View source for Norse settlement of North America

[[File:2022-08-27 04 Silhouette sculpture of Norsemen above L'Anse aux Meadows, NFL CAN.jpg|thumb|Norse silhouette sculpture above L'Anse aux Meadows, Newfoundland, Canada]]
{{Short description|Earliest phase of European settlement in the Americas}}
{{About|the historical Viking presence in the western Arctic and Canadian Maritime|Nordic colonization of these areas|Swedish colonization of the Americas{{!}}Swedish|and|Danish colonization of the Americas}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=January 2025}}
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The [[exploration of North America]] by [[Norsemen]] began in the late 10th century. Voyages from [[Iceland]] reached [[Greenland]] and founded colonies along its western coast. Norse settlements on Greenland lasted almost 500 years, and the population peaked at around 2,000–3,000 people. The colonies consisted mostly of farms along Greenland's scattered coastal [[fjord]]s. Colonists relied heavily on hunting, especially of walruses and the harp seal. For lumber, they harvested [[driftwood]], imported wood from Europe, and sailed to modern-day Canada.

Archaeological evidence indicates that the Greenland colonists used lumber and possibly [[iron ore]] imported from North America. Archaeologists found remains of one short-term settlement at [[L'Anse aux Meadows]] near the northern tip of [[Newfoundland (island)|Newfoundland]]. The remains of buildings excavated there in the 1960s dated to approximately 1,000 years ago.<ref name="Nydal1989">{{cite journal |last1=Nydal |first1=Reidar |title=A Critical Review of Radiocarbon Dating of a Norse Settlement at L'Anse Aux Meadows, Newfoundland Canada |journal=Radiocarbon |date=1989 |volume=31 |issue=3 |pages=976–985 |issn=0033-8222 |doi=10.1017/S0033822200012613 |pmid= |s2cid=129636032 |url= |doi-access=free |bibcode=1989Radcb..31..976N}}</ref><ref name="CordellLightfoot2008">{{cite encyclopedia |first1=Linda S. |last1=Cordell |first2=Kent |last2=Lightfoot |first3=Francis |last3=McManamon |first4=George |last4=Milner |title=L'Anse aux Meadows National Historic Site |encyclopedia=Archaeology in America: An Encyclopedia |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=arfWRW5OFVgC&pg=PA82 |date=2009 |publisher=ABC-CLIO |isbn=978-0-313-02189-3 |page=82 |access-date=21 October 2021 |archive-date=25 April 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230425150120/https://books.google.com/books?id=arfWRW5OFVgC&pg=PA82 |url-status=live}}</ref> It was not a permanent settlement and lacked graves and livestock areas. The site was abandoned, seemingly deliberately, by 1145 AD with no valuables or tools left behind.<ref name="Ledger-2019" /> Some wood fragments and nuts in the Norse remains were from plants not found in Newfoundland, but native to the continental mainland across the [[Gulf of St. Lawrence]].<ref name="Wallace-2003" /> No other settlements in Canada and no settlements on the North American mainland have been conclusively identified as Norse.

One explanation for why it seems the Norse did not create permanent colonies beyond Greenland is a lack of [[population pressure]]. The Greenland colonies were abandoned gradually during the 14th and 15th centuries, due at least in part to climate change. The [[Little Ice Age]] brought more storms, longer winters, and shorter springs. It reduced the availability of food at the same time that the value of Greenland's exports to Europe plummeted. The last written record from Norse Greenland was a 1408 marriage. The latest article of clothing from the [[Eastern Settlement]] was radiocarbon dated to 1430 (±15 years).<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Arneborg |first=J. |last2=Heinemeier |first2=J. |last3=Lynnerup |first3=N. |last4=Nielsen |first4=H. L. |last5=Rud |first5=N. |last6=Sveinbjörnsdóttir |first6=Á E. |date=2002-05-01 |title=C-14 dating and the disappearance of Norsemen from Greenland |url=https://www.europhysicsnews.org/articles/epn/abs/2002/03/epn02301/epn02301.html |journal=Europhysics News |language=en |volume=33 |issue=3 |pages=77–80 |doi=10.1051/epn:2002301 |issn=0531-7479}}</ref> The reasons for its abandonment have long been debated.

The Norse exploration has been subject to numerous controversies concerning the exploration and settlement of North America by Europeans. The primary sources for descriptions of the Norse voyages beyond Greenland are the [[Vinland Sagas]]. These heroic [[sagas]] were first written down in Iceland centuries after the events they describe. After the European discovery of the Americas, it was debated whether the lands they describe beyond Greenland (Helluland, Markland, and [[Vinland]]) corresponded to real places in North America. Since the public acknowledgment of Norse expeditions and settlements, pseudoscientific and pseudohistorical theories have emerged.<ref name="Feder2020">{{Cite book |last=Feder |first=Kenneth L. |title=Frauds, Myths, and Mysteries: Science and Pseudoscience in Archaeology |title-link=Frauds, Myths, and Mysteries |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |year=2020 |isbn=978-0-19-009642-7 |edition=10th |location=New York |pages=127–137 |oclc=1108812780}}</ref>

==Norse Greenland==
{{Main|Norse settlements in Greenland }}
[[File:Hvalsey Church.jpg|thumb|[[Hvalsey Church]] ruins in Greenland]]

===Icelandic sagas===
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.<ref>{{cite web |title=Vikings: The North Atlantic Saga |url=http://www.mnh.si.edu/arctic/features/viking/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20020223143725/http://www.mnh.si.edu/arctic/features/viking/ |archive-date=23 February 2002 |access-date=18 October 2015 |publisher=Smithsonian Institution}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Grove |first=Jonathan |date=2009 |title=The Place of Greenland in Medieval Icelandic Saga Narrative |journal=[[Journal of the North Atlantic]] |volume=201 |pages=30–51 |doi=10.3721/037.002.s206 |issn=1935-1933 |jstor=26686936}}</ref>

The earliest mention of Greenland in the sagas refers to 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.<ref name="Milligan-2021">{{cite web |last=Milligan |first=Mark |date=27 April 2021 |title=The Vikings of Greenland |url=https://www.heritagedaily.com/2021/04/the-vikings-of-greenland/138815 |website=HeritageDaily |language=en-us}}</ref> Named after him, ''Gunnbjarnarsker'' or "[[Gunnbjörn's skerries]]", were likely near modern-day [[Kulusuk]] just off the eastern coast of Greenland,<ref>{{cite journal |last=Steensby |first=H. P. |date=1918 |title=Norsemen's Route from Greenland to Wineland |url=https://archive.org/details/meddelelseromgr561918denm |journal=Meddelelser om Grønland |location=Copenhagen |publisher=Kommissionen for Videnskabelige Undersøgelser i Grønland |volume=LVI |page=162}}</ref> but their exact location is unknown.<ref name="Lehn-2000">{{cite journal |last=Lehn |first=Waldemar H. |date=20 July 2000 |title=Skerrylike Mirages and the Discovery of Greenland |url=https://opg.optica.org/ao/abstract.cfm?URI=ao-39-21-3612 |journal=Applied Optics |volume=39 |issue=21 |pages=3612–3619 |doi=10.1364/AO.39.003612|pmid=18349932 |bibcode=2000ApOpt..39.3612L |url-access=subscription }}</ref> 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 settlement was abandoned, and only two colonists survived the return to Iceland.<ref name="Carlson-2001">{{cite web |last=Carlson |first=Marc |date=31 July 2001 |title=History of Medieval Greenland |url=https://idrisi.narod.ru/mcarlson.htm |publisher=Self-published}} [https://cadre.okstate.edu/speaker-bios/marc-carlson.html Author biography].</ref><ref>{{cite web |date=8 September 2001 |title=History |url=http://nat.is/greenlandeng/greenland_history.htm |website=NAT.IS|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20010908014938/http://nat.is/greenlandeng/greenland_history.htm |archive-date=8 September 2001 }}</ref> [[Ívar Bárðarson]], a Catholic priest sent to Greenland in 1341, wrote that the [[Skerry|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.<ref name="Marcus-1954">{{cite journal |last=Marcus |first=G. J. |date=1954 |title=The Greenland Trade-Route |journal=The Economic History Review |volume=7 |issue=1 |pages=71–80 |jstor=2591227 |issn=0013-0117}}</ref>

According to the sagas, [[Erik the Red]] (Old Norse: Eiríkr rauði) was banished from [[Iceland]] for [[manslaughter]], and sailed westward 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.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |title=Erik the Red |encyclopedia=Brittanica |url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Erik-the-Red |access-date=5 January 2025}}</ref> He remained for three years, explored the area, and decided to found a settlement.<ref>{{cite web |last=Anderson |first=Rasmus B. |date=18 February 2004 |editor-last=Hare |editor-first=John Bruno |title=Norse voyages in the tenth and following centuries |url=http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/nda/nda27.htm |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200102155739/https://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/nda/nda27.htm |archive-date=2 January 2020 |access-date=27 August 2008 |website=The Norse Discovery of America |orig-date=1906}}).</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Reeves |first1=Arthur Middleton |author-link1=Arthur Middleton Reeves |last2=Anderson |first2=Rasmus B. |date=1906 |title=Discovery and colonization of Greenland |url=http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/nda/nda18.htm |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200110123718/https://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/nda/nda18.htm |archive-date=10 January 2020 |access-date=27 August 2008 |website=Saga of Erik the Red |quote=The first winter he was at Eriksey, nearly in the middle of the [[Eastern Settlement]]; the spring after repaired he to Eriksfjord, and took up there his abode. He removed in summer to the western settlement, and gave to many places names. He was the second winter at Holm in Hrafnsgnipa, but the third summer went he to Iceland, and came with his ship into Breidafjord.}}</ref> 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''.<ref name="ROBW">{{cite book |last=Wernick |first=Robert |title=The Vikings |date=1979 |publisher=[[Time-Life Books]] |isbn=978-0-8094-2709-3 |series=The Seafarers |location=Alexandria, Va}}</ref>

===Life===
[[File:Eastern-settlement-eng.png|thumb|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&nbsp;km up the west coast, near present-day [[Nuuk]].<ref>{{cite web |title=Abandonment of Norse Settlements in Greenland (c. 1450s) - Climate in Arts and History |url=https://www.science.smith.edu/climatelit/abandonment-of-norse-settlements/ |website=Climate in Arts and History |publisher=Smith College}}</ref> A smaller settlement later founded near the Eastern Settlement is sometimes considered the [[Ivittuut|Middle Settlement]].<ref name="Edwards-2013">{{cite journal |last1=Edwards |first1=Kevin J |last2=Cook |first2=Gordon T |last3=Nyegaard |first3=Georg |last4=Schofield |first4=J Edward |date=2013 |title=Towards a First Chronology for the Middle Settlement of Norse Greenland: 14 C and Related Studies of Animal Bone and Environmental Material |journal=Radiocarbon |volume=55 |issue=1 |pages=13–29 |doi=10.2458/azu_js_rc.v55i1.16395 |bibcode=2013Radcb..55...13E |url=https://eprints.gla.ac.uk/85302/1/85302.pdf}}</ref> The combined population peaked around 2,000–3,000.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Lynnerup |first=Niels |date=2014 |title=Endperiod Demographics of the Greenland Norse |journal=Journal of the North Atlantic |volume=7 |issue=sp7 |pages=18–24 |doi=10.3721/037.002.sp702 |jstor=26671842 |s2cid=163050538}}</ref> At least 400 farms have been identified by archaeologists.<ref name="ROBW" />

[[File:Hvalsey stables.jpg|thumb|Remains of stables on Greenland]]

Norse Greenlanders were limited to living along scattered fjords on the island that provided habitable land for their animals (such as cattle, sheep, goats, dogs, and cats) to be kept and farms to be established.<ref name="Pringle1997">{{cite journal |last=Pringle |first=Heather |date=14 February 1997 |title=Death in Norse Greenland |journal=Science |language=en |volume=275 |issue=5302 |pages=924–926 |doi=10.1126/science.275.5302.924 |issn=0036-8075 |s2cid=161540120}}</ref><ref name="DugmoreMcGovern2012">{{cite journal |last1=Dugmore |first1=Andrew J. |last2=McGovern |first2=Thomas H. |last3=Vésteinsson |first3=Orri |last4=Arneborg |first4=Jette |last5=Streeter |first5=Richard |last6=Keller |first6=Christian |date=2012 |title=Cultural adaptation, compounding vulnerabilities and conjunctures in Norse Greenland |journal=Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America |volume=109 |issue=10 |pages=3658–3663 |bibcode=2012PNAS..109.3658D |doi=10.1073/pnas.1115292109 |jstor=41507015 |pmc=3309771 |pmid=22371594 |doi-access=free}}</ref> In these fjords, the farms depended upon stables (''[[byre]]s'') to host their livestock in the winter, and routinely culled their herds so that they could survive the season.<ref name="Pringle1997" /><ref name="DugmoreMcGovern2012" /><ref name="Berglund1986">{{cite journal |last=Berglund |first=Joel |date=1986 |title=The Decline of the Norse Settlements in Greenland |journal=Arctic Anthropology |volume=23 |issue=1/2 |pages=109–135 |jstor=40316106}}</ref> With the coming of the warmer season livestock were taken from their byres to pastures, the most fertile being controlled by the most powerful farms and the church.<ref name="DugmoreMcGovern2012" /><ref name="Berglund1986" /><ref name="McGovern1980">{{cite journal |last=McGovern |first=Thomas H. |date=1980 |title=Cows, Harp Seals, and Churchbells: Adaptation and Extinction in Norse Greenland |journal=Human Ecology |volume=8 |issue=3 |pages=245–275 |bibcode=1980HumEc...8..245M |doi=10.1007/bf01561026 |jstor=4602559 |s2cid=53964845}}</ref> What was produced by livestock and farming was supplemented with subsistence hunting of mainly seal and caribou as well as walrus for trade.<ref name="Pringle1997" /><ref name="DugmoreMcGovern2012" /><ref name="Berglund1986" /> The Norse mainly relied on the ''Nordrsetur'' hunt, a communal hunt of migratory [[harp seal]]s in the spring.<ref name="Pringle1997" /><ref name="McGovern1980" />

There is evidence of Norse trade with the [[Thule people|Thule]], the ancestors of the [[Inuit]], and the [[Beothuk]], related to the Algonquin. The peoples were called the {{lang|non|[[Skræling]]jar}} by the Norse. The [[Dorset culture|Dorset]] people 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]] figurine that appears to represent a Norseman has also been found among the ruins of an Inuit community house.<ref name="Wahlgren1986">{{cite book |last=Wahlgren |first=Erik |url=https://archive.org/details/vikingsamerica00wahl |title=The Vikings and America |year=1986 |publisher=Thames and Hudson |isbn=0-500-02109-0 |location=New York |pages=19, 66, 97}}</ref>

Trade was highly important to the Greenland Norse, who relied on imports of lumber due to the barrenness of the land. In turn they exported goods such as [[walrus ivory]] and hide, polar bear skins, and narwhal tusks.<ref name="Berglund1986" /><ref name="McGovern1980" /> Ultimately these exchanges were vulnerable as they relied on migratory patterns affected by climate changes as well as on the viability of the few fjords on the island.<ref name="DugmoreMcGovern2012" /><ref name="McGovern1980" /> 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.<ref name="Pringle1997" /><ref name="DugmoreMcGovern2012" /><ref name="Berglund1986" /> A cooling climate and increasing humidity brought more storms, longer winters and shorter springs, and affected the migratory patterns of the harp seal.<ref name="Pringle1997" /><ref name="DugmoreMcGovern2012" /><ref name="Berglund1986" /><ref name="McGovern1980" /> 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.<ref name="Pringle1997" /> Closer to the Eastern Settlement, temperatures remained stable but a prolonged drought reduced fodder production.<ref name="Zhao 22">{{cite journal |last1=Zhao |first1=Boyang |last2=Castañeda |first2=Isla S. |last3=Salacup |first3=Jeffrey M. |last4=Thomas |first4=Elizabeth K. |last5=Daniels |first5=William C. |last6=Schneider |first6=Tobias |last7=de Wet |first7=Gregory A. |last8=Bradley |first8=Raymond S. |date=25 March 2022 |title=Prolonged drying trend coincident with the demise of Norse settlement in southern Greenland |journal=Science Advances |publisher=American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) |volume=8 |issue=12 |article-number=eabm4346 |bibcode=2022SciA....8M4346Z |doi=10.1126/sciadv.abm4346 |issn=2375-2548 |pmc=8942370 |pmid=35319972}}</ref> 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.<ref name="Pringle1997" /><ref name="DugmoreMcGovern2012" /> 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.<ref name="McGovern1980" /> 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.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Barrett |first1=James H. |last2=Boessenkool |first2=Sanne |last3=Kneale |first3=Catherine J. |last4=O'Connell |first4=Tamsin C. |author-link4=Tamsin O'Connell |last5=Star |first5=Bastiaan |date=1 February 2020 |title=Ecological globalisation, serial depletion and the medieval trade of walrus rostra |journal=Quaternary Science Reviews |volume=229 |page=11 |article-number=106122 |bibcode=2020QSRv..22906122B |doi=10.1016/j.quascirev.2019.106122 |issn=0277-3791 |doi-access=free |hdl-access=free |hdl=2262/91845}}</ref>

[[File:Kat nr 059 Pinne av trä (kopia), från Danmark - KMB - 16000300015527.jpg|thumb|A runestick from [[Herjolfsnes]]{{efn|In memory of Gudveg who died at sea, it reads: "This woman, whose name was Gudveg, was laid overboard in the Greenland Sea."<ref>{{Citation |last=Niels |first=Lynnerup |title=The Greenland Norse |date=1998 |work=Monographs on Greenland |issue=24 |page=54}}</ref>}}]]

In 1126, the population requested a bishop (headquartered at a [[bishopric]] established in [[Garðar (Greenland)|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 [[Kalmar Union|a personal union]] with the Kingdom of [[Denmark]].<ref name="Wahlgren1986" />

The settlements began to decline in the 14th century. The Western Settlement was abandoned around 1350.<ref name="Wahlgren1986" /> Less is known about life in the Middle Settlement, but radiocarbon dating indicates that it was likely inhabited for most of the period that the Eastern Settlement was inhabited, and archaeologists have found evidence of one house in use potentially as late as 1409.<ref name="Edwards-2013" /> 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).<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Arneborg |first=J. |last2=Heinemeier |first2=J. |last3=Lynnerup |first3=N. |last4=Nielsen |first4=H. L. |last5=Rud |first5=N. |last6=Sveinbjörnsdóttir |first6=Á E. |date=2002-05-01 |title=C-14 dating and the disappearance of Norsemen from Greenland |url=https://www.europhysicsnews.org/articles/epn/abs/2002/03/epn02301/epn02301.html |journal=Europhysics News |language=en |volume=33 |issue=3 |pages=77–80 |doi=10.1051/epn:2002301 |issn=0531-7479}}</ref> The last bishop at Garðar died in 1377.<ref name="Wahlgren1986"/> After a marriage was recorded in 1408, no written records mention the settlers.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Dugmore |first1=Andrew J. |last2=Keller |first2=Christian |last3=McGovern |first3=Thomas H. |date=2007 |title=Norse Greenland Settlement: Reflections on Climate Change, Trade, and the Contrasting Fates or Human Settlements in the North Atlantic Islands |journal=Arctic Anthropology |volume=44 |issue=1 |pages=12–36 |doi=10.1353/arc.2011.0038 |issn=0066-6939 |jstor=40316683 |pmid=21847839 |s2cid=10030083 }}</ref> Several theories have been advanced to explain the decline.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Barras |first1=Colin |title=Greenland's Vikings May Have Vanished Because They Ran out of Water |url=https://www.science.org/content/article/greenland-s-vikings-may-have-vanished-because-they-ran-out-water |website=Science |language=en |date=23 March 2022}}</ref>

=== Climate and decline ===
[[File:Dorset,_Norse,_and_Thule_cultures_900-1500.svg|thumb|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 the hunting of seal and other animals 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 [[Black Plague|plague]] epidemics.<ref name="www.spiegel.de">{{cite web |last=Stockinger |first=Günther |date=10 January 2012 |title=Archaeologists Uncover Clues to Why Vikings Abandoned Greenland |url=http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/archaeologists-uncover-clues-to-why-vikings-abandoned-greenland-a-876626.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190928002823/https://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/archaeologists-uncover-clues-to-why-vikings-abandoned-greenland-a-876626.html |archive-date=28 September 2019 |access-date=12 January 2013 |publisher=[[Der Spiegel]] Online}}</ref> In addition, Greenlandic ivory may have been supplanted in European markets by cheaper ivory from Africa.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Seaver |first=Kirsten A. |date=2009 |title=Desirable Teeth: the Medieval Trade in Arctic and African Ivory |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-global-history/article/abs/desirable-teeth-the-medieval-trade-in-arctic-and-african-ivory/50BFF0443A3CF1EB2C011672D54BAC76 |journal=Journal of Global History |publisher=Cambridge University Press |volume=4 |pages=271–292 |doi=10.1017/S1740022809003155 |s2cid=153720935 |number=2}}</ref> Despite the loss of contact with the Greenlanders, the Norwegian-Danish [[Monarchy|crown]] continued to consider Greenland a [[Dependent territory|dependency]].<ref>{{cite web |last1=Brimnes |first1=Niels |title=The Colonialism of Denmark-Norway and Its Legacies |url=https://nordics.info/show/artikel/the-colonialism-of-denmark-norway-and-its-legacies |website=nordics.info |publisher=Aarhus University |language=en |date=7 January 2021}}</ref>

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 [[Protestant Reformation|Reformation]]—a joint merchant-clerical expedition led by the Norwegian missionary [[Hans Egede]] was sent to Greenland in 1721.<ref name="Nedkvitne2018">{{cite book |last=Nedkvitne |first=Arnved |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Xs5wDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT14 |title=Norse Greenland: Viking Peasants in the Arctic |date=2018 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-351-25958-3 |access-date=19 May 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230502033137/https://books.google.com/books?id=Xs5wDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT14 |archive-date=2 May 2023 |url-status=live}}</ref> Though this expedition found no surviving Europeans, it marked the beginning of [[Danish colonization of the Americas|Denmark's re-assertion of sovereignty]] over the island.<ref name="Stern2021">{{cite book |last=Stern |first=Pamela |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Y85JEAAAQBAJ&pg=PT179 |title=The Inuit World |date=2021 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-000-45613-4 |pages=179–182 |access-date=19 May 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230502033135/https://books.google.com/books?id=Y85JEAAAQBAJ&pg=PT179 |archive-date=2 May 2023 |url-status=live}}</ref>

[[File:Wikingerkleidung.JPG|thumb|Replica garments of those found in graves in Herjolfsness, Greenland]]

To some 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,<ref name="Pringle1997" /> however it is now known that Thule artifacts are found among Norse habitations, indicating that both groups acquired material goods from each other.<ref>{{cite book |last=Paterson |first=Alistair |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=weFmDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA57 |title=A Millennium of Cultural Contact |date=16 June 2016 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-315-43572-5 |page=57 |language=en |access-date=3 July 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230704004454/https://books.google.com/books?id=weFmDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA57 |archive-date=4 July 2023 |url-status=live}}</ref> The older research posited that it was not climate change alone that led to Norse decline, but also their unwillingness to adapt.<ref name="Pringle1997" /> 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.<ref name="DugmoreMcGovern2012" /><ref name="Berglund1986" /><ref name="McGovern1980" /><ref name="McGovern1999">{{cite journal |last=McGovern |first=Thomas H. |date=1991 |title=Climate, Correlation, and Causation in Norse Greenland |journal=Arctic Anthropology |volume=28 |issue=2 |pages=77–100 |jstor=40316278}}</ref> 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.<ref name="DugmoreMcGovern2012" /><ref name="Berglund1986" /><ref name="McGovern1980" />

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.<ref name="Kintisch2016">{{cite web |last=Kintisch |first=Eli |date=10 November 2016 |title=Why did Greenland's Vikings disappear? |url=https://www.science.org/content/article/why-did-greenland-s-vikings-disappear |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211111131631/https://www.science.org/content/article/why-did-greenland-s-vikings-disappear |archive-date=11 November 2021 |access-date=21 May 2022 |website=Science.org |language=en}}</ref> 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.<ref name="McGovern1980" /> Current research suggests that the Norse were unable to maintain their settlements because of economic and climatic change happening at the same time.<ref name="Kintisch2016" />

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."<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Borreggine |first1=Marisa |last2=Latychev |first2=Konstantin |last3=Coulson |first3=Sophie |last4=Powell |first4=Evelyn |last5=Mitrovica |first5=Jerry |last6=Milne |first6=Glenn |last7=Alley |first7=Richard |date=17 April 2023 |title=Sea-level rise in Southwest Greenland as a contributor to Viking abandonment |journal=Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences |volume=120 |issue=17 |article-number=e2209615120 |bibcode=2023PNAS..12009615B |doi=10.1073/pnas.2209615120 |doi-access=free |pmc=10151458 |pmid=37068242 |s2cid=258189345}}</ref>

==Norse settlements in Canada==
[[File:Authentic Viking recreation.jpg|thumb|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.<ref>{{cite web |last=Wallace |first=Birgitta |title=L'Anse aux Meadows |url=https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/lanse-aux-meadows |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210227064113/https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/lanse-aux-meadows |archive-date=27 February 2021 |access-date=4 June 2020 |website=The Canadian Encyclopedia}}</ref>]]

Greenland lacked natural resources like forests and iron ore.<ref name="Schlederman-2000" /><ref name="Seaver-2000" /> 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.<ref name="Barnes2001">{{cite book |last1=Barnes |first1=Geraldine |title=Viking America: The First Millennium |year=2001 |publisher=Boydell & Brewer |isbn=978-0-85991-608-0 |page=xiii |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=foQE_G3XL6AC&pg=PR13}}</ref> There is generally believed to be a historical basis for Norse voyages to these places, despite some fantastical elements in the sagas such as [[Great Ireland]] and the [[uniped]] who kills [[Thorvald Asvaldsson]] in Vinland.<ref name="Jones-1986">{{cite book |last=Jones |first=Gwyn |title=The Norse Atlantic saga: being the Norse voyages of discovery and settlement to Iceland, Greenland, and North America |date=1986 |publisher=Oxford Univ. Pr |isbn=978-0-19-215886-4 |edition=New and enl. |location=Oxford |pages=184–185}}</ref> In [[Adam of Bremen]]'s 11th-century chronicle ''[[Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum]]'', he briefly mentions Greenland and islands beyond Norway including one "called Vinland".
{{efn
|"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."<ref name="Bremen-2002">{{cite book |last=von Bremen |first=Adam |url=https://archive.org/details/historyofarchbis00adam_0 |title=History of the Archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen |date=2002 |publisher=Columbia University Press |location=New York |pages=218–219}} Translated by Francis J. Tschan.</ref>
}}<ref name="Bartusik-2022">{{cite book |last1=Bartusik |first1=Grzegorz |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0Yh0EAAAQBAJ |title=Adam of Bremen's Gesta Hammaburgensis Ecclesiae Pontificum: Origins, Reception and Significance |last2=Biskup |first2=Radosław |last3=Morawiec |first3=Jakub |date=29 July 2022 |publisher=Taylor & Francis |isbn=978-1-000-61038-3 |page=89 |language=en}}</ref> Icelandic annals record that, in 1347, a ship arrived from Greenland that had drifted off course while sailing to Markland for wood.<ref name="Guðmundsdóttir-2023">{{cite journal |last=Guðmundsdóttir |first=Lísabet |date=April 2023 |title=Timber imports to Norse Greenland: lifeline or luxury? |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antiquity/article/abs/timber-imports-to-norse-greenland-lifeline-or-luxury/DDE8F93A03FF674195796FAED57A020E |journal=Antiquity |language=en |volume=97 |issue=392 |pages=454–471 |doi=10.15184/aqy.2023.13 |issn=0003-598X|url-access=subscription }}</ref> 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.{{efn
|"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."<ref>{{cite archive |first= |last= |item=Encyclopedia; Iceland |item-url=https://handrit.is/manuscript/view/en/AM04-0736-I |type=Geographical Treatise |item-id=AM 736 I 4to |date=1300–1360 |page= |pages=15v—17r, NKS 359 4to, 16-26 |fonds= |series= |file= |box= |collection=Safn Árna Magnússonar |collection-url=https://handrit.is/manuscript/list/collection/Acc |repository=Den Arnamagnæanske Samling |institution=The Arnamagnæan Institute |location=Copenhagen |oclc= |accession= }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last=Bandlien |first=Bjørn |title=AM 736 I 4to - English translation |url=https://www.academia.edu/43790593}}</ref>
}}<ref name="Chiesa-2021" /> In Europe, several medieval works reproduced this general description in cities as far away as [[Milan]], where [[Dominican Order|Dominican]] chronicler [[Galvano Fiamma]] mentioned ''terra que dicitur Marckalada'' 'the land called Markland' west of Greenland circa 1345.<ref name="Chiesa-2021">{{cite journal |last=Chiesa |first=Paolo |date=4 May 2021 |title=Marckalada: The First Mention of America in the Mediterranean Area (c. 1340) |journal=Terrae Incognitae |volume=53 |issue=2 |pages=88–106 |doi=10.1080/00822884.2021.1943792|hdl=2434/860960 |hdl-access=free }}</ref> Where these places would correspond to in modern-day Canada is still debated.<ref name="Sigurdsson-2000" /> Greenland colonists used timber for their boats and homes, so they likely made many unrecorded trips south for wood.<ref name="Schlederman-2000" /><ref name="Seaver-2000" /> 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.<ref name="Guðmundsdóttir-2023" />

[[Bog iron]] was widely used and smelted in [[forge]]s 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 [[Bloomery|blooms]]. Iron shipped from the east would have likely been products (tools, nails, axes) or iron bars.<ref name="Seaver-2000" />

There is one confirmed Norse settlement in modern-day Canada, [[L'Anse aux Meadows]] in [[Newfoundland]].<ref name="Kuitems-2022">{{cite journal |last1=Kuitems |first1=Margot |last2=Wallace |first2=Birgitta L. |last3=Lindsay |first3=Charles |last4=Scifo |first4=Andrea |last5=Doeve |first5=Petra |last6=Jenkins |first6=Kevin |last7=Lindauer |first7=Susanne |last8=Erdil |first8=Pınar |last9=Ledger |first9=Paul M. |last10=Forbes |first10=Véronique |last11=Vermeeren |first11=Caroline |last12=Friedrich |first12=Ronny |last13=Dee |first13=Michael W. |date=January 2022 |title=Evidence for European presence in the Americas in ad 1021 |journal=Nature |language=en |volume=601 |issue=7893 |pages=388–391 |doi=10.1038/s41586-021-03972-8 |pmid=34671168 |bibcode=2022Natur.601..388K |issn=1476-4687|pmc=8770119 }}</ref> 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.<ref name="Pringle-2012" /> The Indigenous Dorset cold-hammered copper as well as [[meteoric iron]], but did not smelt metals.<ref name="Jolicoeur-2015">{{cite web |last=Jolicoeur |first=Patrick |date=4 March 2015 |title=Dorset Culture |url=https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/dorset-culture |website=The Canadian Encyclopedia |publisher=Historica Canada |language=en}}</ref> Dating the Tanfield Valley site is complicated by it having been inhabited and abandoned multiple times.<ref name="Pringle-2012" /><ref name="Sutherland 2000 159–169">{{cite conference |last=Sutherland |first=Patricia |author-link=Patricia Sutherland |date=2000 |editor-last=Appelt |editor-first=Martin |editor2-last=Berglund |editor2-first=Joel |editor3-last=Gulløv |editor3-first=Hans Christian |title=Strands of Culture Contact: Dorset-Norse Interactions in the Canadian Eastern Arctic |url=https://www.historymuseum.ca/learn/research/resources-for-scholars/essays/dorset-norse-interactions-in-the-canadian-eastern-arctic/ |location=Copenhagen, Denmark |publisher=The Danish National Museum & Danish Polar Center |pages=159–169 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181204073956/https://www.historymuseum.ca/learn/research/resources-for-scholars/essays/dorset-norse-interactions-in-the-canadian-eastern-arctic/ |archive-date=4 December 2018 |access-date=19 December 2018 |book-title=Identities and Cultural Contacts in the Arctic: Proceedings from a Conference at the Danish National Museum, Copenhagen, 30 November to 2 December 1999 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="Canadian Museum of History">{{cite web |title=Strangers, Partners, Neighbors? Helluland Archaeology Project: Recent Finds |url=https://www.historymuseum.ca/cmc/exhibitions/archeo/helluland/str0301e.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181203230055/https://www.historymuseum.ca/cmc/exhibitions/archeo/helluland/str0301e.html |archive-date=3 December 2018 |access-date=19 December 2018 |publisher=Canadian Museum of History}}</ref> 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.<ref name="Fitzhugh-2000">{{cite book |last=Fitzhugh |first=William W. |url=https://archive.org/details/vikingsnorthatla00fitz |title=Vikings: the North Atlantic Saga |date=2000 |publisher=Smithsonian Institution Press |editor-last=Fitzhugh |editor-first=William W. |location=Washington, DC |pages=11–26 |chapter=Puffins, Ringed Pins, and Runestones: The Viking Passage to America |editor-last2=Ward |editor-first2=Elisabeth}}</ref> Surveys in the 1970s and 1980s could find no evidence of Norse settlements on the coasts of modern-day [[Quebec]].<ref name="Seaver-2000" />

Historians have found that the Greenlanders had limited incentives and capabilities to expand south into a long-term colony in Canada.<ref>{{cite web |title=Where is Vinland? |url=https://canadianmysteries.ca/sites/vinland/othermysteries/whydidtheyleave/4067en.html |website=canadianmysteries.ca |language=en}}</ref> [[Population pressure]] was one of the factors that affected migrations out of Scandinavia and [[Icelandic Commonwealth|medieval Iceland]], where as many as 70,000 [[Icelanders]] competed for limited resources.<ref name="Lynnerup-2014" /><ref name="Wallace-2009" /> 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 largely to climate change. During the period when temperatures dropped, the [[Black Death]] halved the populations of the colonists' trading partners in Iceland and Europe.<ref name="Lynnerup-2014">{{cite journal |last=Lynnerup |first=Niels |date=2014 |title=Endperiod demographics of the Greenland Norse |journal=Journal of the North Atlantic |volume=7 |pages=18–24 |doi=10.3721/037.002.sp702 |jstor=26671842 |issn=1935-1984}}</ref><ref name="Wallace-2009">{{cite journal |last=Wallace |first=Birgitta |date=2009 |title=L'Anse aux Meadows, Leif Eriksson's Home in Vinland |journal=Journal of the North Atlantic |volume=201 |pages=114–125 |doi=10.3721/037.002.s212 |jstor=26686942 |issn=1935-1984}}</ref>

===Newfoundland===
[[File:L'Anse aux Meadows map.png|thumb|The location of [[L'Anse aux Meadows]] in [[Newfoundland (island)|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 to maintain the [[Spindle_(textiles)|spindle's]] speed of rotation while spinning fiber, were found inside another building. A fragment of a bone needle was discovered in the firepit of a third dwelling.<ref name="Mueller-Vollmer2022" /> It may have been used for [[nålebinding]], a [[needlework]] technique that predated knitting.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Wallace |first1=Birgitta |title=L'Anse aux Meadows |url=https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/lanse-aux-meadows |website=The Canadian Encyclopedia |publisher=Historica Canada |access-date=11 March 2025 |language=en |date=2025 |orig-date=2006}}</ref> A small, decorated brass fragment, once [[gilding|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.<ref name="Mueller-Vollmer2022">{{cite book |last1=Mueller-Vollmer |first1=Tristan |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MtljEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA29 |title=Vikings: An Encyclopedia of Conflict, Invasions, and Raids |last2=Wolf |first2=Kirsten |date=2022 |publisher=ABC-CLIO |isbn=978-1-4408-7730-8 |pages=29–30 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230502033142/https://books.google.com/books?id=MtljEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA29 |archive-date=2 May 2023 |url-status=live}}</ref>

The site is different from the colonies in Greenland; it was not a permanent continuous settlement.<ref name="Ledger-2019" /><ref name="Barraclough-2016" /> Archaeologists 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.<ref name="Barraclough-2016">{{cite book |last=Barraclough |first=Eleanor Rosamund |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AMJLDQAAQBAJ&pg=PA129 |title=Beyond the Northlands: Viking Voyages and the Old Norse Sagas |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2016 |isbn=978-0-19-100448-3 |pages=99, 129 |access-date=23 December 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230425150132/https://books.google.com/books?id=AMJLDQAAQBAJ&pg=PA129 |archive-date=25 April 2023 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="Ledger-2019">{{cite journal |last1=Ledger |first1=Paul M. |last2=Girdland-Flink |first2=Linus |last3=Forbes |first3=Véronique |date=30 July 2019 |title=New horizons at L'Anse aux Meadows |journal=Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences |volume=116 |issue=31 |pages=15341–15343 |doi=10.1073/pnas.1907986116|doi-access=free |pmid=31308231 |pmc=6681721 |bibcode=2019PNAS..11615341L |hdl=2164/13524 |hdl-access=free }}</ref>

Birgitta 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."<ref name="Wallace-2003" /> The buildings include several large living halls and specialized workshops including one for boat repair and construction.<ref name="Wallace-2003" /> According to historian [[Eleanor Barraclough]], one major purpose of the site was boat repair.<ref name="ParksCanada2017">{{cite web |date=30 March 2017 |title=L'Anse aux Meadows National Historic Site |url=https://www.pc.gc.ca/en/lhn-nhs/nl/meadows/visit/cartes-maps |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190109062153/https://www.pc.gc.ca/en/lhn-nhs/nl/meadows/visit/cartes-maps |archive-date=9 January 2019 |access-date=8 January 2019 |publisher=[[Parks Canada]] |quote=Smelting hut—this small isolated building contained a furnace for producing iron from bog ore. A simple smelter stood in the middle of the floor. A charcoal kiln was nearby. The amount and type of slag found suggests that a single smelt took place. Very little iron was manufactured, only enough for making about 100 to 200 nails.}}</ref> The land is bare and open now, but it was forested during the time the Norse were active.<ref name="Ingstad2000">{{cite book |last1=Ingstad |first1=Helge |author-link1=Helge Ingstad |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Gj-I5hdpzGoC&pg=PP1 |title=The Viking Discovery of America: The Excavation of a Norse Settlement in L'Anse Aux Meadows, Newfoundland |last2=Ingstad |first2=Anne Stine |author-link2=Anne Stine Ingstad |publisher=Breakwater Books |year=2000 |isbn=978-1-55081-158-2 |page=135 |access-date=23 December 2017 |orig-date=1991}}</ref> 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.<ref name="Wallace-2003">{{cite journal |last=Wallace |first=Birgitta |date=2003 |title=The Norse in Newfoundland:: L'Anse aux Meadows and Vinland |url=https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/nflds19_1art02 |journal=Newfoundland Studies |language=en |volume=19 |issue=1 |pages=5–43 |issn=0823-1737}}</ref>

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 voyage was long, and Greenland had a limited population for further colonies.<ref name="Wallace-2015">{{cite book |editor-last1=Stull |editor-first1=Scott D. |last=Wallace |first=Birgitta |chapter=Colonizers or Exploiters: the Norse in Vinland |title=From West to East: Current Approaches to Medieval Archaeology |date=1 April 2015 |publisher=Cambridge Scholars Publishing |isbn=978-1-4438-7673-5 |pages=53–54 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tgznBwAAQBAJ |language=en}}</ref> L'Anse aux Meadows itself may have drawn 10 to 20 percent of the total Greenland colonists;<ref name="Richards-2005"/> the communal living halls could hold from 30 to 160 people.<ref name="Kolodny2012">{{cite book |last=Kolodny |first=Annette |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=B2qpdOb8o4cC&pg=PA95 |title=In Search of First Contact: The Vikings of Vinland, the Peoples of the Dawnland, and the Anglo-American Anxiety of Discovery |publisher=Duke University Press |year=2012 |isbn=978-0-8223-5286-0 |page=95 |access-date=22 September 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230425150136/https://books.google.com/books?id=B2qpdOb8o4cC&pg=PA95 |archive-date=25 April 2023 |url-status=live}}</ref> [[Point Rosee]] was identified by archaeologist [[Sarah Parcak]] as a possible Norse settlement based on [[Infrared photography|near-infrared satellite images]] and high-resolution aerial photographs, but archaeological excavations in 2015 and 2016 showed no signs of Norse occupation.<ref name="McKenzie-Sutter-2018">{{cite news |first=Holly |last=McKenzie-Sutter |date=31 May 2018 |title=No Viking presence in southern Newfoundland after all, American researcher finds |url=http://www.timescolonist.com/no-viking-presence-in-southern-newfoundland-after-all-american-researcher-finds-1.23320719 |publisher=The Canadian Press |access-date=18 June 2018 |quote=An archaeological report presented to the provincial government says there are no signs of a Norse presence in the Point Rosee area in the Codroy Valley. The report on the archaeological work carried out in the area in 2015 and 2016 failed to turn up any signs of Norse occupation, with "no clear evidence" of human occupation before 1800. |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180618203935/http://www.timescolonist.com/no-viking-presence-in-southern-newfoundland-after-all-american-researcher-finds-1.23320719 |archive-date=18 June 2018 }}</ref> What initially appeard to be a turf wall and bog iron at Point Rosee, were determined to be the result of natural processes.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Pringle |first1=Heather |date=March 2017 |title=Vikings |url=http://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2017/03/vikings-ship-burials-battle-reenactor/ |journal=National Geographic |volume=231 |issue=3 |access-date=14 May 2017 |quote=During a small excavation in 2015, Parcak and her colleagues found what looked like a turf wall [...] But a larger excavation last summer [2016] cast serious doubt on those interpretations, suggesting that the turf wall and accumulation of bog ore were the results of natural processes |archive-date=7 May 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170507122114/http://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2017/03/vikings-ship-burials-battle-reenactor/ }}</ref><ref name="CBC2018">{{cite news |last=Bird |first=Lindsay |date=30 May 2018 |title=Archeological quest for Codroy Valley Vikings comes up short – Report filed with province states no Norse activity found at dig site |publisher=CBC |url=http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/codroy-valley-vikings-report-1.4684066 |access-date=18 June 2018 |archive-date=3 June 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180603023906/http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/codroy-valley-vikings-report-1.4684066 |url-status=live}}</ref>


Trees at L'Anse aux Meadows were felled by the Norse in 1021.<ref>{{cite magazine |last=Handwerk |first=Brian |title=New Dating Method Shows Vikings Occupied Newfoundland in 1021 C.E. |url=https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/new-dating-method-shows-vikings-occupied-newfoundland-in-1021-ce-180978903/ |magazine=Smithsonian Magazine |language=en}}</ref> Chunks of wood from the site were dated in 2021 using the [[993–994 carbon-14 spike]] and tree rings.<ref name="KuitemsEtAl">{{cite journal |last1=Kuitems |first1=Margot |last2=Wallace |first2=Birgitta L. |last3=Lindsay |first3=Charles |last4=Scifo |first4=Andrea |last5=Doeve |first5=Petra |last6=Jenkins |first6=Kevin |last7=Lindauer |first7=Susanne |last8=Erdil |first8=Pınar |last9=Ledger |first9=Paul M. |last10=Forbes |first10=Véronique |last11=Vermeeren |first11=Caroline |date=20 October 2021 |title=Evidence for European presence in the Americas in AD 1021 |journal=Nature |language=en |volume=601 |issue=7893 |pages=388–391 |bibcode=2022Natur.601..388K |doi=10.1038/s41586-021-03972-8 |issn=1476-4687 |pmc=8770119 |pmid=34671168 |s2cid=239051036 |quote=Our result of AD 1021 for the cutting year constitutes the only secure calendar date for the presence of Europeans across the Atlantic before the voyages of Columbus. Moreover, the fact that our results, on three different trees, converge on the same year is notable and unexpected. This coincidence strongly suggests Norse activity at L'Anse aux Meadows in AD 1021.  In addition, our research demonstrates the potential of the AD 993 anomaly in atmospheric 14C concentrations for pinpointing the ages of past migrations and cultural interactions.}}</ref> This provided the first certain date for the Norse presence at the site.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Price |first=Michael |date=20 October 2021 |title=First Viking settlement in North America dated to exactly 1000 years ago |url=https://www.science.org/content/article/first-viking-settlement-north-america-dated-exactly-1000-years-ago |journal=Science |language=en |doi=10.1126/science.acx9403|url-access=subscription }}</ref> Although not inhabited for long stretches of time, the site may have been used as late as 1145 AD.<ref name="Ledger-2019" /> When they left, the Norse intentionally and deliberately abandoned the site, leaving behind no tools and mostly waste.<ref name="Richards-2005">{{cite book |last=Richards |first=J. D. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FOkRDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA112 |title=The Vikings: A Very Short Introduction |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2005 |isbn=978-0-19-280607-9 |pages=112–113 |doi=10.1093/actrade/9780192806079.003.0011}}</ref>

===Baffin Island===
{{Location map+|Canada Baffin Island|width=250|float=right |marksize=6|relief=1 |caption=Locations of possible Norse artifacts or ruins on Baffin Island
 |places={{Location map~|Canada Baffin Island|lat_dir=N|lat_deg=72|lat_min=42|lon_dir=W|lon_deg=77|lon_min=57|position=top|background=rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.5)|label=[[Pond Inlet|Nunguvik]]|marksize=10}}
{{Location map~|Canada Baffin Island|lat_dir=N|lat_deg=62|lat_min=78|lon_dir=W|lon_deg=65|lon_min=48|position=top|background=rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.5)|label=Willows Island|marksize=10}}
{{Location map~|Canada Baffin Island|lat_dir=N|lat_deg=62|lat_min=39|lon_dir=W|lon_deg=69|lon_min=34|position=top|background=rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.5)|label=[[Nanook, Baffin Island|Nanook]]|marksize=10}}
}}

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]].<ref name="Pringle-2012">{{cite web |last=Pringle |first=Heather |date=19 October 2012 |title=Evidence of Viking Outpost Found in Canada |url=http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/10/121019-viking-outpost-second-new-canada-science-sutherland/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160517220110/http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/10/121019-viking-outpost-second-new-canada-science-sutherland/ |archive-date=17 May 2016 |access-date=28 January 2013 |website=National Geographic News |publisher=[[National Geographic Society]]}}</ref><ref name="Pringle-2013">{{cite journal |last=Pringle |first=Heather |date=November 2012 |title=Vikings and Native Americans |url=http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2012/11/vikings-and-indians/pringle-text |journal=National Geographic |volume=221 |issue=11 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180119110451/http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2012/11/vikings-and-indians/pringle-text |archive-date=19 January 2018 |access-date=28 January 2013}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last=The Nature of Things |author-link=The Nature of Things |date=22 November 2012 |title=The Norse: An Arctic Mystery |url=http://www.cbc.ca/natureofthings/episode/the-norse-an-arctic-mystery.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121127184750/http://www.cbc.ca/natureofthings/episode/the-norse-an-arctic-mystery.html |archive-date=27 November 2012 |access-date=29 January 2013 |publisher=[[CBC Television]]}}</ref> They also suspected yarn from Willows Island and Nunguvik (near [[Pond Inlet]]) to be Norse, but these were not corroborated by later dating methods.<ref name="Smith-2018" /> Despite early theories that the Norse introduced the practice of [[Spinning (textiles)|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 spun fibers and corrupt the results.<ref>{{cite news |last=Lynn |first=Desjardins |date=27 July 2018 |title=Ancient Arctic People Spun Yarn Before Vikings |url=https://www.rcinet.ca/en/2018/07/27/indigenous-norse-spinning-archeology/ |work=RCI}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{cite news |date=24 July 2018 |title=Groundbreaking Research in Archaeology |url=https://hma.brown.edu/news/2018-07-24/archaeology-research |work=Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology |publisher=Brown University}}</ref>

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.<ref name="Pringle-2012" /> 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 culture|Dorset people]].<ref name="Sutherland 2000 159–169"/><ref name="Canadian Museum of History"/> 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.<ref name="Pringle-2012" /> 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.<ref name="Pringle-2012" />

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."<ref>{{cite news |last=<!--News Staff--> |date=16 December 2014 |title=Scientists Find Evidence of Viking Presence in Arctic Canada |url=https://www.sci.news/archaeology/science-viking-presence-arctic-canada-02349.html |work=Sci.News}}</ref>

===Labrador===
{{Location map
|Canada Newfoundland and Labrador
|width=250
|float=right
|marksize=6
|lat = 60.0636
|long = -64.13084
|label = [[Avayalik Islands]]
|background=rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.5)
|label_size = 130
|caption = [[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 ''kablunat'' ('white men') whose behaviors and customs resembled those of the Norse.<ref name="Fitzhugh-2000" /> The colonists in Greenland regularly used timber for houses and boats,<ref name="Schlederman-2000" /> and the most viable logging sites from Greenland were the heavily forested coasts of northern Labrador.<ref name="Sutherland-2000">{{cite book |last=Sutherland |first=Patricia D. |url=https://archive.org/details/vikingsnorthatla00fitz |title=Vikings: the North Atlantic Saga |date=2000 |publisher=Smithsonian Institution Press |editor-last=Fitzhugh |editor-first=William W. |location=Washington, DC |pages=11–26 |chapter=The Norse and Native North Americans |editor-last2=Ward |editor-first2=Elisabeth}}</ref> Labrador also contained [[bog iron]] ore and nearby timber to supply charcoal as fuel for its smelting.<ref name="Seaver-2000"/>

The [[Dorset culture]] extended down to the northern edge of Labrador.<ref name="Odess-2000">{{cite book |last1=Odess |first1=Daniel |url=https://archive.org/details/vikingsnorthatla00fitz |title=Vikings: The North Atlantic Saga |last2=Loring |first2=Stephen |last3=Fitzhugh |first3=William W. |date=2000 |publisher=[[Smithsonian Institution Press]] |isbn=978-1-56098-970-7 |editor-last=Fitzhugh |editor-first=William W. |location=Washington |pages=193–206 |chapter=Skraeling: First Peoples of Markland, Helluland, and Vinland |editor-last2=Ward |editor-first2=Elisabeth I.}}</ref> 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 Indigenous [[Beothuk]] of Newfoundland.<ref>{{cite web |date=2021 |orig-date=2009 |title=Precontact Innu Land Use |url=https://www.heritage.nf.ca/articles/indigenous/innu-land-use.php |website=Newfoundland and Labrador Heritage |publisher=Memorial University of Newfoundland}}</ref><ref name="Schlederman-2000" /> Archaeologists refer to them as the "Point Revenge" culture.<ref name="Pastore-2021">{{cite web |last=Pastore |first=Ralph |date=2021 |orig-date=1998 |title=Post-Contact Beothuk History |url=https://www.heritage.nf.ca/articles/indigenous/beothuk-history.php |website=Newfoundland and Labrador Heritage |publisher=Memorial University of Newfoundland}}</ref> 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.<ref name="Sutherland-2000"/>

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.<ref name="Pringle-2012" /> Later dating showed that it predated the Norse arrival.<ref name="Park-2008">{{cite journal |last=Park |first=Robert W. |date=1 March 2008 |title=Contact Between the Norse Vikings and the Dorset Culture in Arctic Canada |journal=Antiquity |volume=82 |issue=315 |pages=189–198 |doi=10.1017/S0003598X0009654X}}</ref><ref name="Smith-2018">{{cite journal |last1=Smith |first1=Michèle Hayeur |last2=Smith |first2=Kevin P. |last3=Nilsen |first3=Gørill |date=August 2018 |title=Dorset, Norse, or Thule? Technological Transfers, Marine Mammal Contamination, and AMS Dating of Spun Yarn and Textiles from the Eastern Canadian Arctic |journal=Journal of Archaeological Science |volume=96 |pages=162–174 |doi=10.1016/j.jas.2018.06.005|bibcode=2018JArSc..96..162H |hdl=10037/14501 |hdl-access=free }}</ref> 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.<ref>{{cite conference |last=Pinard |first=Claude |date=2008 |title=Review of Dynamics of Northern Societies: Proceedings of the SILA/NABO Conference on Arctic and North Atlantic Archaeology. Greenland Research Centre, National Museum of Denmark, Studies in Archaeology and History Vol. 10 |volume=32 |issue=1 |pages=168–170 |journal=Canadian Journal of Archaeology |jstor=41103615 }}</ref> 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.<ref name="Fitzhugh-2000" /> 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.<ref name="Seaver-2000">{{cite book |last=Seaver |first=Kirsten A. |url=https://archive.org/details/vikingsnorthatla00fitz |title=Vikings: the North Atlantic Saga |date=2000 |publisher=Smithsonian Institution Press |editor-last=Fitzhugh |editor-first=William W. |location=Washington, DC |pages=270–279 |chapter=Unanswered Questions |editor-last2=Ward |editor-first2=Elisabeth}}</ref>

===Vinland sagas===
{{Main|Vinland|Vinland sagas}}
According to the [[Icelandic sagas]]{{mdash}}''[[Saga of Erik the Red]]'',<ref>{{cite news |last=Sephton |first=J. |date=1880 |title=The Saga of Erik the Red |url=http://sagadb.org/eiriks_saga_rauda.en |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160504211747/http://sagadb.org/eiriks_saga_rauda.en |archive-date=4 May 2016 |access-date=11 August 2010 |work=Icelandic Saga Database}}</ref> plus chapters of the ''[[Hauksbók]]'' and the ''[[Flateyjarbók|Flatey Book]]''{{mdash}}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<ref name="ROBW" /> 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 interested only 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.<ref name="ROBW" />

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".<ref name="Barnes2001"/> Helluland is generally thought to correspond to Baffin Island but may include northern areas of Labrador.<ref name="Schlederman-2000" /> Markland is generally thought to be an area in Labrador.<ref name="Schlederman-2000" /> Vinland likely includes Newfoundland and possibly other areas around the Gulf of Saint Lawrence.<ref name="Schlederman-2000">{{cite book |last=Schlederman |first=Peter |url=https://archive.org/details/vikingsnorthatla00fitz |title=Vikings: the North Atlantic Saga |date=2000 |publisher=Smithsonian Institution Press |editor-last=Fitzhugh |editor-first=William W. |location=Washington, DC |pages=189–192 |chapter=A.D. 1000: East Meets West |editor-last2=Ward |editor-first2=Elisabeth}}</ref> 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.<ref name="Sigurdsson-2000">{{cite book |last=Sigurdsson |first=Gísli |url=https://archive.org/details/vikingsnorthatla00fitz |title=Vikings: the North Atlantic Saga |date=2000 |publisher=Smithsonian Institution Press |editor-last=Fitzhugh |editor-first=William W. |location=Washington, DC |pages=232–237 |chapter=The Quest for Vinland in Saga Scholarship |editor-last2=Ward |editor-first2=Elisabeth}}</ref>

In 2019 archaeologist [[Birgitta Wallace]] wrote:
{{blockquote
|text=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.<ref name="Wallace 2019">{{cite journal |last=Wallace |first=Birgitta |date=May 2019 |title=L'anse Aux Meadows and Vinland |url=https://issuu.com/swedishpress/docs/swedish_press_may_2019_vol_90-04_is_eeee550f2e7227 |journal=Swedish Press |volume=90 |issue=4 |pages=12–15 |access-date=31 December 2024}}</ref>
}}

==Historiography==
[[File:Skálholt map 1690 copy (cropped).png|alt=map with Vinland, Greenland, and other areas shown as a parts of a large continent bordering the western and northern edges of the Atlantic, full text at link |thumb|The [[Skálholt Map]] showing Latinized Norse placenames in the North Atlantic{{efn|Latinized placenames: 
{{bulleted list
| ''Iotun-heimar'' ([[Jötunheimr]])
| ''Riseland'' (Land of the [[Risi (folklore)|Risi]])
| ''Grönlandia'' ([[Greenland]])
| ''Helleland'' ([[Helluland]])
| [[Markland]]
| ''Skrælinge Land'' (Land of the [[Skræling]])
| ''Promontorium Winlandiæ'' (Promontory of [[Vinland]])
}}}}<ref>{{cite book |last1=Campbell |first1=Gordon |title=Norse America: The Story of a Founding Myth |date=25 March 2021 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-260598-6 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RIskEAAAQBAJ |language=en}}</ref>
]]
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),<ref name="Mallet1770">{{cite book |last=Mallet |first=Paul Henri |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=K9ZCAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA282 |title=Description of the manners, &c. of the ancient Danes |date=1770 |publisher=T. Carnan and Company |volume=I |pages=282–289 |quote=Hitherto we have seen the Norwegians only making slight efforts to establish themselves in Vinland. The year after Thorstein's death proved more favourable to the design of settling a colony. |access-date=20 May 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230502033136/https://books.google.com/books?id=K9ZCAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA282 |archive-date=2 May 2023 |url-status=live}}</ref> 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.<ref name="Watts2020">{{cite book |last=Watts |first=Edward |title=Colonizing the Past: Mythmaking and Pre-Columbian Whites in Nineteenth-Century American Writing |date=2020 |publisher=University of Virginia Press |isbn=978-0-8139-4388-6 |pages=242–243 |chapter=The Norse Forefathers of the American Empire |quote=Translated to English and published on both sides of the Atlantic, Rafn's book, the interpretive  translation of the Icelandic sagas originally transcribed by Snorri Sturluson and other Skaldic poets in the fourteenth century, catalyzed a transatlantic fascination with all things Viking. This would encompass more than the expected primordial land-based fantasy of a Norse origin. It also catalyzed a more durable blood-based fabrication that pushed the American appropriation of Gothic Anglo-Saxon identity deeper into the legendary past to its fictional roots in Scandinavian Teutonism by designating Anglo-Saxonism as a subculture of Norse Teutonism. |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Thq1DwAAQBAJ&pg=PT243 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230502033136/https://books.google.com/books?id=Thq1DwAAQBAJ&pg=PT242 |archive-date=2 May 2023 |url-status=live}}</ref> North America, by the name [[Vinland|Winland]], first appeared in written sources in a work by [[Adam of Bremen]] from approximately 1075.<ref name="Whittock2018">{{cite book |last=Whittock |first=Martyn |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YbdTDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT9 |title=Tales of Valhalla |date=2018 |publisher=Simon and Schuster |isbn=978-1-68177-912-6 |page=9 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230502033137/https://books.google.com/books?id=YbdTDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT9 |archive-date=2 May 2023 |url-status=live}}</ref> 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]].<ref name="Weaver2014">{{cite book |last=Weaver |first=Jace |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=08IBAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA37 |title=The Red Atlantic: American Indigenes and the Making of the Modern World, 1000–1927 |date=2014 |publisher=UNC Press Books |isbn=978-1-4696-1439-7 |page=37 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230502033138/https://books.google.com/books?id=08IBAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA37 |archive-date=2 May 2023 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="Plank2020">{{cite book |last=Plank |first=Geoffrey |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EurkDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA5 |title=Atlantic Wars: From the Fifteenth Century to the Age of Revolution |date=2020 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-086046-2 |page=5 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230502033138/https://books.google.com/books?id=EurkDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA5 |archive-date=2 May 2023 |url-status=live}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Ingstad |first1=Helga |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Gj-I5hdpzGoC&pg=PA111 |title=The Viking Discovery of America: The Excavation of a Norse Settlement in L'Anse Aux Meadows, Newfoundland |last2=Ingstad |first2=Anne Stine |date=2001 |publisher=Breeakwater Books |isbn=978-0-8160-4716-1 |page=111 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230502033138/https://books.google.com/books?id=Gj-I5hdpzGoC&pg=PA111 |archive-date=2 May 2023 |url-status=live}}</ref>

{| class="wikitable"
|+Locations proposed
! scope="col" |Theorist
! scope="col" |Helluland
! scope="col" |Markland
! scope="col" |Vinland
|-
|[[Carl Christian Rafn]] (1837)<ref name="Sigurdsson-2000" />
|Labrador or Newfoundland
|Nova Scotia
|Cape Cod
|-
|[[Gustav Storm]] (1887)<ref name="Sigurdsson-2000" />
|Labrador
|Newfoundland
|Nova Scotia
|-
|[[William Henry Babcock]] (1913)<ref name="Sigurdsson-2000" />
|Labrador
|Newfoundland
|Nova Scotia{{efn|"Wineland seems to have been understood as beginning with [[Cape Breton Island|Cape Breton]], below the [[Cabot Strait|Strait of Cabot]], and extending a long way south ward."<ref>{{cite book |last=Babcock |first=William Henry |url=https://archive.org/details/earlynorsevisits00babcrich |title=Early Norse Visits to North America |date=1913 |publisher=Smithsonian Institution |location=Washington, DC |page=171 |oclc=918144}}</ref>}}
|-
|[[William Hovgaard]] (1914)<ref name="Sigurdsson-2000" />
|Baffin Island or Newfoundland
|Labrador or Nova Scotia
|Cape Cod area, south shore.
|-
|[[Hans Peder Steensby]] (1918)<ref name="Sigurdsson-2000" />
|Labrador
|Labrador
|New England or New Brunswick
|-
|[[G. M. Gathorne-Hardy]] (1921)<ref name="Sigurdsson-2000" />
|Labrador or Newfoundland
|Nova Scotia
|Cape Cod
|-
|[[Matthías Þórðarson]] (1929)<ref name="Sigurdsson-2000" />
|Labrador
|Labrador
|New England or New Brunswick
|-
|{{ill|Halldór Hermansson|sv|Halldór Hermannsson}}  (1936)<ref name="Sigurdsson-2000" /><ref name="Halldor-1936">{{cite book |last=Hermannsen |first=Halldor |title=The Problem of Wineland |date=1936 |publisher=Cornell University Press |series=Islandica |volume=25 |location=Ithaca, New York |pages=57–58}}</ref>
|Northern Labrador
|Southern Labrador
|New England
|-
|[[John R. Swanton]] (1947)<ref name="Swanton-1947">{{cite book |last=Swanton |first=John |url=https://repository.si.edu/bitstream/handle/10088/22829/SMC_107_Swanton_1947_12_1-81.pdf#page=50 |title=The Wineland Voyages |date=1947 |publisher=Smithsonian Institution |location=Washington, DC |pages=76–77}}</ref>
|Northern Labrador
|Southern Labrador
|New England
|-
|colspan=4|{{center|''Discovery of the L'Anse aux Meadows Viking settlement (1960)''}}
|-
|[[Tryggvi Julius Oleson|Tryggvi J. Oleson]] (1963)<ref>{{cite book |last=Oleson |first=Tryggvi J. |title=Early Voyages and Northern Approaches, The Canadian Centenary Series |date=1963 |publisher=McClelland and Steward Limited |location=Toronto |pages=6–7}}</ref>
|Baffin Island
|Labrador
|Cape Cod
|-
|Johannes Kr. Tornoe (1964)<ref>{{cite web | url=https://polarhistorie.no/personer/johannes-kristoffer-tornoe/ | title=Johannes Kristoffer Tornøe &#124; Polarhistorie }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Tornøe |first=Johannes Kristoffer |title=Early American History: Norsemen Before Columbus |date=1965 |publisher=Universitetsforlaget |location=Oslo, Norway}}</ref>
|Baffin Island
|Labrador
|Waquoit Bay, Cape Cod
|-
|[[Magnus Magnusson|M. Magnusson]] and [[Hermann Pálsson|H. Palsson]] (1965)<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Magnusson |first1=Magnus |first2=Hermann |last2=Palsson |title=The Vinland Sagas |publisher=Penguin Books |year=1965 |isbn=0-14-044154-9 |edition=12th |location=Great Britain |pages=8,42,116,118}}</ref>
|Baffin Island or northern Labrador
|Southern Labrador or Newfoundland
|New England
|-
|[[J. R. L. Anderson|John R. L. Anderson]] (1967)<ref>{{cite book |last=Anderson |first=John R.L. |url=https://archive.org/details/vinlandvoyage0000jrla |title=Vinland Voyage |date=1967 |publisher=Funk and Wagnalls |location=New York}}</ref>
|Baffin Island or northern Labrador
|Southern Labrador
|Martha's Vineyard, Mass.
|-
|[[Carl O. Sauer]] (1968)<ref>{{Cite book |last=Sauer |first=Carl O. |title=In Northern Mists |publisher=Uni. of Calif. |year=1968 |pages=100–139}}</ref>
|Baffin Island 
|Southern Labrador or Newfoundland
|Southern New England, Buzzard Bay or west.
|-
|[[Anne Stine Ingstad]] (1969)<ref name="Sigurdsson-2000" />
|Baffin Island
|Labrador
|L'Anse aux Meadows
|-
|[[Samuel Eliot Morison]] (1971)<ref name="Sigurdsson-2000" />
|Baffin Island
|Labrador
|L'Anse aux Meadows
|-
|Erik Wahlgren (1986)<ref name="Sigurdsson-2000" />
|Baffin Island
|Labrador or Newfoundland
|Bay of Fundy area
|-
|[[Birgitta Wallace|Birgitta L. Wallace]] (1991)<ref>{{cite journal |last=Wallace |first=Birgitta |date=2003 |title=The Norse in Newfoundland:: L'Anse aux Meadows and Vinland |url=https://www.academia.edu/115122261 |journal=Newfoundland and Labrador Studies |volume=19 |issue=1 |pages=39 Pages}}</ref>
|Baffin Island
|Labrador
|Newfoundland and New Brunswick
|-
|{{ill|Pall Bergthorsson|is|Páll Bergþórsson}} (1997)<ref name="Sigurdsson-2000" />
|Baffin Island
|Labrador
|Saint Lawrence Estuary
|-
|Robert Kellogg (2000)<ref>{{cite book |last=Kellogg |first=Robert |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/sagasoficelander0000unse/page/n33/mode/2up?q=%22new+england%22 |chapter=Introduction |title=The Sagas of Icelanders |date=2000 |publisher=Viking/Penguin |isbn=0-670-89040-5 |location=UK |page=xxxii |editor-last=Smiley |editor-first=Jane}}</ref>
|Baffin Island or Labrador
|Southern Labrador
|St. Lawrence Valley or New England
|}

==Pseudohistory==

While there is no physical evidence of a Norse settlements in North America except for the far east of Canada,<ref name="Rotella2007">{{cite journal |last=Rotella |first=Carlo |title=Pulp History |journal=Raritan |publisher=Rutgers University |pages=11–36 |date=Summer 2007 |volume=27 |issue=1}}</ref> other so-called discoveries have been proposed and rejected by scholars.<ref name="Kraft1989">{{cite journal |last1=Kraft |first1=Herbert C. |title=Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century Indian/White Trade Relations in the Middle Atlantic and Northeast Regions |journal=Archaeology of Eastern North America |date=1989 |volume=17 |pages=1–29 |jstor=40914304 |issn=0360-1021}}</ref> Unsubstantiated claims of Norse colonization are especially common in New England.<ref name="Crocker2020">{{cite journal |last1=Crocker |first1=Christopher |title=What We Talk about When We Talk about Vínland: History, Whiteness, Indigenous Erasure, and the Early Norse Presence in Newfoundland |journal=Canadian Journal of History |date=September 2020 |volume=55 |issue=1–2 |pages=97–98 |doi=10.3138/cjh-2019-0028 |doi-access=free }}</ref>

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.<ref name="Watts2020 2243">{{cite book |last1=Watts |first1=Edward |title=Colonizing the Past: Mythmaking and Pre-Columbian Whites in Nineteenth-Century American Writing |year=2020 |publisher=University of Virginia Press |isbn=978-0-8139-4388-6 |page=243 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Thq1DwAAQBAJ&pg=PT243 |chapter=The Norse Forefathers of the American Empire}}</ref><ref name="Kolodny-2012">{{cite book |last1=Kolodny |first1=Annette |title=In Search of First Contact |year=2012 |publisher=Duke University Press |location=Durham, NC |page=204}}</ref> Purported [[runestone]]s have been found in North America, most famously the [[Kensington Runestone]]. These are generally considered forgeries or misinterpretations of [[Petroglyph#North America|Native American petroglyphs]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Kolodny |first=Annette |author-link=Annette Kolodny |date=December 2003 |title=Fictions of American Prehistory: Indians, Archeology, and National Origin Myths |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/4/article/51011 |journal=[[American Literature (journal)|American Literature]] |volume=75 |issue=4 |pages=693–721 |doi=10.1215/00029831-75-4-693 |issn=0002-9831|url-access=subscription }}</ref> [[Gordon Campbell (scholar)|Gordon Campbell]]'s book ''Norse America'', published in 2021, presents 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.<ref name="Campbell2021">{{cite book |last1=Campbell |first1=Gordon |title=Norse America: The Story of a Founding Myth |year=2021 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-886155-3 |pages=27, 212 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pHEhEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA212 |archive-date=2 May 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230502034643/https://books.google.com/books?id=pHEhEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA212 |url-status=live}}</ref> 

Monuments claimed to be Norse include:<ref>{{Cite web |last=Klein |first=Christopher |date=23 November 2013 |title=Uncovering New England's Viking connections |url=https://www.bostonglobe.com/lifestyle/travel/2013/11/23/uncovering-new-england-viking-connections/JhxUdp7xvwZK8DjxqQ9cFO/story.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210125084907/https://www.bostonglobe.com/lifestyle/travel/2013/11/23/uncovering-new-england-viking-connections/JhxUdp7xvwZK8DjxqQ9cFO/story.html |archive-date=25 January 2021 |website=[[The Boston Globe]]}}</ref>
* [[Newport Tower (Rhode Island)|Stone Tower]] in [[Newport, Rhode Island]]
* [[Viking Altar Rock]]
* [[Spirit Pond runestones]]
* [[AVM Runestone]]
* [[Hammer of Thor (monument)]]
* [[Bourne Stone]]
* [[Narragansett Runestone]]
* [[Maine penny]]
* [[Ulen sword]]
* [[Beardmore Relics]]
* [[Oklahoma runestones]]
* The [[petroglyphs]] on [[Dighton Rock]], from the [[Taunton River]] in [[Massachusetts]]

=== Kensington Runestone ===
{{main|Kensington Runestone}}
[[File:KensingtonStone.jpg|thumb|upright=1.1|The [[Kensington Runestone]] on display in the Alexandria Chamber of Commerce and Runestone Museum.]]
In late 1898, Swedish immigrant Olof Öhman said he found a sandstone slab covered in runes in [[Kensington, Minnesota]].<ref name="Campbell2021173">{{cite book |last1=Campbell |first1=Gordon |title=Norse America: The Story of a Founding Myth |year=2021 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-886155-3 |page=173 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pHEhEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA173 |archive-date=2 May 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230502034643/https://books.google.com/books?id=pHEhEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA173 |url-status=live}}</ref> 
According to Öhman, the stone was buried face-down and tangled in the roots beneath an aspen tree.<ref name="Edwards-2020" /> [[Olaus J. Breda]] (1853–1916), professor of Scandinavian Languages and Literature in the Scandinavian Department at the [[University of Minnesota]] analyzed the inscriptions, found the rune-stone to be a forgery, and published a discrediting article in ''[[Symra]]'' in 1910.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Breda |first=Olaus |date=1910 |title=Kensington-stenen |pages=65–80 |work=Symra}}</ref> 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".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Blegen |first=Theodore Christian |title=The Kensington rune stone; new light on an old riddle |date=1968 |publisher=Minnesota Historical Society |isbn=0-87351-044-5 |location=St. Paul |oclc=190744}}</ref> Modern geological analysis indicates that runes were carved shortly before the stone's "discovery". There is very little weathering to the characters, and it is noticeably less weathered than nineteenth-century tombstones in the area.<ref name="Edwards-2020">{{cite journal |last1=Edwards |first1=Harold |title=The Kensington Runestone: Geological Evidence of a Hoax |journal=The Minnesota Archaeologist |date=1 January 2020 |volume=77 |pages=6–40}}</ref>

===Horsford's Norumbega===
{{main|Eben Norton Horsford#Viking}}
The nineteenth-century Harvard chemist [[Eben Norton Horsford]] connected the [[Charles River]] Basin to places described in the [[Norse saga]]s and elsewhere, notably [[Norumbega]].<ref name="Fleming1995">{{cite journal |author=Robin Fleming |title=Picturesque History and the Medieval in Nineteenth-Century America |journal=The American Historical Review |volume=100 |issue=4 |pages=1079–1082 |year=1995 |jstor=2168201 |doi=10.1086/ahr/100.4.1061 |author-link=Robin Fleming}}</ref> He published several books on the topic and had plaques, monuments, and statues erected in honor of the Norse.<ref>{{cite book |author1=Eben Norton Horsford |author2=Edward Henry Clement |title=The discovery of the ancient city of Norumbega: A communication to the president and council of the American Geographical Society at their special session in Watertown, November 21, 1889 |url=https://archive.org/details/discoveryancien00yorkgoog |year=1890 |publisher=Houghton, Mifflin |page=[https://archive.org/details/discoveryancien00yorkgoog/page/n22 14]}}</ref> His work received little support from mainstream historians and archeologists at the time, and even less today.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Williams |first=Stephen |url=https://archive.org/details/fantasticarchaeo00will |title=Fantastic Archaeology: The Wild Side of North American Prehistory |date=1991 |publisher=[[University of Pennsylvania Press]] |isbn=978-0-8122-8238-2 |location=Philadelphia |url-access=registration}}</ref><ref>Gloria Polizzotti Greis {{cite web |url=http://greisnet.com/needhist.nsf/VikingsontheCharles?OpenPage |title=Vikings on the Charles or The Strange Saga of Dighton Rock, Norumbega, and Rumford Double-Acting Baking Powder |access-date=18 February 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110716041144/http://greisnet.com/needhist.nsf/VikingsontheCharles?OpenPage |archive-date=16 July 2011}}. Needham Historical Society</ref>

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]].<ref>{{cite magazine |last=Regal |first=Brian |date=November–December 2019 |title=Everything Means Something in Viking |magazine=[[Skeptical Inquirer]] |publisher=[[Center for Inquiry]] |volume=43 |issue=6 |pages=44–47}}</ref>

=== Vinland Map ===
{{Main|Vinland Map}}
[[File:Vinland Map HiRes.jpg|thumb|[[Vinland Map|Vinland map]]|upright=1.1]]

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.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Cummings |first=Mike |date=1 September 2021 |title=Analysis unlocks secret of the Vinland Map — it's a fake |url=https://news.yale.edu/2021/09/01/analysis-unlocks-secret-vinland-map-its-fake |access-date=25 April 2022 |website=YaleNews |language=en |archive-date=15 September 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210915094955/https://news.yale.edu/2021/09/01/analysis-unlocks-secret-vinland-map-its-fake |url-status=live}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Yuhas |first=Alan |date=30 September 2021 |title=Yale Says Its Vinland Map, Once Called a Medieval Treasure, Is Fake |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/30/us/yale-vinland-map-fake.html |access-date=14 December 2021 |issn=0362-4331 |archive-date=21 November 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211121140732/https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/30/us/yale-vinland-map-fake.html |url-status=live}}</ref>


==See also==
* [[Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact theories]]
* [[Vestri Obygdir]]
* [[History of Greenland]]
* [[Gunnbjörn's skerries]]
* [[History of Nunavut]]
* [[History of Newfoundland]]
* [[Danish colonization of the Americas|Danish-Norwegian colonization of the Americas]]
* [[Leif Erikson Day]]
* [[List of North American settlements by year of foundation]]
* [[Akilineq]]
* [[Wonderstrands]]
* [[Vinland flag]]
* [[White Amazonian Indians]]

==Notes==
{{notelist}}

==References==
{{reflist}}

==External links==
{{commons category|Norse colonization of the Americas}}
* [https://parks.canada.ca/lhn-nhs/nl/meadows L'Anse aux Meadows National Historic Site], Parks Canada website
* [http://www.heritage.nf.ca/articles/exploration/norse-north-atlantic.php ''The Norse in the North Atlantic''], Newfoundland and Labrador Heritage website
* [https://archives-manuscripts.dartmouth.edu/repositories/2/resources/1123 Freda Harold Research Papers] at Dartmouth College Library
{{Norse exploration of the Americas}}
{{Canadian colonies}}
{{European Colonization of North America}}
{{Germanic peoples}}
{{Polar exploration|state=collapsed}}
{{Greenland topics}}
{{Pre-Columbian North America}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Norse Colonization Of The Americas}}
[[Category:Norse colonization of North America| ]]
[[Category:Populated places established in the 10th century]]
[[Category:10th century in North America]]
[[Category:15th century in North America]]