© Shutterstock
A thousand years ago, long before Columbus crossed the Atlantic, the Vikings were already in America. This is evidenced by new research just published in the scientific journal temper nature.
It was already clear that the Vikings crossed the Atlantic Ocean once, because eight wooden buildings were found on the Canadian island of Newfoundland. It was covered with plants and stood on a balcony on top of a swamp and a stream. The buildings housed, among other things, a boat repair shop, a blacksmith’s workshop, and a carpentry workshop.
© Shutterstock
New research now sheds light on the fact that the Vikings arrived exactly a thousand years ago, in 1021, 471 years before Christopher Columbus’ first voyage to the New World. For this extraordinary discovery, a new radiocarbon dating technique was used, using a solar storm as a reference point. This disrupted the carbon-14 content in the atmosphere, so the year rings could be read in the wood from whatever year they came from.
The research was conducted by an international team of Canadian, German and Dutch researchers. “These northern Europeans were the first to cross the Atlantic,” says Michael De of the University of Groningen, who led the study. “This is a huge achievement.”
