Replicas of a Viking dwelling and boat at L'Anse aux Meadows, a settlement on the island of Newfoundland
A Viking settlement existed in North America, on the island of Newfoundland, exactly a thousand years ago, almost five centuries before the Columbus expedition – this is the result of a study using a new dating method.
Dutch scientists, having examined tree sections by radiocarbon analysis, found that the Vikings lived in the north of the island, which is now called Newfoundland and belongs to Canada, as early as 1021.
The fact that the Vikings were the first Europeans to reach North America long before the journey of Christopher Columbus in 1492 was known for a long time, but no one could name the exact years of the existence of the settlements founded by the Vikings.
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“Most of the assessments were based on stylistic analysis of the remains of buildings and several artifacts, as well as on the interpretation of Icelandic sagas and oral traditions that were recorded only centuries later,” explains a group of scientists from the University of Groningen in the Netherlands in an article in the journal Nature.
Radiocarbon analysis was also used before, but, as the participants in the new study write, most of these attempts were made in the 1960-1970s, when the methods were inaccurate, and those studies gave a huge range of dates – from the 7th to the 11th centuries. Most experts believed that the Vikings most likely settled in Newfoundland sometime around 1000.
Now scientists, in addition to more accurate measurements and methods of analysis, used the traces of a powerful magnetic storm as a reference point – and, as they claim, they were able to accurately determine the year when the trees were cut down, from which they built houses in the Viking settlement in L'Anse-aux. -Medose in the very north of Newfoundland.
This magnetic storm – a consequence of a powerful release of radiation in the sun – occurred in 992.
Distant base
The settlement in L'Anse aux Meadows, according to scientists, was the base of the Vikings, from which they made sorties further south and west, including to the North American continent.
The remains of this settlement were discovered by archaeologists in the 60s of the last century. Scientists believe that the settlement was small, a few dozen people, and lasted a maximum of a hundred years, rather less.
The authors of the new study believe that their discovery will help in studying the consequences of the very first transatlantic contacts, such as the spread of knowledge and technology, as well as the possible exchange of genes and pathologies.
L'Anse aux Meadows is the only known Viking settlement in North America so far. It is included in the UNESCO World Heritage List.
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The method of radiocarbon age analysis is based on the measurement of the residues of the radioactive isotope carbon 14C in biological material.
Knowing the normal content of this isotope in a living organism and the half-life of 14C (5700 years), scientists can quite accurately determine when the organism died (for example, when a tree was felled) and stopped exchanging carbon with the environment.
