The Norse reached America five centuries before Columbus
A Norse site at L'Anse aux Meadows, Newfoundland, was occupied in 1021. It is the archaeological anchor for the Vinland sagas.
Established2 min read
Excavations at L'Anse aux Meadows in the 1960s found Norse turf halls, a smithy, and iron nails on Newfoundland. The style is Greenlandic. The camp was small and did not last. It is not a hidden medieval empire. It is a foothold, and it is enough.
In 2022 a group dated wood from the site that had been cut by metal tools. A spike in atmospheric radiocarbon from a solar storm in 993 CE sits in the rings, and counting outward gives the felling year 1021. That is a more precise American date than almost any saga deserves. Columbus sailed in 1492.
Caveats
- The camp was brief. Norse Greenland did not colonise the continent.
- People were of course already in America. The claim is about a European Atlantic crossing, not about discovery in the human sense.
Sources
- 1Kuitems M. et al.. Evidence for European presence in the Americas in AD 1021. Nature 601, 2022.