Big Space Discovery of Viking Settlement
Vikings have been chronicled for centuries, tales of a Viking warrior who was evicted from his home as a punishment for killing a man. He sailed to an icy island in the sea with hundreds of other followers. After a few years, his son set out to find an even distant place, Vinland, that the historians today believe make up the eastern coast of Canada and United States.
"Typically in archaeology, you only ever get to write a footnote in the history books, but what we seem to have at Point Rosee may be the beginning of an entirely new chapter," archaeologist Sara Parcak tells the BBC.
Lead archaeologist, Parcak, uses images obtained from a satellite positioned 400 miles above the Earth to reveal, what looks like, the evidence that Vikings traveled much deeper into North America than they were known to be. Using similar process, Parcak has already discovered 17 pyramids, 3,000 neglected settlements and a 1,000 tombs. However, this discovery could change the way we looked at the Vikings of North America.
The first and the only Viking Settlement ever discovered in North America was back in 1960 at L'Anse Aux Meadows in Newfoundland. The site revealed by Parcak is located 300 miles southwest of Point Rosee. Her suspicion was confirmed as she hiked through the forests and bogs to the site of patterns and discolorations spotted in satellite images. All it took was a bit of digging to unveil Viking-style turf walls, scraps of iron ore and fire cracked stone.
"Either it's ... an entirely new culture that looks exactly like the Norse," Parcak said, "or it's the westernmost Norse site that's ever been discovered." This also means that there could be many more sites that are yet to be discovered as Vikings traveled deep into North America, hundreds of years before Columbus arrived at its shores. A hiker also found a 1200-year old Viking sword.
