agreed to. Freydis went back and told her husband the exact opposite, which led to the killing, at Freydis' order, of all the Icelanders, including five women, as they lay sleeping. In the spring, the Greenlanders returned home with a good cargo, but Leif found out the truth about the Icelanders. That

14112-690: The winter as a guest at a farm on Greenland with Gudrid, Thorstein died of disease, reviving just long enough to make a prophecy about her future as a far-traveling Christian. The next winter, Gudrid married a visiting Icelander named Thorfinn Karlsefni, who, with his business partner Snorri Thorbrandsson, agreed to undertake a major expedition to the new land, taking livestock with them. Also contributing ships for this expedition were another pair of visiting Icelanders, Bjarni Grimolfsson and Thorhall Gamlason, and Leif's brother and sister Thorvald and Freydis, with her husband Thorvard. Sailing past landscapes of flat stones ( Helluland ) and forests ( Markland ) they rounded

14238-414: 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. In their 8 November 2017 report, Sarah Parcak and Gregory Mumford, co-directors of the excavation, wrote that they "found no evidence whatsoever for either

14364-727: Was at the southwestern tip of Greenland, while the Western Settlement was about 500 km up the west coast, inland from present-day Nuuk . A smaller settlement near the Eastern Settlement is sometimes considered the Middle Settlement . The combined population was around 2,000–3,000. At least 400 farms have been identified by archaeologists. 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,

14490-493: Was discovered in Norderhov , Norway , shortly before 1817, but it was subsequently lost. Its assessment depends on a sketch made by antiquarian L. D. Klüwer (1823), now also lost but in turn copied by Wilhelm Frimann Koren Christie (1838). The Younger Futhark inscription was dated to c. 1010–1050. The stone had been erected in memory of a Norwegian, possibly a descendant of Sigurd Syr . Sophus Bugge (1902) read part of

14616-817: Was found in Minnesota , but is generally considered a hoax . The authenticity of the Spirit Pond runestones , recovered in Phippsburg, Maine , is also questioned. Other examples are the Heavener Runestone , the Shawnee Runestone , and the Vérendrye Runestone . The age and origin of these stones is debated, and so far none has been firmly dated or associated with clear evidence of a medieval Norse presence. In general, script in

14742-572: Was in short supply. One day an old family servant, Thorhall the Hunter (who had not become Christian), went missing and was found mumbling to himself. Shortly afterwards, a beached whale was found, which Thorhall claimed had been provided in answer to his praise of the pagan gods. The explorers found that eating it made them ill, so they prayed to the Christian God, and shortly afterwards the weather improved. When spring arrived, Thorhall Gamlason,

14868-544: Was likely in part because of hostile relations with the indigenous peoples, referred to as the Skræling by the Norse. Nevertheless, it appears that sporadic voyages to Markland for forages, timber, and trade with the locals could have lasted as long as 400 years. 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

14994-437: Was pregnant and unable to keep up with the retreating Norsemen. She called out to them to stop fleeing from "such pitiful wretches", adding that if she had weapons, she could do better than that. Freydís seized the sword belonging to a man who had been killed by the natives. She pulled one of her breasts out of her bodice and slapped it with the sword, frightening the natives, who fled. For centuries, it remained unclear whether

15120-590: Was rejected by Einar Haugen (1977), who argued that the vin element had changed its meaning from "pasture" to "farm" long before the Old Norse period. Names in vin were given in the Proto Norse period, and they are absent from places colonized in the Viking Age. Haugen's basis for rejection has since been challenged. There is a runestone which may have contained a record of the Old Norse name slightly predating Adam of Bremen's Winland . The Hønen Runestone

15246-572: Was submitted to the Provincial Archaeology Office in St. John's, Newfoundland, Sarah Parcak and Gregory "Greg" Mumford wrote that they "found no evidence whatsoever for either a Norse presence or human activity at Point Rosee prior to the historic period" and that "None of the team members, including the Norse specialists, deemed this area as having any traces of human activity." Norse colonization of North America The Norse exploration of North America began in

15372-426: Was the end of the second hour of the south-west division. In modern terms this would be 3:30 p.m. "Dagmal", the "day-meal," is specifically distinguished from the earlier "rismal" (breakfast), and would thus be about 8:30 a.m. The sun is indeed just above the horizon at these times on the shortest days of the year in northern Newfoundland - but not much farther north. A 2012 article by Jónas Kristjánsson in

15498-401: Was the land described in their Vinland Sagas. The Skálholt Map , drawn in 1570 or 1590 but surviving only through later copies, shows Promontorium Winlandiae ("promontory/cape/foreland of Vinland") as a narrow cape with its northern tip at the same latitude as southern Ireland. (The scales of degrees in the map margins are inaccurate.) This effective identification of northern Newfoundland with

15624-436: Was the last Vinland expedition recorded in the saga. In the other version of the story, Eiríks saga rauða or the Saga of Erik the Red , Leif Ericsson accidentally discovered the new land when traveling from Norway back to Greenland after a visit to his overlord, King Olaf Tryggvason, who commissioned him to spread Christianity in the colony. Returning to Greenland with samples of grapes/currants, wheat and timber, he rescued

15750-497: Was the main base of the Norse explorers, the southernmost limit of Norse exploration remains a subject of intense speculation. Gustav Storm (1887) and Joseph Fischer (1902) both suggested Cape Breton ; Samuel Eliot Morison (1971) the southern part of Newfoundland; Erik Wahlgren (1986) Miramichi Bay in New Brunswick ; and Icelandic climate specialist Pall Bergthorsson (1997) proposed New York City . The insistence in all

15876-577: Was told about "islands" discovered by Norse sailors in the Atlantic by the Danish king Svend Estridsen . The nearby Norse outpost of Markland was mentioned in the writings of Galvano Fiamma in his book, Cronica universalis . He is believed to be the first Southern European to write about the New World . The earliest map of Vinland was drawn by Sigurd Stefansson, a schoolmaster at Skalholt, Iceland, around 1570, which placed Vinland somewhere that can be Chesapeake Bay, St. Lawrence, or Cape Cod Bay. In

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