Gone Medieval - Vikings in North America

Episode Date: November 9, 2021

Five centuries before Christopher Columbus set foot in America, the Vikings had already crossed the Atlantic. Using new dating techniques, scientists studying timber buildings at L’Anse aux Meadows on the northern tip of Canada’s Newfoundland, have established the Norse settled in AD 1021, 471 years before Columbus’s first voyage. While it’s already known the Vikings landed in North America, exactly when they settled has remained an estimate, until now. Cat was joined by Dan Snow to speak to archaeologist Birgitta Wallace about this breakthrough research: discover how a long-ago Solar storm provided vital information for the study, the significance of the date, and what's left to be discovered in the future. You can read more about the evidence here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From long-loss Viking ships and kings buried in unexpected places to tales of murder, power, faith, and the lives of ordinary people across medieval Europe and beyond. Join me, Matt Lewis, Dr. Eleanor Jarniger, and some of the world's leading historians as we bring history's most fascinating stories to life, only on history hit. With your subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries

with a brand-new release every week exploring everything from the ancient world, to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com forward slash subscribe. Hello and welcome to Gone Medieval. I'm Dr. Kat Jarman. Now, you're likely to have caught the big news the other week that a brand new method of dating has, for the very first time, being able to pin down an exact date for the Viking presence in North America at the Lonsommeadow site in Canada. This was possible because the method identifies spikes in radiocarbon concentrations caused by solar flares in the

the atmosphere in the past that are locked into organic artefacts. Now, we've known about the presence of Vikings in North America for several decades because archaeological discoveries first made in the 1960s located a settlement there. This seemed to back up the sagas that described travels from Greenland to this mysterious territory called Vineland. And now the new dating technique has been able to pinpoint a precise date for the settlement of 1021, so exactly a thousand years ago. Today's episode is a little bit different as it is a crossover between gone medieval and Dan Snow's history hit.

Because to find out more about Viking North America, Dan and I both wanted to talk to the rather legendary archaeologist, Begitta Wallace, who, working largely for Parks Canada, was in charge of the excavations at Lonsa Meadows from the 1970s onwards. We had a brilliant conversation and I hope you all enjoy it. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Thank you very much for inviting me. It's great to have you on talking about this exciting discovery. Yes, it is. It's very unusual to get anything absolutely precise in archaeology.

Yeah, I mean, this is really something that's taken the world by storm, hasn't it, for so many reasons. So, yeah, we'd love to hear a bit more about it. Yes, well, I'm only an archaeologist, so I do not understand all the science behind it. But it's an really interesting discovery that every so often there is solar activity that affects the radiocarbon in trees. And that affects the tree rings. And the year 993, 94, had a period of solar activity that was unusual, very unusual. and it affected tree growth in the entire world. And it's reflected in the tree rings.

The tree rings will show a spike. They form a sharp peak. And it becomes very distinctive in tree rings. And if you know that this happened in 993-94, you can use it for dating. If you have a piece of wood with, bark and it's cut and you can see the tree rings. If you can identify this one tree ring, you then can count the rings from the bark in. And you know that that particular tree ring is

from 993-94, then you can just count the rings out to the bark. And if you have 14 more rings and you just add that to 993-94 and you get the date when that tree was fell. And of course that is very useful. You've been very modest and said you're just the archaeologist but as the archaeologist, you must be thrilled when the scientists deliver evidence like this to you because it must confirm lots of things that you believe about this site. Yes, from the archaeology we have decided with Lanzomero's site which was chosen to test this new method because the site had already been dated roughly to the late 10th

century, early 11th century. We knew that from it we have a large number of radio carbon dates but they were not precise although radio carbon days over the years we have been using them have become much more accurate or have less error more than before but We certainly did not have an exact date for the site. So when Margot Q-Tum's, and I apologize for my pronunciation of her site, I cannot do it in Dutch, which is quite different. When she and her co-worker Michael D.

came to us and said they would like to see if we could get an exact date on Transomero's. I was very excited. And it's exciting for so many reasons, isn't it? So I mean, obviously the methods in itself is exciting. But should we just backtrack a bit to the site itself and why it's interesting? So this really is the only known and excavated Viking sites in North America. And you, really, one of the main people to have excavated it. So can you tell us a little bit, what was actually discovered there, just sort of to go back to the beginning? Well, it made quite a splash in menus when Helge Eng started.

the Norwegian Hege Innsdard in 1960, he founded in 1960, declared that he had found the north sites. And the excavation began there. But it's located on the northernmost tip of Newfoundland at the top of the long peninsula in an area which in the 1960s was quite remote. I mean, there was no road in. When I came there, I had to walk in the first time. So there was a lot of skepticism. Not so strangely, because for a couple of hundred years, people had been looking for this particular north site since we have textual references to North people from Greenland coming to North America. Yeah, that's from the sagas, isn't it? Yes. So the sagas describe this Vineland, which nobody quite knew where it was.

Exactly. I mean, there are descriptions in the sagas, how they sailed from Greenland and South. The sagas are deceptibly accurate in their descriptions of things. So people have become sure of yes, it's there or there, and it varied from Labrador down to the Washington area. when everybody using the same text. So there was a lot of disbelief in what Helga Instahl had found. Yeah, so we had these sagas describing this Vineland, and then in the 60s this discovery is being made,

and he was claiming that this was it, this was the same sites. Yes. And what they found were eight buildings, and these buildings form three complexes, each consisting of a big hall and a smaller building right beside it. And it's on the shore of a bay looking out towards Labrador. And the buildings, architecturally, you can see immediately that they are the same type as you find in Iceland and Greenland in the early 11th century. They are built of sod over a wooden frame.

And the whole farm there are very large. They can dream about 30 people each. But there was disbelief because no other professionals had gone there. It was so difficult and so remote that people didn't bother even checking out. But eventually it was recognized that, yes, this really is a noisite. And then you got involved a little after that, didn't you, in the excavations? Yes, I worked with Eingstads a couple of summers, and then the site became a national historic site of Canada. And a committee was formed with Eyingstads as the head of it to see how they could develop it the way Parks Canada usually does, prepare it for visitors and so forth.

And they found out that there was many questions that still remained unanswered. For instance, how long were they there? And what did they do? How did they interact with the indignious population? Because there are indignant sites there as well. And so the committee recommended further excavations. But unfortunately, Anestini Insta did not want to lead those. So a Swedish archaeologist by the name of Engchenbeck was called in to continue lead excavations.

he asked me to become an assistant there, and I was. At the time I was working at a museum, at Carnegie Museum on Natural History in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. So I was far away, but the museum's economy for the fieldwork. Then after three years, in Schoenbe, returned to Sweden, and more excavations was needed. So at that time, it fell into my hands. At that time, I became the director for the archaeology of it. That was a pretty amazing thing to be part of, really, wasn't it? Yes, and it so happened, too, that in 1975, for personal reasons, I wanted to leave Pittsburgh.

And Parscanada offered me a job as archaeologists for the Atlantic region of Parske Canada. And Los Medos came under that. So it became part of what I did for Parscanada. I just wanted to highlight another bit of podcasting that I've been up to this week. For any anime fans out there, or if you like me and don't know much about anime, but you're interested in the Vikings, I've appeared on the podcast Animator Z from Prime Video to talk about the show Vinland Saga, which is an anime show all about Vikings.

If you want to listen, just find Animator Z wherever you normally find your podcasts. Here's a little snippet of the conversation I had with host Shaylingo and Beck Hill. Joining us on Animator Z to provide some historical context is archaeologist, author and broadcaster, Kat Jarman. Hi! So before you school us in The Way of the Viking, we know you just published a book recently called River Kings. Can you tell us a little bit more about Way Explos? Yeah, so River Kings is trying to be a little bit of a new way of looking at the Vikings, really, and I'm trying to just bring all the new and exciting evidence that we know,

because obviously we've been interested in the Vikings for hundreds of years. but in the last decade or so there's so much new science, there's new things like DNA, stuff free of can tease out of bones and new discoveries. So it's completely and radically changed our view of the Vikings. And we now know so much more about the global reach of them. So it's not just the story of going to the West and raiding England, all the traditional stories, but it's actually one that stretches all the way to the east and to the Silk Road.

So that's really what the book is about. That's awesome. Actually, that leads me to ask because this episode, of Vinland Saga is set in 1013. I don't even know how you'd say that. 130? 1013 is good. 1013?

Yeah, it's from an archaeologist, it's correct. So can you tell us a little bit about what Vikings were like at that actual time? Yeah, so that's an interesting time because it's actually towards the end of the Viking Age. The Viking Age typically, we say ends in about 1066 with a normal invasion. So it's been going on for more than 300 years. So the Vikings are kind of old news by then. And actually it's sort of changed quite a lot. We see them at the beginning, at the end of the 8th century,

is the sort of first appearance of these people that we end up calling the Vikings who really are just Scandinavians going out and abroad. But by this point, in 1013, they've pretty much reached as far as they can reach. So they've gone extremely far to the west, to the south and to the east. And in England, especially, which I know that this particular epitaph, about. They are just a part of the fabric really. They've been here for several hundred years. They've settled, so you get Scandinavians, especially in the north and east. You actually have what later become known as the Dane Law, so you get this division in almost half of England.

That's essentially Scandinavian territory. And the impact is just huge. So things like English language has so many words, things like Sky, Knife and Egg. These are all Viking words, basically, that come from that. A Viking word. Yeah. So they've had this huge, big impact, really. But also there's this big transformation going on in the Viking Age. So Scandinavia has gone from being all these tiny little kingdoms

and lots of little sort of kings with small territories to developing into the countries of Norway, Sweden and Denmark. That only really happens around the year thousand. So this is all quite new. And that is actually of importance for what happens in 1013. I'm always struck by its position geographically. It's perfect for crews moving from Greenland down into the eastern seaboard. And there's a hint, isn't there?

There's a hint that Norse people did go further south. But is it the butternuts that you found? Yes. After one excavation, I took all the seeds and handed to a botanist. And asked him, can you identify them? And also are they natural to the region? And he said, there were everything, it's exactly what you expect, except for these darn butternuts. What are they doing there?

And that, of course, sent me searching for where do they grow? And so it happens that the northernmost limit for butternuts is in northeast and New Brunswick. But the nuts, there are three of them. Unfortunately, we haven't been able to radio carbon dating because the DNA also has. more or less disappeared over time. But they were found in context with a Norse artefacts. We knew that they had come there with the Norse. And that opened up the whole new window, what the site was about.

Do you think we'll ever find sites to the further south into either New Brunswick, the Maritime provinces or even into New England? Do you think that's the dream? It's the dream, but I really doubt it. For one thing, I don't think we will find any trace of them in the area where I think they went and got the butternuts, which is the Miramichi-Chalur Bay area on New Brunswick, because you had a handful of people there for a couple of months, probably living in tents and boothy or just temporary north dwellings where you build the walls, but don't bother with it. roof, but you add a 10 cloth or so to cover them instead. As for more sites than Lansom Meadows,

when you know now that the initial period of the Greenland colony didn't have more than about 4 to 500 people. And Lansom Meadows is very big. It would have been able to room anywhere between 60 to 90 people. That's a big proportion of the entire colony in Greenland. And especially as the type of artifacts we founded on some meadows are primarily of male nature. It's hard work like iron making, carpentry, and boat repair. Then you don't expect people to have had energy to go and build and other side of the same nature. Kat, it's so amazing, isn't it, listen to Brigitte here,

because you're someone who specialises in the Vikings going east all the way into Central Asia, and now we're talking about the very furthest westernmost point of that Norse expansion as well. So it's a very special thing for you, I imagine. It really is for both of us.

Yes, it is. It's because I ended up in the Western hemisphere. And I know from my DNA, I'm 14% Norwegian, so there. It is really remarkable. I think it shows that westernmost that you've been looking at and the easternmost that I'm looking at. But it's quite similar because a lot of these are quite temporary because what you've been describing is this, they're quite temporary settlements, aren't there? They're not sort of permanent colonies. And I think we see that in so many other parts. We see that early stages in England and we see it in the east as well. They're sort of temporary camps for specific reasons, which I think is quite remarkable over that distance.

And can you say a little bit more about the reason for this settlement? I mean, the reason for Lanzomeros' existence is, I think, it's not colonization. It is exploration of what would be useful to use in Greenland, because it was a new settlement in Greenland in a completely different environment in Iceland. So they had to change their lifestyle to some extent. And also they knew here were avalanche and let's see what's there. So it's just an exploration. But it was not a possibility to actually expand as colonists all the way there.

It was too far away from the mother country. So do we know then? I mean, is that the reason, do you think, that it was so short term that distance? Why did it not last? Why did they not stay unsettle? If a Greenland colony was too small to split up further, to found a settlement, we know from the later colonization, it takes 3 to 400 people. And especially when you found a new settlement where there is, you can't go to a store and buy things. You have to start completely from the beginning, even with herds, with cattle, with sheep.

You have to build them up. You can't transport a huge herd of sheep or cattle. in Viking ships. You have to be modest at the beginning and expand them. So there were sort of natural limits then, I suppose. Yes, but you could also see the usefulness of finding another area where you have, for instance, street growth, since Greenland did not have that to any extent. And that would have been useful. And I do think they kept contact with the areas, north of Lanzumeroz, in the closer ones, like Labrador, that has big forests.

Yeah. And in the sagas, one interesting aspect is the interaction between the indigenous population and these incomers. And you said that that was one of the things that you'd wanted to look into as well. Is that something that we know anything about? Yes. At Lonsomeros, I think we know that they did not encounter indignant people there. As far as we can tell from the relatively rough radiocarbon datings we have, there were no indignious people there between around 850 and 1,200, except one little really tempting piece, a little arrowhead that could be from the time of the nose. But it was found inside one of the turpoles.

And we don't know if it was. shot into that or if it was simply in the turf when the doors came there because that's a possibility as well. Can you give us a sense, us soft British people, give us a sense of what winter is like in Enso Meadow or what it was like in the 11th century? What do we think the climate would have been like for months on end? It would have been slightly warmer than let's say in the 1970s. Now, of course, We are approaching that again. And today, winters can be, have a lot of snow, but he certainly wouldn't have had more snow than in Greenland.

They would have been used to the environment there. It's very similar to that of Iceland. Winters are not terribly cold, and summers are short. They were used to that from both Iceland and Greenland. But we have one interesting fact, and that is if the temperatures had been 1.5 to 2 degrees warmer, there may not have been snow there at all. The winter of 1990, the overall winter there was warmer. So there was no snow at Lanzo Meadows at all. If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn't believe it.

So that could have been the case in the early thousands. One thing that nobody's found there, there's no sign of any burials, is there? So there's no cemetery, there's nothing like that. So we don't have evidence for any of the people who came there and really who they were. No. We searched high enough for that. There are air photos, via foot inventories. And we fought we found one, one of the early years there.

And we began digging. He had worked for about two or three days. When the caretaker of the site, a local person by the name of Lloyd Decker, son of a man who had led Hengenstot of his site, came and sat down on the low turf wall and said, hmm, I see you are digging my turnip garden. Ah, so not quite. Because they had walled gardens, the little walls were of turf. So, so much for some archaeologists. But no, and if they had been there a long time, I think we would have found barriers. That's one of the many indicators.

It was very short. So we've got this big news that's just come out. Are you excited? There's going to be more. Are we going to be learning about also meadow for years to come? Probably. And the whole site, there have been so many little pieces of information coming, and everyone has just added one little fact to it.

And we now have a fairly food story, but we'll probably have more sometime. Kat, we need to get out there. We need to get out there and do some looking. Yeah, I think we do. We'll help the search. Yes, well, a group from Memorial University of Newfoundland is going to do some more. beginning this summer. So we'll see. That's very exciting.

Very, very exciting. And obviously, Kat, we will be covering this. Every time anyone finds anything to do with the Norse Vikings, you can listen to history here because we will be covering it, that's for sure. We're upset with it. Yes, absolutely. Well, thank you so much for joining us. Yes, thank you. My pleasure.

That brings us to the end of today's episode with me and Dan Snow. That was Spagita Wallace talking about the new dating of the Viking presence in North America. Thanks so much for listening to Gone Medieval. Please remember to subscribe if you haven't already and tune in again next week.