Editing Vinland (section)

===L'Anse aux Meadows===

[[File:Authentic Viking recreation.jpg|thumb|Viking colonization site at L'Anse-aux-Meadows, Newfoundland]]
[[File:Carlb-ansemeadows-vinland-02.jpg|thumb|L'Anse-aux-Meadows]]
Newfoundland marine insurance agent and historian William A. Munn (1864–1939), after studying literary sources in Europe, suggested in his 1914 book ''Location of Helluland, Markland & Vinland from the Icelandic Sagas'' that the Vinland explorers "went ashore at Lancey {{sic}} Meadows, as it is called to-day".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Munn |first1=William A. |title=Location of Helluland, Markland, and Vinland from the Icelandic Sagas |date=1914 |publisher=Gazette Print |location=[[St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador|St. John's, Newfoundland]] |page=11 |url=https://archive.org/details/locationofhellul00munn/page/n3/mode/2up |access-date=18 April 2020 }}</ref> In 1960, the remains of a small Norse encampment<ref name="Parks Canada 2018"/> were discovered by [[Helge Ingstad|Helge]] and [[Anne Stine Ingstad]] at that exact spot, [[L'Anse aux Meadows]] in northern Newfoundland, and excavated during the 1960s and 1970s. It is most likely this was the main settlement of the sagas, a "gateway" for the Norse Greenlanders to the rich lands farther south. Many wooden objects were found at L'Anse aux Meadows, and radiocarbon dating confirms the site's occupation as being confined to a short period around 1000 CE. In addition, small pieces of [[jasper]], known to have been used in the Norse world as [[Fire striker|fire-strikers]], were found in and around the different buildings. When these were analyzed and compared with samples from jasper sources around the North Atlantic area, it was found that two buildings contained only Icelandic jasper pieces, while another contained some from Greenland; a single piece from the east coast of Newfoundland was found. These finds appear to confirm the saga claim that some Vinland exploration ships came from Iceland and that they ventured down the east coast of the new land.<ref>[http://www.canadianmysteries.ca/sites/vinland/lanseauxmeadows/ancillary/4071en.html Where is Vinland: L'Anse aux Meadows] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304051432/http://www.canadianmysteries.ca/sites/vinland/lanseauxmeadows/ancillary/4071en.html |date=4 March 2016 }} at canadianmysteries.ca</ref> In 2021, wood from the site was shown to have been cut in 1021, using metal blades, which the local Indigenous people did not have.<ref>{{Cite news|last=Dunham|first=Will|date=2021-10-20|title=Goodbye, Columbus: Vikings crossed the Atlantic 1,000 years ago|language=en|work=Reuters|url=https://www.reuters.com/lifestyle/science/goodbye-columbus-vikings-crossed-atlantic-1000-years-ago-2021-10-20/|access-date=2021-10-21}}</ref>

Although it is now generally accepted that L'Anse aux Meadows was the main base of the Norse explorers,<ref>{{cite magazine |last=Regal |first=Brian |date=November–December 2019 |title=Everything Means Something in Viking |magazine=[[Skeptical Inquirer]] |publisher=[[Center for Inquiry]] |volume=43 |issue=6 |pages=44–47}}</ref> the southernmost limit of Norse exploration remains a subject of intense speculation. [[Gustav Storm]] (1887) and [[Joseph Fischer (cartographer)|Joseph Fischer]] (1902) both suggested [[Cape Breton]]; [[Samuel Eliot Morison]] (1971) the southern part of Newfoundland; Erik Wahlgren (1986) [[Miramichi Bay]] in [[New Brunswick]]; and Icelandic climate specialist Pall Bergthorsson (1997) proposed [[New York City]].<ref>Gisli Sigurdsson, "The Quest for Vinland in Saga Scholarship", in William Fitzhugh & Elizabeth Ward (Eds.) ''Vikings: the North Atlantic Saga'', Washington DC, [[Smithsonian Institution]] (2000) {{ISBN|1-56098-995-5}}</ref> The insistence in all the main historical sources that grapes were found in Vinland suggests that the explorers ventured at least to the south side of the [[St. Lawrence River]], as [[Jacques Cartier]] did 500 years later, finding both wild vines and nut trees.<ref>{{cite book |last=Cartier |first=Jacques |title=Voyage de J. Cartier au Canada |year=1863 |url=https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/12356 }}</ref> Three butternuts were found at L'Anse aux Meadows, another species which grows only as far north as the St. Lawrence.<ref name="Vinland"/><ref>[http://www.sof.eomf.on.ca/Ecosystem_Condition_and_Productivity/Biotic/Case_Studies/Diseases/Butternut_Canker/Documents/sr_butternut_e.pdf.pdf COSEWIC report on Juglans cinerea (butternut) in Canada]{{Dead link|date=August 2019 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}{{year needed|date=January 2015}}{{dead link|date=January 2015}}</ref>

The vinviðir (wine wood) the Norse were cutting down in the sagas may refer to the vines of ''[[Vitis riparia]]'', a species of wild grape that grows on trees. As the Norse were searching for [[lumber]], a material that was needed in Greenland, they found trees covered with ''Vitis riparia'' south of L'Anse aux Meadows and called them vinviðir.<ref name="Wallace"/>
<!--It should be remembered regional [[climate change]], such as the [[Medieval Warm Period]] and the [[Little Ice Age]], complicates conclusions derived from the Norsemen's observations of vegetation. It should also be kept in mind adding "complications" to Wikipedia by hand-waving rather than by citing secondary literature is itself a "complication".-->

L'Anse Aux Meadows was a small and short-lived encampment;<ref name="Parks Canada 2018"/> perhaps it was primarily used for timber-gathering forays and boat repair, rather than permanent settlements like those in Greenland.<ref>Frakes, Jerold C., “Vikings, Vínland and the Discourse of Eurocentrism.” The Journal of English and Germanic Philology 100, no. 2 (April, 2001):197</ref>