All we can say for sure is that the Vikings were there that year - it doesn’t necessarily tell us how long they were there before or after. While the discovery puts the age at an even millennium, it still doesn’t solve many of the lingering questions about L’Anse aux Meadows. 1021. “The dating is interesting it does confirm everything else we know about this site,” Wallace says. These pieces of wood were also cut by metal blades - something not produced at that point by the Indigenous people in the area. Counting the tree rings, from the solar flare marker in the wood towards the bark, revealed the pieces of wood were cut in A.D. Wallace and her colleagues focused in on three pieces from three different trees that were in good enough condition, and that still had sufficient bark to count backwards towards the anomaly in the 993 tree ring caused by the solar flare. “It’s an enhanced form of dendrochronology ,” Wallace says, referring to the scientific method more commonly known as tree-ring dating. Some experts wondered whether this date might help them date L’Anse aux Meadows with more certainty. The site contained more than 500 pieces of wood, Wallace says, including parts of posts as well as extra debris cast off in the construction of other artifacts. Researchers identified a solar flare that struck Earth in 993 based on tree ring evidence, according to a 2013 study in Nature Communications. Tree ring experts now know that large solar flares left evident traces on tree rings, which can be seen in a rapid increase of carbon-14, or radiocarbon, in the wood. But centuries before we worried about GPS satellites and power transformers, these solar storms still left their mark on human technology at least, when it was still mostly made of wood. These days, solar flares - intense bursts of electromagnetic radiation from the sun - spark concern here on Earth due to the damage they can cause to communications technology and the energy grid. But it wasn’t until this October that Wallace and her colleagues placed a concrete date on occupation at L’Anse aux Meadows in a study published in Nature. Radiocarbon dating had previously placed some of the objects discovered at L’Anse aux Meadows in roughly the time frame of about a millennium ago. Read more: Vikings Once Called North America Home But before L’Anse aux Meadows, no conclusive archaeological evidence of Vikings had been discovered west of Greenland. Since the surviving sagas describing these journeys date to several centuries after the events supposedly occurred, scholars have always been leery about the exact timing, as well as what land Leif and a few others who followed him may have meant by Vinland. Also worthwhile is the 3km trail that winds through the barren terrain and along the coast surrounding the interpretive center.The discovery of the settlement in Newfoundland also tease a potential connection with the land to the east of Greenland described by Viking sagas as Vinland, or the "land of wine." According to these Norse texts, Leif Erikson set out westwards from a settlement in Greenland first reached by his father Erik the Red. The premise may seem dull – visiting a bog in the middle of nowhere and staring at the spot where a couple of old sod houses once stood – but somehow this site, lying in a forlorn sweep of land, turns out to be one of Newfoundland's most stirring attractions.īe sure to browse the interpretive center and watch the introductory film, which tells the captivating story of Norwegian explorer Helge Ingstad and his wife, archaeologist Anne Stine, who rediscovered the site in 1960. Allow two or three hours to walk around and absorb the ambience. The latter have names such as 'Thora' and 'Bjorn' and simulate Viking chores such as spinning fleece and forging nails. Visitors can see the remains of their waterside settlement: eight wood-and-sod buildings, now just vague outlines left in the spongy ground, plus three replica buildings inhabited by costumed docents. Leif Erikson and his Viking friends lived here circa 1000.
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