Microscopic psychoanalysis of Mrs. Henry Wood suggests that Norse multitude in Greenland were using quality that came from North America over 700 years ago . The research isfurther evidencethat Viking sailors were make contact with the east coast of North America long before Christopher Columbus “ discovered the New World " in 1492 CE .
Archaeologist Lísabet Guðmundsdóttir from the University of Iceland examine the wood from five Norse sites across westerly Greenland that were engage between 1000 and 1400 CE . Looking at the cellular structure of the wood , Guðmundsdóttir note how some of the lumber came from trees that are n’t native to Greenland or even Northern Europe , such as Jack true pine that ’s found east of the Rocky Mountains in Canada .
“ These finding spotlight the fact that Norse Greenlanders had the way , cognition , and appropriate vessel to crossbreed the Davis Strait to the east coast of North America , at least up until the fourteenth 100 . As such , journeying were being made from Greenland to North America throughout the totality of the period of Norse settlement in Greenland , and resourcefulness were being acquired by the Norse from North America for far longer than previously think , ” the study concludes .
Some of the medieval timber samples that were analyzed in this new study. Image credit: L Guðmundsdóttir
With its Arctic climate and sparse landscape , Greenland was not exactly abundant in resources need for a thriving medieval culture . According to a 13th - century Norwegian text call Konungsskuggsjá , “ everything that is needed to ameliorate the Din Land must be purchased afield , both iron and all the timber used in build up houses . ”
diachronic records have long intimate that chivalric Norse Greenlandic society ( 985–1450 CE ) imported timber from the Americas , but this is some of the first scientific evidence to back up the claim . This latest subject field on lumber suggests that these epical journeying were perhaps made with the desire to hunt for resources .
This is not the first grounds thatVikingstraveled to or had contact with the Americas before Columbus though . Norwegian sagas , like Grænlendinga saga and Eiríks saga rauða , for example , distinguish journeys between Greenland to the North American east sea-coast as early as 1000 CE .
There issturdy evidenceto back up this idea . Texts from 14th - century Italy speak of Norsemenmaking direct contactwith a place called Markland , thought to be part of the Labrador coast in Canada .
As for knockout evidence of Norse settlements in North America , archeologists in the 1960s excavate a Viking village on the island of Newfoundland that go out to approximately 1,000 years ago . Known as theL’Anse aux Meadows , it ’s widely consider to be the earliest evidence of European presence in North America . Sorry , Columbus .
The study is published in the journalAntiquity .
