# 2nd Viking site possibly located in Newfoundland , Canada



## RCO (Apr 1, 2016)

*Discovery Could Rewrite History of Vikings in New World*







Guided by ancient Norse sagas and modern satellite images, searchers discover what may be North America's second Viking site.

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Archaeologists have unearthed a stone hearth that was used for iron-working, hundreds of miles away from the only other known Viking site in North America.

 Photograph by Robert Clark, National Geographic



                                                    By *Mark Strauss*

PUBLISHED March 31, 2016



POINT ROSEE, CanadaIt’s a two-mile trudge through forested, swampy ground to reach Point Rosee, a narrow, windswept peninsula stretching from southern Newfoundland into the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Last June, a team of archaeologists was drawn to this remote part of Canada by a modern-day treasure map: satellite imagery revealing ground features that could be evidence of past human activity.



The treasure they discovered here—a stone hearth used for working iron—could rewrite the early history of North America and aid the search for lost Viking settlements described in Norse sagas centuries ago.

To date, the only confirmed Viking site in the New World is L’Anse aux Meadows, a thousand-year-old way station discovered in 1960 on the northern tip of Newfoundland. It was a temporary settlement, abandoned after just a few years, and archaeologists have spent the past half-century searching for elusive signs of other Norse expeditions.

“The sagas suggest a short period of activity and a very brief and failed colonization attempt,” says Douglas Bolender, an archaeologist specializing in Norse settlements. “L’Anse aux Meadows fits well with that story but is only one site. Point Rosee could reinforce that story or completely change it if the dating is different from L’Anse aux Meadows. We could end up with a much longer period of Norse activity in the New World.”




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The site of the discovery, hundreds of miles south of L’Anse aux Meadows, was located by archaeologist Sarah Parcak, a National Geographic Fellow and “space archaeologist” who has used satellite imagery to locate lost Egyptian cities, temples, and tombs.

Last November, TED awarded Parcak a $1 million prize to develop a project to discover and monitor ancient sites. This latest discovery in Newfoundland—supported, in part, by a grant from the National Geographic Society—demonstrates that her space-based surveillance can not only spy out artifacts in barren desert landscapes, but also in regions covered by tall grasses and other plant life.

Parcak led a team of archaeologists to Point Rosee last summer to conduct a “test excavation,” a small-scale dig to search for initial evidence that the site merits further study. The scientists unearthed an iron-working hearth partially surrounded by the remains of what appears to have been a turf wall.


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The archaeologists don’t yet have enough evidence to confirm that Vikings built the hearth. Other peoples lived in Newfoundland centuries ago, including Native Americans and Basque fisherman. But experts are cautiously optimistic.

“A site like Point Rosee has the potential to reveal what that initial wave of Norse colonization looked like not only for Newfoundland but for the rest of the North Atlantic,” says Bolender.








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Sarah Parcak, a "space archaeologist," has used satellite imagery to locate lost Egyptian cities, temples, and tombs. And now, her eyes in the sky are searching for Viking settlements in Canada.

 Photograph by Robert Clark, National Geographic







*Location, Location, Location*

_ 


http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/03/160331-viking-discovery-north-america-canada-archaeology/_


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## RCO (Apr 1, 2016)

_Who’s your daddy_?!?” Parcak shouts at the ground as her muddy boot pushes down on a shovel, cutting its way through thick turf to the soil beneath. It’s a joyous sound, the primal yell of an archaeologist in her natural habitat, doing fieldwork. “Digging makes us better people,” she tells me.Parcak is far afield of her usual stomping grounds in Egypt. But this project has clearly captivated her imagination, drawing her into Viking history and lore.

One afternoon, we cautiously make our way down a steep path—created by a small landslide and gully—to a narrow beach. As we stroll along the shoreline, Parcak speculates on why this tiny peninsula would have made an ideal Norse outpost.

“They were quite nervous about their safety, threats by locals,” she says. “They needed to be in a place where they could have good access to the beaches but also a good vantage point. This spot is ideally situated—you can see to the north, west, and south.”

After studying the area and researching prior land surveys, the archaeologists have identified other characteristics that would have made Point Rosee an optimum site for Norse settlers: The southern coastline of the peninsula has relatively few submerged rocks, allowing for anchoring or even beaching ships; the climate and soil in the region is especially well-suited for growing crops; there’s ample fishing on the coast and game animals inland; and there are lots of useful natural resources, such as chert for making stone tools and turf for building housing.


[h=6]On the Channel
[/h]



 

Watch 'The Story of God With Morgan Freeman' on Sunday, April 3, at 9/8c on the National Geographic Channel 




[h=2]*Iron Men*[/h]
And then, of course, there was the most valuable resource of all: bog iron. It’s a type of ore that forms when rivers carry dissolved particles of iron down from mountains and into wetlands, where bacteria leach the iron from the water, leaving behind metal deposits.

The Norse didn’t do much mining. Most of their iron was harvested from peat bogs, and their very way of life depended upon it. Metal nails held their ships together as they sailed west—expanding their realm across the North Atlantic—and south, establishing trade routes throughout Europe and the Far East. A modern-day reconstruction of a Norse longship, built by the Viking Ship Museum in Denmark, required 7,000 nails made from 880 pounds (400 kg) of iron—which means that a blacksmith would have had to heat and process 30 tons of raw bog iron ore.

Bog iron prospectors knew what telltale signs to look for, such as an oily looking microbial slick on the surface of stagnant water. In fact, three historians authored a study making the case that iron was a prerequisite for Viking settlements. L’Anse aux Meadows, they observe, was a site used for iron production and ship maintenance, providing evidence “that the explorers, knowing their ships needed repair, actively sought out a location where they could acquire bog iron and produce new nails.”

[h=2]*Searching For Signs*[/h]

Up until now, Parcak has predominantly used her eyes in the sky to gaze upon Egypt, where she has been able to spot geological anomalies that indicate the presence of ruins beneath the barren, mostly undisturbed sands.


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## RCO (Apr 1, 2016)

A satellite image of Point Rosee used by archaeologist Sarah Parcak in her search for Viking settlements. Dark straight lines indicate the remains of possible structures.

 Satellie image by Digitalglobe



But, whereas the ancient Egyptians left behind stone edifices that have endured for thousands of years, Viking structures were hewn mostly from wood and earth. So when Parcak uses satellite imagery to search for signs of Norse settlers, she’s not looking for actual ruins. Instead, she’s scrutinizing the plant life.

The remnants of structures buried at Point Rosee alter the surrounding soil, changing the amount of moisture it retains. This, in turn, affects the vegetation growing directly over it. Using remote sensing, variations in plant growth form a spectral outline of what was there centuries earlier. The Point Rosee images were taken during the fall, when the grasses in the area were particularly high, making it easier to see which plants were healthier, drinking more water from the soil.

In one area, a magnetometer survey reveals a hot spot that, according to the satellite imagery, is partially surrounded by straight lines indicating the possible ruins of a small structure. Excavation reveals the remains of what appear to be turf walls and an iron-working hearth.

To an untrained eye, the hearth doesn’t look like much: a boulder in front of a shallow pit, surrounded by smaller stones. But traces of charcoal and 28 pounds of slag found in the pit suggest to the archaeologists that this hearth was used for roasting ore.








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The archaeologists found 28 pounds of slag in a hearth that they believe was used to roast iron ore prior to smelting it in a furnace.

 Photograph by Robert Clark, National Geographic

This was the first step in the iron-working process. Before the metal could be smelted and forged by a blacksmith, the ore needed to be dried out—otherwise, it would explode when placed inside a furnace. The roasting process also removed some of the impurities, in the form of discarded metal slag.

The discovery of this hearth makes Point Rosee the southernmost and westernmost known iron-working site in pre-Columbian North America.

[h=2]*The Stuff of Legends*[/h]

Was Point Rosee a Viking outpost a thousand or so years ago? The evidence thus far is promising. The turf structure that partially surrounds the hearth is nothing like the shelters built by indigenous peoples who lived in Newfoundland at the time, nor by Basque fishermen and whalers who arrived in the 16th century. And, while iron slag may be fairly generic, “there aren’t any known cultures—prehistoric or modern—that would have been mining and roasting bog iron ore in Newfoundland other than the Norse,” says Bolender.

Very few artifacts have been found at Point Rosee, but that’s actually a good sign. Most Norse possessions haven’t preserved well; they were typically made from wood, which decayed, or iron, which either decayed or was melted down to make something else. Archaeologists conducted seven excavations at L’Anse aux Meadows, from 1961 to 1968, before they had sufficient evidence to confirm it was a Norse outpost. And even then they found only a handful of personal items, such as a bronze pin, a needle hone, and a stone lamp. If the archaeologists had found many artifacts at Point Rosee, then it probably wouldn’t be a Viking site.


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## RCO (Apr 1, 2016)

Enlarge                                                                                                             Archaeologists conducted a "test excavation" in Newfoundland—a small-scale dig to search for initial evidence that the site merits further study. They were successful.

 Photograph by Robert Clark, National Geographic




One theory is that Point Rosee was primarily an iron-working camp, a temporary facility supporting exploration and exploitation of resources within the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Bolender, however, believes it might have been part of a more substantial settlement somewhere in the vicinity.

If so, then how does this discovery fit into history’s bigger picture?

Much of what we know about the Norse exploration of North America is gleaned from the Viking sagas, oral stories passed down across generations that were eventually transcribed.

“We’re looking here because of the sagas,” says Bolender. “Nobody would have ever found L’Anse aux Meadows if it weren’t for the sagas. But, the flipside is that we have no idea how reliable they are.”

Archaeologists have found sporadic evidence suggestive of Viking explorers who traveled beyond their settlements in Greenland. Artifacts from the 11th century, including a copper coin, were discovered in Maine, possibly obtained by Native Americans who traded with the Norse. Canadian archaeologist Patricia Sutherland has found ruins on Baffin Island, far above the Arctic Circle, which she claims were a trading outpost—though the evidence remains inconclusive. (Read about Sutherland’s discovery.)

The confirmed discovery of a Norse camp at L’Anse aux Meadows proved that the Viking sagas weren’t entirely fiction. A second settlement at Point Rosee would suggest that the Norse exploration of the region wasn’t a limited undertaking, and that archaeologists should expand their search for evidence of other settlements, built 500 years before the arrival of Christopher Columbus.

“For a long time, serious North Atlantic archaeologists have largely ignored the idea of looking for Norse sites in coastal Canada because there was no real method for doing so,” says Bolender. “If Sarah Parcak can find one Norse site using satellites, then there’s a reasonable chance that you can use the same method to find more, if they exist. If Point Rosee is Norse, it may open up coastal Canada to a whole new era of research.”

_“Vikings Unearthed" premiers on Monday, April 4, on BBC One (at 8:30 p.m. in the U.K.) and streams online at 3:30 p.m. ET at pbs.org/nova. The "NOVA: Vikings Unearthed" U.S. broadcast premiere will take place on Wednesday, April 6 at 9 pm ET/8C on PBS. _


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## RCO (Apr 1, 2016)

sorry the article was really long and though it had some good info in it , never been to newfoundland myself , was in nova scotia once years ago . the fact there is already a confirmed Viking site in northern newfoundland , it shouldn't be a big surprise that there might be others in other parts of the region , considering how much time has passed and the modern developments on the east coast , one would suspect its going to be difficult to find more of these sites


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## CreekWalker (Apr 1, 2016)

I read a version of this article on MSN today, this one is much more detailed. Interesting stuff! Thanks.


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## RCO (Apr 2, 2016)

CreekWalker said:


> I read a version of this article on MSN today, this one is much more detailed. Interesting stuff! Thanks.



a lot of articles on this came out yesterday , somehow it had managed to go unreported even in Canada till then . nothing had come out about this . there had been nothing published anywhere about people looking for Viking settlements on the east coast .  

from reading the article it sounds like there about 90% certain this is a Viking outpost but waiting for final confirmation . but if its not Viking I couldn't see who else it would be ? the natives didn't make iron and it appears way too old to have been an old farm or semi modern fishing outpost .


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## Bass Assassin (Apr 2, 2016)

Great post and thanks for sharing. Love this stuff


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## CanadianBottles (Apr 2, 2016)

This is the first I've seen detailed information on it, and yes it certainly does look like a Viking site.  I'd be very surprised to hear it was anything else.  Exciting to think what else they might be able to find with that technology.

I wouldn't worry too much about development on the coast, apart from the area around St. John's Newfoundland is still largely undeveloped.  It has the population of Hamilton distributed throughout a province the size of Germany, so there's still lots of space left.  Nova Scotia is much more developed, and Nova Scotia is still largely rural.


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## myersdiggers1998 (Apr 3, 2016)

Amazing post , please keep us updated on new info.


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## RCO (Apr 3, 2016)

CanadianBottles said:


> This is the first I've seen detailed information on it, and yes it certainly does look like a Viking site.  I'd be very surprised to hear it was anything else.  Exciting to think what else they might be able to find with that technology.
> 
> I wouldn't worry too much about development on the coast, apart from the area around St. John's Newfoundland is still largely undeveloped.  It has the population of Hamilton distributed throughout a province the size of Germany, so there's still lots of space left.  Nova Scotia is much more developed, and Nova Scotia is still largely rural.



looking thru my every growing pile of books , I also have a book on the Vikings in Canada I acquired a couple years ago , westward Vikings , its mostly about L’Anse aux Meadows but has a lot about other areas they suspect they visited in Canada , they suspect " vineland " was parts of newfoundland and new Brunswick / st Lawrence river areas of eastern Canada and not new England as some have speculated . 
they also mention it was highly likely they visited other sites along the coast other than L'Anse aux meadows but it would be very difficult to ever find those locations now and unlikely they lived at them , the location of this new find would fit into the area they suspected the Vikings had been active in at that time


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## RCO (Apr 7, 2016)

from watching the TV on PBS last night that showed more about the Vikings and this site , I was left thinking they still need to find a bit more to prove it was a site used by the Vikings . they haven't really found any artifacts yet and radiocarbon dating unconclusive , the east coast of Canada was also used by many different groups by 1500's-1800's such as French , british and Spanish settlers and fishermen making identification of a site more difficult unless a specific artifact is found . I still think it could be Viking but they need to find that smoking gun to prove it is .


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## RCO (Apr 18, 2016)

*Searching for the Vikings: 3 Sites Possibly Found in Canada*

        by Owen  Jarus, Live Science Contributor   |   April 18, 2016 08:19am ET     



                                             Another possible Viking site, located at a place called Point Rosee in southern Newfoundland, was discovered using satellite imagery. 
Credit: Image courtesy Point Rosee Project                                           View full size image

                   Three archaeological sites that may have been used by Vikings around 1,000 years ago were excavated recently in Canada.
    If confirmed, the discoveries would add to the single known Viking settlement in the New World, located at L'Anse aux Meadows on the northern tip of Newfoundland. Excavated in the 1960s, that Viking outpost was used for a short period of time around 1,000 years agoas well.
    Sagas from the time of the Vikings tell tales of their journeys into the New World, mentioning places named "Helluland" (widely believed to be modern-day Baffin Island), "Markland" (widely believed to be Labrador) and "Vinland," which is a more mysterious location that some archaeologists have argued could be Newfoundland. [See Photos of the Newfound Viking Sites] 




    Even so, pinpointing actual Viking remains or other clues of Viking settlements has been difficult, making the three sites — two in Newfoundland and the other in the Arctic — intriguing to archaeologists.
*Point Rosee*
    Sarah Parcak, a professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and her colleagues spotted the so-called Point Rosee site in southern Newfoundland while scanning satellite imagery, and announced their discovery a few weeks ago.
    The team found what may be a hearth used to roast bog iron, as well as a structure, of some type, made with turf. Radiocarbon dating suggests that the site was used sometime between the ninth and 13th centuries.
    These finds, the researchers say, suggest that Vikings may have used the site, though more dating information and excavation are needed to confirm that idea, they said. Additionally, even if it is a Viking site, it's uncertain how long the Vikings lived there.
    "I think that all of us would be in agreement in urging you to relay the preliminary nature of the findings — the unconfirmed cultural and period affiliations," said team co-director Gregory Mumford, who is also a professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
*Sop's Arm*
    Another possible Viking site turned up after archaeologists investigated a series of peculiar holes in a small town called Sop's Arm near White Bay, about 120 miles (200 kilometers) south of L'Anse aux Meadows. Archaeologists say that these "pitfalls," which have been known to exist near the town, would have been used to trap large animals, such as caribou. [Fierce Fighters: 7 Secrets of Viking Seamen]















               The possible bog iron roasting hearth can be seen beside the structure made of turf at Point Rosee.
Credit: 1-    Photo courtesy Gregory MumfordView full size image



    In 1961, Helge Ingstad, the archaeologist who would excavate L'Anse aux Meadows, was guided to the pitfalls by a local man named Watson Budden. Ingstad thought it was likely that the Vikings had constructed the holes, but he didn't excavate them.
    In 2010, archaeologists surveyed and excavated the pitfalls. They found that the pitfalls form a 269-foot-long (82 meters) system that lies in an almost straight line, the team wrote in an article published in the journal Acta Archaeologica in 2012. Each of the pits is about 23 to 33 feet (7 to 10 m) long and about 5 to 7.5 feet (1.5 to 2.3 m) deep.
    Perhaps the Vikings drove animals toward the pits, where they would have fallen in and been killed, said Kevin Mcaleese, a curator of archaeology and ethnology at the Provincial Museum of Newfoundland and Labrador. The team did find stones inside the pitfalls that could have injured animals that had fallen inside. However, the archaeologists didn't find any artifacts and were unable to obtain clear radiocarbon dates for the pits.
    "No Newfoundland and Labrador aboriginal group or archaeological culture is known in historic times or in ancient times to have regularly trapped animals with pitfalls," Mcaleese said. "I am developing a research plan for the site and area, but have not yet secured funds."
    Kent Budden, nephew of Watson Budden, collected a number of what he suspects are Norse artifacts from the Sop's Arm area, including an iron ax and other iron artifacts, as well as a stone that has what could be a serpent carved into it.
    Kent Budden died in 2008, and his brother Owen Budden showed photographs of the artifacts to Live Science. (Before he died, Kent Budden also gave a presentation of the collection, which can now be seen on YouTube.)
    Mcaleese said he is not very familiar with the collection. "What I have seen does not appear to be Norse, and my colleagues think similarly," he said.


http://www.livescience.com/54439-three-possible-viking-outposts-discovered.html


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## RCO (Apr 18, 2016)

*Nanook *	The Vikings also may have settled, at least for a bit, in Nanook on Baffin Island. Researchers recently discovered the remains of a building that may have been constructed by the Vikings and artifacts that may have been used in metalworking. Among the artifacts was a stone crucible that may "represent the earliest evidence of high-temperature nonferrous metalworking in the New World north of Mesoamerica," wrote a team of archaeologists in a paper published in 2014 in the journal Geoarchaeology.
	A structure that may have been used by the Vikings was in the process of being excavated in 2012, when lead archaeologist Patricia Sutherland was abruptly fired from the Canadian Museum of Civilization (now called the Canadian Museum of History) and the excavations were terminated. 
	Many Canadian archaeologists condemned Sutherland's abrupt termination and the decision to end the project. They noted that the Canadian government, which owned the museum and funded her project, proceeded to pour millions of dollars into locating and excavating a ship destroyed in 1847 during the ill-fated Franklin expedition. This expedition, led by Sir John Franklin, aimed to find a sea route through the Canadian Arctic between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. The expedition ended with the death of Franklin and his crew.
	This funding decision led to accusations that the federal government favored research into British remains over those of the Vikings. In 2015, a new federal government was elected, but it remains unknown whether it will fund new research at the Nanook site.
*Where is Vinland? *
	One of the mysteries that researchers have been trying to solve is the location of a place that the Viking sagas call "Vinland" (wine land). Historical texts describe a place where grapes and timber could be found. [In Photos: Viking Voyage Discovered]
	Famed Viking explorer Leif Ericson is said to have led an expedition to Vinland. The sagas say that Ericson was so impressed by what he found that he told his crew that, "from now on, we have two jobs on our hands: On one day, we shall gather grapes, and on the next, we shall cut grapevines and chop down the trees to make a cargo for my ship." The stories, as translated by Einar Haugen in the 1942 book "Voyages to Vinland: The First American Saga," go on to say that "Leif gave this country a name to suit its resources: He called it Vinland."
	Grapes don't grow as far north as Newfoundland, leaving some researchers to speculate that Vinland is located farther south, possibly around New Brunswick, Nova Scotia or Maine. Others think that Newfoundland is Vinland and that the "grapes" could refer to wild berries, which are found in abundance in Newfoundland.
	So far, no potential Viking sites have been discovered south of Newfoundland, although a coin, minted in Norway between A.D. 1065 and 1080, was discovered in Maine in 1957 by an amateur archaeologist at a Native American site. How the coin arrived at that site is a mystery.
_Follow_ _Live Science __@livescience__, __Facebook_ _& __Google+__. __Original article on __Live Science_.

http://www.livescience.com/54439-three-possible-viking-outposts-discovered.html


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