The Viking Discovery of America: The Excavation of a Norse Settlement in L'Anse Aux Meadows, NewfoundlandDriven from their Greenland home by crowded and harsh conditions, a bold group of Vikings set sail in search of freedom and better lands. With incredible luck, skill, and fortitude, they persevered and discovered a place with a profusion of wood, wild game, and fertile soil. The sagas, or narratives, that grew from this discovery bestowed on the lands a name that resonated with hope and promise - Vinland. Intrigued almost 1,000 years later by allusions in the ancient sagas of fabled Vinland, a husband-and-wife team pooled their considerable talents and skills to solve one of history's greatest puzzles. They considered the scholarship on Viking culture and technology, studied maps, and researched intensively the prominent theories on Vinland's location. Finally their efforts bore fruit when a remote Newfoundland peninsula yielded a soapstone spindle-whorl, a Viking ring pin and what were unmistakably the overgrown remnants of more than a dozen Viking buildings. The amazing revelation overturned centuries of historical conjecture and proved that Columbus's discovery of America had been scooped more than four centuries before he was born. The Viking Discovery of America brings to life the true tale of a voyage once thought impossible. The detailed account presented here entwines fascinating details about Viking shipbuilding, navigation, culture and lifestyle together with an in-depth exploration of the detective process used by the authors to bring the truth to light. |
