View From Space Hints at a New Viking Site in North America

[Viggen]

Amazing if true!

 

A thousand years after the Vikings braved the icy seas from Greenland to the New World in search of timber and plunder, satellite technology has found intriguing evidence of a long-elusive prize in archaeology — a second Norse settlement in North America, further south than ever known.

The new Canadian site, with telltale signs of iron-working, was discovered last summer after infrared images from 400 miles in space showed possible man-made shapes under discolored vegetation. The site is on the southwest coast of Newfoundland, about 300 miles south of L’Anse aux Meadows, the first and so far only confirmed Viking settlement in North America, discovered in 1960.

 

via Ny Times

[caesar novus]

I can't get the NYT to display, so found http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/03/160331-viking-discovery-north-america-canada-archaeology/ which also lists a documentary at the bottom. That Sarah archeo person was scheduled to lecture near my home a week ago, but cancelled.

Edited April 1, 2016 by caesar novus

[caldrail]

It could get more amazing still. There are consistent, if somewhat implausible, interpretations of central/south American myth that might suggest Viking explorers had travelled a great deal further. That would be extraordinary if found to be true.

 

Nonetheless, reaching America cannot have been a walk in the park. A recent living history experiment had a replica Viking ship rowed by volunteers from Norway to Ireland. They suffered terribly from sea-sickness, arriving looking wet, miserable, and much the worse for having to make running repairs to their quite fragile vessel in Atlantic swell. The real Vikings must have been a hardy lot but I also believe their voyages were not as care free as history or popular image tends to suggest.