New Viking Site in North America

The Vikings were the first Europeans to reach North America, more than 1000 years ago. The Vikings established settlements and traded with indigenous people in North America for about 400 years, finally abandoning the continent less than 100 years before Columbus’ voyage.

The story of the Vikings’ exploits in North America provides not only additional context to the history of human exploration, but also matches ideally to the study of the Geography of North America, as the names used by the Vikings for areas in North America provide a perfect match to the biomes in these regions.

Long consigned to the realms of myth within Norse sagas, the first archaeological evidence of the truth of the old stories of “Vinland” (Newfoundland) was uncovered by a Norwegian archaeologist in 1960. In recent years archaeologists have uncovered yet more evidence of Viking settlements in North America. OpenSTEM is delighted to share this story of how satellite technology is assisting this process, as we publish our own resource on the Vikings in North America.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/01/science/vikings-archaeology-north-america-newfoundland.html

The site was identified last summer after satellite images showed possible man-made shapes under discoloured vegetation on the Newfoundland coast.