When the Vikings discovered America. Geographic discoveries of the Vikings

In the far north in the Middle Ages lived no less brave sailors - the Vikings. They once inhabited the entire Scandinavian coast. But as the population grew and arable land there were less and less left, many of them began to go south on their ships, capable of sailing on the high seas.
They called the ship a sea animal, a serpent or a dragon, because the bow and stern were decorated with huge carved dragon heads. Some of the Vikings were engaged in robbery and terrified with their cruelty, others, known as the Normans, moved to the north-east of France, to the east coast of England, to Sicily and the secluded islands of Iceland in search of new lands.
Between 900 and 930 Viking Gunnbjorn set off on a campaign west through Iceland. He met only rocky islands and land completely covered with ice. Having heard about this campaign, the Icelander Eirik, nicknamed the Red because of the fiery red hair, with a team of 32 people set off in 982 in search of a new country.
True, not entirely voluntary. In a quarrel, he killed two people and was exiled from Iceland for three years. Eirik managed to discover the island, rounding the southern tip of which, he founded two colonies on the western coast. He called this land Greenland (Green Country) in the hope that this name would attract new settlers.
Indeed, in just a few years there were already 3,000 inhabitants. Geographically, Greenland belongs to North America. Thus, Eirik the Red discovered New World 500 years before Columbus.
Around 986, a merchant, on his way from Iceland to Greenland, lost his way and ended up on the southwestern coast of a flat and wooded land. In search of this land fifteen years later, as the Greenlanders' Saga tells, the Viking Leif, the son of Eirik, later nicknamed the Happy, set out. There were 35 other people with him.
First, the travelers reached the shores of Baffin Island, a barren land they called Helluland. Then, heading south, a few days later they saw forested hills and white sandbanks in front of them - most likely Labrador.
Further south, they discovered the small island of Bell Isle and Newfoundland. The northerners who sailed from Greenland were delighted with the rich green meadows and rivers rich in fish. They even found wild grapes there and called this land Grape Country - Vinland.
The following year, brother Leiva Thorvald undertook a series of new journeys, during which he had to fight with the Indians - the Vikings called them "skrelings", and Thorvald died, struck down by their arrow. Despite this, another attempt was made to establish a colony here, however, due to the endless war with the Indians, the Vikings were forced to retreat and return home three years later.
In Greenland, the conditions for survival were too harsh. In the XIII century, it got colder, besides, Eskimo raids began, and by the end of the XV century, the last of the settlers died here. As a result, the discovery of America by the Vikings did not leave a significant mark on world history.

The real discoverer of America in the United States is not Christopher Columbus, but the Viking Leif Ericsson. Every year on October 9, this event is celebrated in the country. The material traces of Leif in the New World - a bronze pin and a soapstone whorl - were unearthed in Canada in the 60s of the XX century by the Norwegian adventurer, vagabond and writer Helge Ingstad.
More than a thousand years ago, the ancient Scandinavians settled the Faroe and Orkney Islands, Iceland, and then the southern Greenland . You can read more about what mysteries exist regarding the Greenlandic settlements of the ancient Vikings in this detailed article . In short, the Norman colony in Greenland existed for about 400-500 years, and then, for unknown reasons, disappeared.
Archaeological excavations in Greenland, Danish scientists began in the 20s of the last century. At the same time, the possibility of voyages of the Greenlandic Vikings to America began to be seriously discussed - fortunately, southwestern Greenland was separated from Baffin Island in the New World by the Davis Strait, about 350-450 kilometers wide. However, Europeans knew about the possible colonization of America by the Vikings much earlier - when information appeared about the mysterious country of Vinland (Country of Grapes).


Ruins of a Norman church in Greenland
Vinland localization problem seriously engaged from the beginning of the 18th century, just after the Icelandic sagas were published, primarily the Greenlanders Saga and the Saga of Eric the Red, which spoke of the campaigns of the Scandinavians in the mysterious country of Vinland. However, for the next 250 years, no one was able to locate this country. This was no wonder, because the sagas themselves did not contain extremely precise indications in this regard. As for traces material culture Scandinavians in North America, the situation with them was even sadder: several finds (the famous Kensington stone, a fragment of a Norwegian coin, a fragment of a bronze balance beam, etc.) caused controversy, as a result of which the finds were considered falsified.
Only in 1960 did the Norwegian explorer, ethnographer, adventurer and writer Helge Ingstad (1899-2001), who was no less popular in his homeland than Thor Heyerdahl, well known to Soviet citizens, managed to make a breakthrough comparable to the discovery of Troy by Heinrich Schliemann - he discovered on northern tip Newfoundland, near the village of Lance-au-Meadows, the remains of a settlement that was then recognized as Norman. In fact, Ingstad found a needle in a haystack - to find the remains of a relatively small settlement of a thousand years ago, without a clear geographic reference, as any archaeologist knows, is a completely non-trivial task.
This find, recognized in 1964 by political level in the USA, and also - not without a scratch, however, in the scientific community of North America, subsequently caused a lot of skeptical questions. And, oddly enough, it convinced local historians and archaeologists even more that the problems of Vinland should be approached as carefully as possible. This is probably why, over the past half century, no other scientifically convincing evidence of Viking visits to the New World has been found in North America.
What do we know from the sagas

Most full information about the travels of the Normans to Vinland is contained in the sagas. It was on the sagas that Helge Ingstad based himself in his search ancient settlement Vikings in the New World.
In the middle of the 20th century, it was established that the oldest document of the two works is the Greenlanders' Saga, while the Eric the Red Saga is later. Scholars from Iceland have established that the first was written down in the middle of the 12th century (reached in a list dating from the end of the 14th century), and the second only in the 13th century (preserved in two manuscripts of the 14th and 15th centuries). When comparing the texts of these legends, it is clear that despite general information about the campaigns of the Normans in Vinland, the particulars and details of these travels vary greatly. For example, according to the Greenlanders Saga, there were five trips to Vinland (Country of Grapes): these are the voyages of the Vikings Bjarni Heruljafsson, Leif Eriksson (the son of Erik the Red, the first colonist of Greenland), the voyage of his brother Thorvald Eriksson, the voyage of Thorfinn Karlsevne and the voyage of Freydis Eriksdottir (sisters Leif) with the Icelanders Helgi and Finnbogi. According to the "Saga of Eric the Red" there were only two voyages (Leif Eriksson and Thorfinn Karslavna).
The information in the sagas about the number of participants in the voyages varies. Completely different information is contained in them and about the key message - the name of the area. The fact is that the Normans gave names to the discovered areas in America according to their external characteristics: Heluland - the country of stones, Markland - the country of forests, Vinland - the country of grapes. The Greenlanders Saga says that Leif Eriksson had a German Türkir on the ship, who discovered the grapes.
In principle, it makes no sense to list all the discrepancies between the two sources. It is only worth mentioning that neither the Greenlanders' Saga nor the Eric's Saga give clear geographical indications of the location of the country of Vines. To be completely correct, in the sagas only General characteristics terrain - glaciers, stone plains, forests, meadows. The only exception is the reference in the Greenlanders' Saga to the latitude of Vinland:
“The days here are not as varied in length as they are in Greenland or Iceland. At the darkest time of the year, the sun was in the sky at a quarter of a day after noon and a quarter of a day before it.
Or, in another, more accurate translation:
“The day was more even than in Greenland and Iceland. On the day of the winter solstice, the sun had eiktarstad and dagmolostad.
What is eiktarstad and dagmolostad is still not really clear. Attempts by researchers to interpret this information according to their ideas gave Vinland coordinates between 36 and 51 latitudes in the northern hemisphere. Such a gigantic spread made finding the settlement of the ancient Norwegians almost unrealistic. It is also worth noting that the ancient Vikings are believed to have been able to determine latitudes with varying degrees of error, but in Europe the first tables that allow one to calculate latitudes with sufficient accuracy appeared only in the 15th century. These tables - "Ephemerides", were published in 1472 in Nuremberg by the mathematician Regiomontanus.
Accordingly, most researchers believed that the Vikings sailed far south along the east coast of North America:
This diagram shows that the Normans could have sailed as far as present-day Boston.

In this diagram, Vinland is also not in Newfoundland, but much to the south.
Recorded travels of the Normans


Canadian-reconstructed Norman settlement in Newfoundland
1. So, the first expedition that landed on American soil, according to the sagas, was led by Leif Eriksson (we will not take Bjarni Heruljafsson into account, because he did not moor to the shore, but saw him only from afar). The composition of the expedition - 1 ship (purchased from Heruljafsson), 36 people (including Leif himself). Travelers reached a stream that flows into the sea, climbed itto the lakeand dug their own dugouts. Then they decided to spend the winter and built« big houses» (possibly Scandinavian "long houses" - longhouse). Eric's Saga mentions that the Vikings discovered wild wheat and grapes in Vinland. After wintering there, Leif loaded the ship with wood and grapes, and sailed back to Greenland. During his stay in Vinland, he and his men carried out reconnaissance of the area.
2. After some time, Leif's brother Torvald went to Vinland (apparently, the gap was small) (on Eric's ship). The composition of the expedition - 1 ship, 31 people, including Torvald. The expedition spent more than three years in America, and Leif's houses were its base. During this time, the Vikings undertook several campaigns through the local territory. During a campaign in the second year of his stay in Vinland, in a skirmish with Screlings - probably Indians or Eskimos, Thorvald died from their arrows. He was buried in America. There is no information about other losses, as well as about the construction of new houses by the Vikings.
3. The journey of Thorstein Eriksson. Leif's younger brother decided to find his brother's body, and on Leif's ship he went to sea. The composition of the expedition - 1 ship, 27 people (20 people according to the "Saga of Eric"), including Thorstein and his wife Gudrid. However, due to storms, the Vikings did not manage to reach Vinland and they wintered in the West Norman settlement in Greenland, where most of of them died of disease.
4. The journey of Thorfinn Karslafne, a wealthy Norwegian. He married Thorstein's widow, Gudrid, and a year after her return from the Western Settlement, he undertook an expedition to Vinland. According to the Greenlanders Saga, the expedition included 67 people (60 men and 5 women), as well as Thorfinn himself and Gudrid. According to the Saga of Eric, there were over 150 Normans. They took cattle (oxen, cows) with them, as they intended to settle in Vinland. As the Greenlanders Saga says, they settled in houses built by Leif Eriksson.
Let's look at these events from the point of view of the "Eric Saga". She says that Thorfinn's expedition first wintered in some other place:
They sent ships to the fjord. At its mouth lay an island, around which there were strong currents. They named it Otok. There were so many birds on it that it was hard not to step on their eggs. They entered the fjord and named it Otochny Fjord. Here they carried their luggage ashore and settled. They had all kinds of cattle with them, and they began to explore what the country was rich in. There were mountains and the countryside was beautiful. They were only engaged in scouting the region. grew everywhere high grass. They hibernated there.
The winter was severe, and they did not store anything in the summer. Food became bad, and fishing and hunting failed. They moved to the island in the hope that there would be better fishing there or something would be washed ashore. The next summer they sailed south: Karlsefni sailed south along the coast, and with him Snorri, Bjarni and others. They sailed for a long time and finally came to the river, which flowed into the lake, and then into the sea.
There were large sandbanks at the mouth of the river, so that it could only be entered at high tide. Karlsefni and his men entered the mouth and named the place Ozerko. Here they found fields of self-sown wheat in the lowlands and vine all over the hills. All streams teemed with fish. They dug holes where land and sea met, and when the sea receded, there was halibut in the holes. There were many animals in the forest.
Here the Vikings discovered eight boats of Skrelings (i.e., there is a retelling of Thorvald Eriksson's journey). The Normans built several houses near the lake. There is no point in retelling the “Saga of Eric” further, we only note that two Normans who died in the battle with the Skrelings are mentioned there. Subsequently, the Normans visited Markland, where they captured two natives and, after several years of living in America, left it.
The Greenlanders Saga tells a little differently about the life of this expedition in North America. In the second year of the Vikings' stay in Vinland, the Skrelings came to them, with whom trade was begun. However, for a number of reasons, it turned into a war:
Then the Screlings took off the luggage from their shoulders, untied the bales and began to offer their goods. In exchange, they asked for weapons, but Karlsefni forbade his men from selling weapons. This is what he came up with: he ordered the women to take out the milk ospreys, and when they saw them, the Screlings no longer wanted anything else. Thus ended the trade of the Skrelings, that they carried away their purchases in their stomachs, and their bales and furs remained with Karlsefni and his people.After that, Karlsefni ordered to build around the houses a strong fence, and they settled inside her ... But suddenly there was a terrible roar, and the woman disappeared, and at that very moment one of Karlsephia's people killed a Skreling who was trying to steal some kind of weapon. Then the Screlings rushed to run as fast as they could, leaving clothes and goods ... We need to think of something, says Karlsefni, because they will probably come to us for the third time, and this time with hostile intentions and in large numbers. Here's what we'll do: let ten men go to the cape and be seen there, and let the others go into the forest and cut a clearing there where we can keep our cattle when the skrelings come out of the forest. And we will let our bull go before us.
Where they were going to fight the skrelings one side was a lake, and on the other - the forest. They did everything as Karlsefni planned, and the skrelings came out just where he wanted to give them a fight. A battle ensued, and many Skrelings were slain. Among them, one stood out, he was tall and handsome, and Karlsefni decided that this must be their leader. A skreling picked up an ax from the ground, examined it, and then swung it at one of his own and struck. This one immediately dropped dead. Then that tall skreling took the axe, examined it, and threw it with all his might into the sea. Then the Screlings rushed as fast as they could into the forest, and the battle was over.
The Karslafni expedition spent almost three years in Vinland and returned. Norman casualties are not reported, but it is unlikely that no one died in the battle with the Skrelings (it is possible that the expedition of Thorvald and Karlsefni was the same).

Fence of a reconstructed Viking settlement in Canada
5. Journey of Freydis Eriksdottir (daughter of Erik the Red and sister of Leif Eriksson). A year after Torfin returned to Greenland, she and two Icelandic brothers, Finnbogi and Helgi, went to Vinland. The composition of the expedition - two ships and 65 men, not counting women, as well as leaders - Freydis and two Icelanders. The latter built their house next to Leif's houses. The wintering ended badly - at the instigation of Freydis, both Icelanders and all their people (that is, over 30 people, including women) were killed. After wintering, Freydis and her men set sail from Greenland.
All of the above travels of the Normans to America are considered reliable. It is not difficult to see that the motivation of the Vikings, their goals in Vinland are not entirely clear. modern people. They could not and did not want to fix mutual language with the natives, for some reason refused to colonize these territories, which looked more attractive than the southwestern coast of Greenland, where even in the era of a small climatic optimum, spring lasted 3 weeks, and summer - 2 months.
The sagas acknowledge that the expeditions were based at Leif's original camp (although according to the Eric Saga they founded new settlements). There is information about the construction of new houses only in relation to the Freydis expedition, but, most likely, Thorfinn's expedition also built them. The settlement, capable of accommodating up to one and a half hundred people (the size of Thorfinn's expedition), was located, apparently, onlakeside, which had to be reached by the river. The minimum period of time for the functioning of the village is8 years, and taking into account the intervals between expeditions -maximum 15 years. Around the settlement wasfence built, perhaps, something like tyna.
It is also known that in Americaseveral dozen Normans died. If the head of the second party, Thorvald, was buried far from the village, then the Normans from Thorfinn’s detachment, who died in a collision with the Skrelings, as well as the people from Iceland killed by Freydis, were probably buried near the village.
We know that in the vicinity of the village there was a battle with the Screlings. In addition, there is information that Karlsevne had cattle (cows and bulls, possibly sheep), the fate of which is not known. All these facts will be useful to us later.
Where were the grapes?
It follows from the sagas that the settlement of the ancient Vikings could not be large in area. At best, it was a settlement with an area of ​​several hundred square meters. Finding the remains of such a settlement on a coast hundreds and even thousands of kilometers long - since researchers include territories from Labrador to almost the Carolinas in the search area - is almost impossible. Yes, and traces of him over the past thousand years should not have remained.
Therefore, when the question of the location of Vinland was first raised at the beginning of the 18th century, researchers literally wandered in the dark of various versions. This was facilitated by the fact that in the sagas, along with the lack of clear geographical indications, grapes growing there are constantly mentioned.
Now the northern border of grape growth only barely enters Canada (Ontario region), but is mainly limited to New England in the USA. But we can assume that 1000 years ago, in the era of a small climatic optimum, grapes could spread further north. However, so far no paleobotanist will agree that grapes grew in northern Newfoundland at that time.

Graph of fluctuations in the thickness of glaciers in Greenland. It can be seen that in the Viking Age the climate was quite warm.
Despite the fact that scientists could not agree on the location of Vinland, with late XIX century, simultaneously with the development of statehood in Norway and the influx of Scandinavian emigrants to America, the idea that the Vikings were one of the discoverers of the continent began to penetrate into US public opinion. In the century before last, a monument to Leif Eriksson was opened in Boston, and a group of Norwegians designed a replica of the Viking longship and reached the United States on it. After the excavations of Danish archaeologists in Greenland in the 30-40s of the XX century, the "acquisition" of the famous map of Vinland (a little later it was recognized as a fake) and a new analysis of the Icelandic sagas in the 50s of the last century, it became obvious that the Normans could theoretically visit America.
However, the problem of "grapes" forced scientists to attribute the possible location of the Norman settlement far to the south - in the strip from Boston to North Carolina. But there were no traces of the Vikings found.
Incredible luck
In the 50s of the last century, Helge Ingstad, who became interested in the Vinland problem, offered a witty and not devoid of logic explanation for the eternal walking of researchers around the “grapes”:
1. Information about the German Turkir in the saga of the Greenlanders, who allegedly found grapes - a later insert;
2. The name "Vinland" does not come from grapes, but from the Old Norse root vin, which means rich meadows;
3. By grapes, the Vikings understood other fruit berries from which it was possible to make mash.


Helge Ingstad and his wife, Anne Steen, 1961
Most scientists did not agree with his conclusions (and still do not agree, especially with regard to the interpretation of the root vin), but in 1960 Ingstad began to search. In his opinion, the remains of the Norman settlement should be sought in Newfoundland. In fairness, it must be said that before Ingstad, some explorers called this island a possible Vinland. Shortly before the First World War, such a version was proposed by the Canadian William Mann, and in 1940 the Finn Wayno Tanner suggested that Vinland is located on the northern tip of Newfoundland - in Pistol Bay. In the late 50s, several researchers conducted reconnaissance in this area, and American archaeologists A.M. Mallory and E. Mellgor explored the northwest coast of Newfoundland on foot. But they could not find anything, including in the vicinity of the fishing village Lance-o-Meadows , founded in the first third of the XIX century by William Decker.
In 1960, Ingstad appeared in Lance-au-Meadows. First of all, he drew attention to the fact that there are meadows around the village. The following year, he arrived there not alone, but with his friends on the Haliten yacht. According to his book “In the Footsteps of Leif the Happy” (published in Russian in 1969 in Leningrad), local fisherman John Decker (a direct descendant of the founder of the village, William Decker) showed the Norwegian in 1960 to swollen mounds in the middle of a grassy plain by the sea. Ingstad immediately became interested in them.
In the summer of 1960, Helge Ingstad reached the northern tip of Newfoundland, where the tiny Black Duck River flowed into Epaven Bay. Despite John Decker's claim about the ancient ruins, he did not fully believe his luck. All of it preliminary calculations, made on the basis of a thoughtful analysis of the sagas, seemed to testify in favor of Newfoundland. Currents, descriptions of the coast in the stories of the Vikings said that they could visit this island in any case.
It is worth saying that Ingstad found himself in Lance-au-Meadows for a reason. Prior to that, he undertook a large-scale voyage along the east coast of the United States and Canada - from Rhode Island and through Nova Scotia to Newfoundland. He traveled part of the way, swam part, somewhere he was thrown up by aircraft. But Ingstad had little time, and the coastline seemed endless. Why he drew attention to a few tiny hillocks in the north of Newfoundland, history is silent. Most likely, because such an arrangement of the Norman settlement completely fit into his theory, which he generally did not hide.
It is noteworthy that Ingstad's expedition was not the work of a lone amateur, as some journalists often imagine. From the very early stage, his expedition was financed by such serious structures as the National Geographic Society of the USA, the British Royal Society, the University of Oslo, a number of US universities, etc. organizations. Also, the Canadian Navy and Air Force provided the expedition with airplanes (on which Ingstad flew several times all over Newfoundland and Labrador), ships and building materials for free. Things got to the point that at one time the expedition even had a destroyer of the Canadian Navy at its disposal. In the Canadian Navy, Rear Admiral K.L. personally oversaw the expedition. Dyer.


Canadian Navy destroyer
It is also interesting that the excavations carried out at the mouth of the unknown river Black Duck were regularly visited by US senators and congressmen, members of the British Parliament, Newfoundland Governor Joseph Smallwood, church leaders, etc. characters.
“It is appropriate to say a few words about how carefully the Canadian authorities treated my expeditions, how willingly they helped us. The Newfoundland government and the Department of Northern and National Districts have done a lot for us. In particular, in one of the departments of the department, a map of the Lance-au-Meadows area was compiled for us .... The Canadian Air Force conducted aerial photography, and military sailors helped us with transport.- wrote Ingstad himself. The search and excavations of Leif Eriksson Farm in 1960-1964 were serious, state enterprise, with an appropriate scope.
It is also interesting that even before the shovel of archaeologists plunged into the ground of the mouth of the Black Duck, the Montreal newspapermen, at the suggestion of Ingstad and his financiers, trumpeted that a village of ancient Vikings had already been found in the Canadian wilderness. As the Norwegian himself admitted, this confused him a lot.
Excavations have begun


Viking settlement plan in Newfoundland
Despite this, the excavations of a tiny farm in Newfoundland with the involvement of a good dozen venerable archaeologists (since 1962) and local work force walked very slowly. In 1961, Ingstad, at the head of a small reconnaissance expedition, appears off the coast of the island on the Halten rescue schooner, which he had recently acquired. This expedition did not include professional historians or archaeologists (except for Ingstad's wife, Anna Steen). Ingstad's childhood friend Dr. Odd Martens, the sea traveler Erling Brunborg, Ingstad's daughter Benedict and the captain of the schooner Paul Sernes set off on the journey.
Thus, in this entire group, the only person who understood at least something in archeology was Anne Steen. The excavations began with small area, which was located almost at the very river (see diagram). Here Steen found a small depression, which she called the "coal chamber" - in it the inhabitants shoveled coal at night so as not to re-ignite the fire in the morning. In addition to this site, the expeditionaries cleared several more, but could not find anything worthwhile.
Of the finds in 1961, it is worth noting a rusty nail, a piece of slag and a bunch of burnt stones. In the opinion of a slightly discouraged Ingstad, “acidic soil” was to blame for the small number of artifacts, as well as vigilant Indians and Eskimos, who stole Scandinavian artifacts for souvenirs.
“How could they pass by houses or ruins? For an Indian or an Eskimo, a piece of iron was like gold for white. Undoubtedly, they have worked hard.” he concluded.
True, in the same year, Anna Steen found a recess in the turf, and immediately called it a forge. But in general, the results of 1961 were not happy - the excavations were in full swing, but no traces of the ancient Scandinavians were found. Meanwhile, Helge Ingstad himself spent a lot of his energy and hours as Canadian Air Force pilots, flying around Labrador (Markland) and Newfoundland, climbing into the taiga jungle and sailing ships along their coastline ...
As he himself later admitted, it was important for him to make sure that Lance-au-Meadows corresponded to the information from the sagas about the location of the Norman settlement. True, it still could not have done without an unfortunate blunder. In the Scandinavian sagas, passages from which were quoted above, it was clearly and unequivocally indicated that the Vikings founded their settlementnot by the sea, but by the lake. And the settlement excavated by Ingstad was located by the sea ...
In the sagas, it was reported that this lake was connected to the sea by a river (a channel, in Old Norse -hope), along which the ships of the Normans rose to the very reservoir, next to which they built their houses. Needless to say, the tiny and short stream of the Black Duck did not in any way draw on a “hope” that even a tiny boat can pass through. The most interesting thing is that there really was a small lake in the upper reaches of the river, but, alas, Ingstad did not find anything there.


Another scheme of the Norman settlement at Lance-au-Meadows. Please note that the buildings are scattered so that it is impossible to organize their defense. Although the sagas say that a fence was built around the houses.
In the Saga of Eric the Red, the place of the village of Thorfinn Karlsevne is localized in this way:
“Karlsefni swam south along the coast, and with him Snorri, Bjarni and others. They sailed for a long time and finally came to the river, which flowed into the lake, and then into the sea. There were large sandbanks at the mouth of the river, so that it could only be entered at high tide. Karlsefni and his people went to the mouth and called this place Ozerko ... Karlsefni and his people built a dwelling for themselves on a slope near the lake. Some houses were close to the lake, others were further away. They spent the winter there.
In a similar way, the village is mentioned in the Greenlanders' Saga, which describes the journey of Leif Eriksson:
“They headed west, skirting the cape. There was a great shoal, and at low tide the ship ran aground, so that the sea was far away. But they were so eager to land as soon as possible that they did not wait until the ship was on the water again, and ran to the shore, where the river flowed from the lake. And when their ship was back on the water, they got into the boat, swam up to him and brought him into the river, and then into the lake. There they dropped anchor, carried their sleeping bags ashore, and made themselves dugouts. But then they decided to spend the winter there and built themselves big houses. Both in the river and in the lake there was plenty of salmon, and such a large one that they had never seen before..
So, we clearly see that the houses of the Normans are on the shore or near the lake, which is connected to the bay by a river. There is nothing like it in Lance-au-Meadows.

Helge Ingstad and Anne Steen at Lance aux Meadows, 1962
In 1962, Ingstad recruited a new team, this time it included truly professional archaeologists. Iceland is represented by Doctor of Archeology and History Kristjan Eldjarn, Professors Turhallur Vilmundarson and Gisli Getson, Sweden by historian and archaeologist Rolf Petre, Canada by William Taylor, Doctor and Archaeologist of the National Museum of Canada and Doctor of Newfoundland University Jan Whitiker, Norway by Kari Henningsmoen, a geologist, photographer Hans Wiede Bang, Helge Ingstad himself and his daughter Benedikta, and Anne Steen for Denmark. As you can see, the group turned out to be strong.
The stellar team of doctors and professors is faced with an important task - to excavate the Norman settlement, to obtain evidence of the discovery of America by the Vikings. Transportation of the expedition members from Halifax to Lance-au-Meadows went generally without a hitch on the Canadian Navy's USS Histor. At the excavation, things went more cheerfully. Anne Steen was excavating a large building, which was considered a typical Old Norse longhouse (long house), archaeologist Petre discovered a bone needle. She was immediately recognized as suitable for the "Norman type", like the found piece of copper. And Icelandic scientists dug up a pit found in the previous year, which Anne Steen prophetically called a forge (slag and an anvil stone were found here). In its place was also found an oval soapstone lamp, a product of the Dorset Eskimos. On the site near the river, thus, it was possible to find a forge and a pit for burning charcoal, but the important element ancient metallurgy - furnaces, Ingstad's expedition to Lance-au-Meadows never found.


Remains of what is believed to be a "long house" at Lance-au-Meadows
Ingstad considered the results of the excavations in 1962 to be encouraging, but he did not yet have one hundred percent evidence in favor of the belonging of the farm to the Normans. He and Anne Steen, who led the archaeological part of the expedition, were well aware that such evidence could only be the discovery of clear and indisputable objects of the material culture of the ancient Scandinavians.
In the autumn of 1962, by order of the Governor of Newfoundland, pavilions were erected over the excavations. The following year, the composition of the expedition was updated. Now the place of the Scandinavians was taken by the Anglo-Saxons - the University of Illinois archaeologists Charles Bereis and John Winston, from the Norwegian University of Oslo - archaeologists Hans Wiede Bang and Nikolai Eckhoff, as well as Henry Collins from the Smithsonian Institution and Junius Byrd from the American Museum of Natural History. The expedition of Ingstad turned into a huge enterprise, according to the number of specialists who took part in it. And although in 1963 the excavations were in full swing, however, luck was in no hurry to pamper the scientists. More and more often they came across typical Indian and Eskimo artifacts - harpoon tips, lamps, etc., the number of which exceeded a hundred and continued to increase. It was absolutely not what they were looking for. In vain was the attempt of archaeologists to find anything Norman in the channel of the Black Duck - for this, the stream was even taken to a new channel, and the old one was carefully dug up. Uselessly.
In 1963, the researchers completed the excavations of the so-called. "long house" with sides of 20 and 12-16 meters. Finds in the house did not indulge in diversity: several rusty nails, pieces of slag, a quartzite touchstone, a stone lamp, “reminiscent of Icelandic”. This was too little to draw any conclusions. True, Collins and Byrd have already compiled a report for the National geographical society USA, in which it was unequivocally stated that the settlement found by Ingstad was Norman.
However, enter American history Helge Ingstad and, accordingly, Leif Eriksson succeeded only in the next year, 1964. In addition to Anne Steen, Junius Byrd, Brigitte Wallace of the Carnegie Museum, and Canadian archaeologist Tony Beardsley worked at Lance-o-Meadows that year.
“The dream never left us: to find such an undeniably Norman object that even non-archaeologists could immediately see that the Normans lived in Lance-au-Meadows for a thousand years”, - Helge Ingstad himself admitted.
On August 4, 1964, Anne Steen prepared a pit for Beardsley, in which he discovered a Scandinavian soapstone whorl, small object 3-4 cm in diameter. It was the first object of material culture found during the excavations in 4 years and which could be firmly recognized as Old Norse! In total, by the end of 1964, archaeologists had completely excavated 8 sites and Anna Steen discovered a tiny bronze pin. It was the second subject that most scholars recognized as Scandinavian. And, unfortunately, the last one.
Excavations at Lance-o-Meadows went back to 1965-1967, but no other Scandinavian artifacts were found.


Bronze pin and soapstone whorl
In the fall of 1964, Helge Ingstad, whose success was replicated by all the media in the US and Canada, made a presentation in the US Senate, and the US President signed a decree on celebrating Leif Eriksson Day in America on October 9. So a couple of tiny Norman objects, as well as a few rusty nails and a piece of copper (whose belonging to the Normans was considered controversial by archaeologists) wrote a new page in the history of mankind.
Excavations continue...

Stone lamp and bronze pin
Politics is politics, but it was clear to most American scientists that the settlement at Lance-o-Meadows needed more careful study, especially since the number of undeniably Scandinavian objects found by a stellar team of archaeologists from half a dozen countries in 7 years of excavations was amazingly microscopic: only two (steatite whorl and bronze pin). A stone lamp, a quartzite whetstone, a piece of copper and the remnants of nails did not make much of an impression. Worse, about 1000 items of material culture of the Indians and Eskimos were found on the territory of the farm.
Ingstad's conclusions were simple: the natives simply "threw them." The same version - from hopelessness - began to adhere to the subsequent researchers of Lance-au-Meadows. In 1973-1976, archaeologists national park Canada Bengt Schönbeck and Brigitte Wallace carefully shoveled the farm itself and its surroundings, literally sifting the soil. But they also failed to discover any new buildings, failed to find the remains of defensive structures that are known from the sagas. According to the results of the excavations, it was found that no domestic animals were kept in the village, and in its district - despite the best efforts of archaeologists - not a single burial could be found. Although it follows from the sagas that they should have been.
But excavations by archaeologists in the National Park of Canada showed that the inhabitants of a tiny farm, firstly, either lived in it for seasons and, secondly, their main occupation was ... repairing ships. On the territory of the farm, many small remains of wood were found, as well as several rusty rivets and nails. After it became clear that nothing more could be squeezed out of Lance-au-Meadows, the excavation area was covered with sand, on which fresh turf was laid. On the site of the ancient settlement in the early 80s, a remake was laid with "real" ancient Norwegian houses, a museum was created and the excavation site was included in the number of UNESCO sites.
However, the history of the Normans in North America was not limited to Lance-au-Meadows. In parallel with Ingstad, traces of the Normans in Ungava Bay on Labrador were searched for by archaeologist Thomas Lee, who excavated there in 1962-1965 (Lee Thomas E. "The Norse in Ungava," Anthropological Journal of Canada, Vol. 4. No 2, 1966) . In his opinion, he managed to find the remains of Scandinavian-type "long houses" and about a hundred items of material culture of the ancient Scandinavians. This was reported in the Soviet press in the magazine Vokrug Sveta, No. 2, 1967.
Thomas Lee became the first, but not the last victim of the Norwegian adventurer's attack on American archeology - almost all of his colleagues in the shop unanimously considered his evidence unconvincing. Subsequently, other Canadian and American archaeologists found the remains of the “Viking stay” in North America several more times (for example, in Hudson Bay), but upon closer examination, all this turned out to be Eximos houses or the remains of the habitation of the first European settlers.
What did Helge Ingstad unearth?

Let's try to analyze the evidence base of Helge Ingstad and Anna Steen.
1. The general location of the settlement as a whole falls under the description of the sagas, however, its specific localization differs from that indicated in them: Ingstad unearthed the settlement right on the seashore, while it is known from the legends that the Vikingsbuilt by the lake. Into which they climbed along the river, but the tiny Black Duck stream is completely unsuitable for the role of such a river. Hydrological studies have shown that even 1000 years ago the stream was tiny.


Black Duck Creek
2. During the 11-year excavations, neither the remains of the defensive structures (valley, tyn, etc.) that the Normans built (this is also known from the sagas), nor the premises where domestic animals would be kept (and they should were to be, for the sagas clearly testify to this). No bones of domestic animals were found either.
3. Despite the fact that the territory of the village and its surroundings were dug up for two decades, not a single burial was found. This is very strange, since the sagas directly talk about the battles with the Skrelings and the people who died in it, as well as the massacre between the Normans, which occurred during one of the travels. Interestingly, not a single piece of pottery was found during the excavations.
4. But during the excavations, it was possible to find out what the inhabitants of the village were doing. Apparently, ships were repaired here seasonally, as evidenced by the remains of wood and iron nails and rivets.
5. According to the results of excavations on the territory of the farm, only two unambiguously Norman things were found (a whorl and a bronze pin). But archaeologists have unearthed several hundred items of material culture of the Indians and Eskimos.
6. Archaeologists have unearthed a "long house" of a typically Scandinavian type. But such a definition should not be misleading - after all, as the researchers themselves admitted, they only got prints of some buildings in peat, and no significant wooden parts at home.
7. The issue with the population of the village. It is known from the sagas that some expeditions of the Normans reached up to 130-160 people. In the buildings found in Lance-au-Meadows, there is simply nowhere to accommodate so many people.
8. Slag, the remains of a forge and a coal pit were found. This testifies to metallurgy, which the natives did not have. Indeed, this is precisely the strongest argument, but ... there is one but. Firstly, the sagas never mention the presence of a blacksmith in the expeditions of the Normans. Secondly, we should not forget that cheese metallurgy in Northern Europe existed quite normally until the middle of the 16th century, and the first colonists in North America had it in the 16th-17th centuries.
9. Radiocarbon analysis. Of more than 40 samples taken at Lance-au-Meadows, only 12 results are reported in the literature, which gave values ​​in the range of 780-1200 AD. The results of the rest in scientific literature were never published.
But the most interesting thing is that Epaven Bay, like the Lance-au-Meadows district, was known to the first European navigators in the waters of North America since the beginning of the 16th century (to be precise, since 1503). It was here that small settlements of fishermen and settlers periodically existed, the remains of one of which, by the way, are only half a kilometer from the “settlement of Leif Eriksson” (unfortunately, these settlements have not yet been studied by archaeologists).
We are far from thinking of refuting the generally accepted results of the excavations at Lance-au-Meadows, but only pointing out some circumstances that make the recognition of the excavated settlement specifically Norman, somewhat doubtful. It is also possible that in reality Helge Ingstad dug up shift camp European fishermen who repaired their ships on the shores of Epaven Bay in Newfoundland. The waters around this island were rich in fishing, especially cod, and because of them even the European powers fought among themselves. Therefore, the presence of Europeans has been recorded here since the beginning of the 16th century.
Whatever it was, neither before nor after Ingstad, no one in North America was lucky enough to find convincing evidence of the pre-Columbian voyages of the Normans to the Grape Country

The real discoverer of America in the United States is not Christopher Columbus, but the Viking Leif Ericsson. Every year on October 9, this event is celebrated in the country. The material traces of Leif in the New World - a bronze pin and a steatite whorl - were unearthed in Canada in the 60s of the XX century by the Norwegian adventurer, vagabond and writer Helge Ingstad.

Over a thousand years ago, the ancient Scandinavians settled the Faroe and Orkney Islands, Iceland, and then southern Greenland. You can read more about what mysteries exist regarding the Greenlandic settlements of the ancient Vikings in this detailed article. In short, the Norman colony in Greenland existed for about 400-500 years, and then, for unknown reasons, disappeared.

Archaeological excavations in Greenland, Danish scientists began in the 20s of the last century. At the same time, the possibility of voyages of the Greenlandic Vikings to America began to be seriously discussed - fortunately, southwestern Greenland was separated from Baffin Island in the New World by the Davis Strait, about 350-450 kilometers wide. However, Europeans knew about the possible colonization of America by the Vikings much earlier - when information about the mysterious country of Vinland (Country of Grapes) appeared.

Ruins of a Norman church in Greenland

The problem of the localization of Vinland was seriously taken up from the beginning of the 18th century, just after the Icelandic sagas were published, primarily the Greenlanders' Saga and the Saga of Eric the Red, which spoke of the Scandinavians' campaigns in the mysterious country of Vinland. However, for the next 250 years, no one was able to locate this country. This was no wonder, because the sagas themselves did not contain extremely precise indications in this regard. As for the traces of the material culture of the Scandinavians in North America, the situation with them was even sadder: several finds (the famous Kensington Stone, a fragment of a Norwegian coin, a fragment of a bronze balance beam, etc.) caused controversy, as a result of which the finds were considered falsified.

Only in 1960, the Norwegian explorer, ethnographer, adventurer and writer Helge Ingstad (1899-2001), who was no less popular in his homeland than Thor Heyerdahl, well known to Soviet citizens, managed to make a breakthrough comparable to the discovery of Troy by Heinrich Schliemann - he discovered on the northern tip of Newfoundland, near the village of Lance-o-Meadows, the remains of a settlement, which was then recognized as Norman. In fact, Ingstad found a needle in a haystack - to find the remains of a relatively small settlement of a thousand years ago, without a clear geographic reference, as any archaeologist knows, is a completely non-trivial task.

This discovery, recognized in 1964 at the political level in the United States, and also - not without a scratch, however, in the scientific community of North America, subsequently caused a lot of skeptical questions. And, oddly enough, it convinced local historians and archaeologists even more that the problems of Vinland should be approached as carefully as possible. This is probably why, over the past half century, no other scientifically convincing evidence of Viking visits to the New World has been found in North America.

What do we know from the sagas

The most complete information about the travels of the Normans to Vinland is contained in the sagas. It was on the sagas that Helge Ingstad based himself in his search for an ancient Viking settlement in the New World.

In the middle of the 20th century, it was established that the oldest document of the two works is the "Greenlanders' Saga", while the "Saga of Eric the Red" is later. Scholars from Iceland have established that the first was written down in the middle of the 12th century (reached in a list dating from the end of the 14th century), and the second only in the 13th century (preserved in two manuscripts of the 14th and 15th centuries). When comparing the texts of these legends, it is clear that despite the general information about the campaigns of the Normans in Vinland, the particulars and details of these travels seriously differ. For example, according to the Greenlanders Saga, there were five trips to Vinland (Country of Grapes): these are the voyages of the Vikings Bjarni Heruljafsson, Leif Eriksson (the son of Erik the Red, the first colonist of Greenland), the voyage of his brother Thorvald Eriksson, the voyage of Thorfinn Karlsevne and the voyage of Freydis Eriksdottir (sisters Leif) with the Icelanders Helgi and Finnbogi. According to the "Saga of Eric the Red" there were only two voyages (Leif Eriksson and Thorfinn Karslavna).

The information in the sagas about the number of participants in the voyages varies. Completely different information is contained in them and about the key message - the name of the area. The fact is that the Normans gave names to the discovered areas in America according to their external characteristics: Heluland - the country of stones, Markland - the country of forests, Vinland - the country of grapes. The Greenlanders Saga says that Leif Eriksson had a German Türkir on the ship, who discovered the grapes.

In principle, it makes no sense to list all the discrepancies between the two sources. It is only worth mentioning that neither the Greenlanders' Saga nor the Eric's Saga give clear geographical indications of the location of the country of Vines. To be completely correct, the sagas give only general characteristics of the area - glaciers, stone plains, forests, meadows. The only exception is the reference in the Greenlanders' Saga to the latitude of Vinland:

“The days here are not as varied in length as they are in Greenland or Iceland. At the darkest time of the year, the sun was in the sky at a quarter of a day after noon and a quarter of a day before it.

Or, in another, more accurate translation:

"The day was evener than in Greenland and Iceland. On the day of the winter solstice, the sun had eiktarstad and dagmolostad."

What is eiktarstad and dagmolostad is still not really clear. Attempts by researchers to interpret this information according to their ideas gave Vinland coordinates between 36 and 51 latitudes in the northern hemisphere. Such a gigantic spread made finding the settlement of the ancient Norwegians almost unrealistic. It is also worth noting that the ancient Vikings are believed to have been able to determine latitudes with varying degrees of error, but in Europe the first tables that allow one to calculate latitudes with sufficient accuracy appeared only in the 15th century. These tables - "Ephemerides", were published in 1472 in Nuremberg by the mathematician Regiomontanus.

Accordingly, most researchers believed that the Vikings sailed far south along the east coast of North America:

This diagram shows that the Normans could have sailed as far as present-day Boston.

In this diagram, Vinland is also not in Newfoundland, but much to the south.

Recorded travels of the Normans

Canadian-reconstructed Norman settlement in Newfoundland

1. So, the first expedition that landed on American soil, according to the sagas, was led by Leif Eriksson (we will not take Bjarni Heruljafsson into account, because he did not moor to the shore, but saw him only from afar). The composition of the expedition - 1 ship (purchased from Heruljafsson), 36 people (including Leif himself). Travelers reached a stream that flows into the sea, climbed it to the lake and dug their own dugouts. Then they decided to spend the winter and built "big houses"(possibly Scandinavian "long houses" - longhouse). Eric's saga mentions that the Vikings discovered wild wheat and grapes in Vinland. After wintering there, Leif loaded the ship with wood and grapes, and sailed back to Greenland. During his stay in Vinland, he and his men carried out reconnaissance of the area.

2. After some time, Leif's brother Torvald went to Vinland (apparently, the gap was small) (on Eric's ship). The composition of the expedition - 1 ship, 31 people, including Torvald. The expedition spent more than three years in America, and Leif's houses were its base. During this time, the Vikings undertook several campaigns through the local territory. During a campaign in the second year of his stay in Vinland, in a skirmish with the Skrelings - probably Indians or Eskimos, Thorvald died from their arrows. He was buried in America. There is no information about other losses, as well as about the construction of new houses by the Vikings.

3. The journey of Thorstein Eriksson. Leif's younger brother decided to find his brother's body, and on Leif's ship he went to sea. The composition of the expedition - 1 ship, 27 people (20 people according to the "Saga of Eric"), including Thorstein and his wife Gudrid. However, storms prevented the Vikings from reaching Vinland and wintered in the West Norman settlement in Greenland, where most of them died of disease.

4. The journey of Thorfinn Karslafne, a wealthy Norwegian. He married Thorstein's widow, Gudrid, and a year after her return from the Western Settlement, he undertook an expedition to Vinland. According to the Greenlanders Saga, the expedition included 67 people (60 men and 5 women), as well as Thorfinn himself and Gudrid. According to the Saga of Eric, there were over 150 Normans. They took cattle (oxen, cows) with them, as they intended to settle in Vinland. As the "Saga of the Greenlanders" says, they settled in houses built by Leif Eriksson.

Let's look at these events from the point of view of the "Eric Saga". She says that Thorfinn's expedition first wintered in some other place:

They sent ships to the fjord. At its mouth lay an island, around which there were strong currents. They named it Otok. There were so many birds on it that it was hard not to step on their eggs. They entered the fjord and named it Otochny Fjord. Here they carried their luggage ashore and settled. They had all kinds of cattle with them, and they began to explore what the country was rich in. There were mountains and the countryside was beautiful. They were only engaged in scouting the region. Tall grass grew everywhere. They hibernated there.

The winter was severe, and they did not store anything in the summer. Food became bad, and fishing and hunting failed. They moved to the island in the hope that there would be better fishing there or something would be washed ashore. The next summer they sailed south: Karlsefni sailed south along the coast, and with him Snorri, Bjarni and others. They sailed for a long time and finally came to the river, which flowed into the lake, and then into the sea.

There were large sandbanks at the mouth of the river, so that it could only be entered at high tide. Karlsefni and his men entered the mouth and named the place Ozerko. Here they found fields of native wheat in the lowlands, and vines everywhere in the uplands. All streams teemed with fish. They dug holes where land and sea met, and when the sea receded, there was halibut in the holes. There were many animals in the forest.

Here the Vikings discovered eight boats of Skrelings (i.e., there is a retelling of Thorvald Eriksson's journey). The Normans built several houses near the lake. It makes no sense to retell the "Saga of Eric" further, we only note that two Normans who died in the battle with the Screlings are mentioned there. Subsequently, the Normans visited Markland, where they captured two natives and, after several years of living in America, left it.

The Greenlanders Saga tells a little differently about the life of this expedition in North America. In the second year of the Vikings' stay in Vinland, the Skrelings came to them, with whom trade was begun. However, for a number of reasons, it turned into a war:

Then the Screlings took off the luggage from their shoulders, untied the bales and began to offer their goods. In exchange, they asked for weapons, but Karlsefni forbade his men from selling weapons. This is what he came up with: he ordered the women to take out the milk ospreys, and when they saw them, the Screlings no longer wanted anything else. Thus ended the trade of the Skrelings, that they carried away their purchases in their stomachs, and their bales and furs remained with Karlsefni and his people.After that, Karlsefni ordered to build around the houses a strong fence, and they settled inside her ... But suddenly there was a terrible roar, and the woman disappeared, and at that very moment one of Karlsephia's people killed a Skreling who was trying to steal some kind of weapon. Then the Screlings rushed to run as fast as they could, leaving clothes and goods ... We need to think of something, says Karlsefni, because they will probably come to us for the third time, and this time with hostile intentions and in large numbers. Here's what we'll do: let ten men go to the cape and be seen there, and let the others go into the forest and cut a clearing there where we can keep our cattle when the skrelings come out of the forest. And we will let our bull go before us.

Where they were going to fight the skrelings one side was a lake, and on the other - the forest. They did everything as Karlsefni planned, and the skrelings came out just where he wanted to give them a fight. A battle ensued, and many Skrelings were slain. Among them, one stood out, he was tall and handsome, and Karlsefni decided that this must be their leader. A skreling picked up an ax from the ground, examined it, and then swung it at one of his own and struck. This one immediately dropped dead. Then that tall skreling took the axe, examined it, and threw it with all his might into the sea. Then the Screlings rushed as fast as they could into the forest, and the battle was over.

The Karslafni expedition spent almost three years in Vinland and returned. Norman casualties are not reported, but it is unlikely that no one died in the battle with the Skrelings (it is possible that the expedition of Thorvald and Karlsefni was the same).

Fence of a reconstructed Viking settlement in Canada

5. Journey of Freydis Eriksdottir (daughter of Erik the Red and sister of Leif Eriksson). A year after Torfin returned to Greenland, she and two Icelandic brothers, Finnbogi and Helgi, went to Vinland. The composition of the expedition - two ships and 65 men, not counting women, as well as leaders - Freydis and two Icelanders. The latter built their house next to Leif's houses. The wintering ended badly - at the instigation of Freydis, both Icelanders and all their people (that is, over 30 people, including women) were killed. After wintering, Freydis and her men set sail from Greenland.

All of the above travels of the Normans to America are considered reliable. It is not difficult to see that the motivation of the Vikings, their goals in Vinland are not entirely clear to modern people. They could not and did not want to establish a common language with the natives, for some reason they refused to colonize these territories, which looked more attractive than the southwestern coast of Greenland, where even in the era of a small climatic optimum, spring lasted 3 weeks, and summer - 2 months .

The sagas acknowledge that the expeditions were based at Leif's original camp (although according to the Eric Saga they founded new settlements). There is information about the construction of new houses only in relation to the Freydis expedition, but, most likely, Thorfinn's expedition also built them. The settlement, capable of accommodating up to one and a half hundred people (the size of Thorfinn's expedition), was located, apparently, on lakeside, which had to be reached by the river. The minimum period of time for the functioning of the village is 8 years, and taking into account the intervals between expeditions - maximum 15 years. Around the settlement was fence built, perhaps, something like tyna.

It is also known that in America several dozen Normans died. If the head of the second party, Thorvald, was buried far from the village, then the Normans from Thorfinn’s detachment, who died in a collision with the Skrelings, as well as the people from Iceland killed by Freydis, were probably buried near the village.

We know that in the vicinity of the village there was a battle with the Screlings. In addition, there is information that Karlsevne had cattle (cows and bulls, possibly sheep), the fate of which is not known. All these facts will be useful to us later.

Where were the grapes?

It follows from the sagas that the settlement of the ancient Vikings could not be large in area. At best, it was a settlement with an area of ​​several hundred square meters. Finding the remains of such a settlement on a coast hundreds and even thousands of kilometers long - since researchers include territories from Labrador to almost the Carolinas in the search area - is almost impossible. Yes, and traces of him over the past thousand years should not have remained.

Therefore, when the question of the location of Vinland was first raised at the beginning of the 18th century, researchers literally wandered in the dark of various versions. This was facilitated by the fact that in the sagas, along with the lack of clear geographical indications, grapes growing there are constantly mentioned.

Now the northern border of grape growth only barely enters Canada (Ontario region), but is mainly limited to New England in the USA. But we can assume that 1000 years ago, in the era of a small climatic optimum, grapes could spread further north. However, so far no paleobotanist will agree that grapes grew in northern Newfoundland at that time.

Graph of fluctuations in the thickness of glaciers in Greenland. It can be seen that in the Viking Age the climate was quite warm.

Despite the fact that scientists could not agree on the location of Vinland, from the end of the 19th century, simultaneously with the development of statehood in Norway and the influx of Scandinavian emigrants to America, the idea that the Vikings were one of the discoverers of the continent began to penetrate into US public opinion. . In the century before last, a monument to Leif Eriksson was opened in Boston, and a group of Norwegians designed a replica of the Viking longship and reached the United States on it. After the excavations of Danish archaeologists in Greenland in the 30-40s of the XX century, the "acquisition" of the famous map of Vinland (a little later it was recognized as a fake) and a new analysis of the Icelandic sagas in the 50s of the last century, it became obvious that the Normans could theoretically visit America.

However, the problem of "grapes" forced scientists to attribute the possible location of the Norman settlement far to the south - in the strip from Boston to North Carolina. But there were no traces of the Vikings found.

Incredible luck

In the 50s of the last century, Helge Ingstad, who became interested in the problem of Vinland, offered a witty and not devoid of logic explanation for the eternal walking of researchers around the "grapes":

1. Information about the German Turkir in the saga of the Greenlanders, who allegedly found grapes - a later insert;
2. The name "Vinland" does not come from grapes, but from the Old Norse root vin, which means rich meadows;
3. By grapes, the Vikings understood other fruit berries from which it was possible to make mash.

Helge Ingstad and his wife, Anne Steen, 1961

Most scientists did not agree with his conclusions (and still do not agree, especially with regard to the interpretation of the root vin), but in 1960 Ingstad began to search. In his opinion, the remains of the Norman settlement should be sought in Newfoundland. In fairness, it must be said that before Ingstad, some explorers called this island a possible Vinland. Shortly before the First World War, such a version was proposed by the Canadian William Mann, and in 1940 the Finn Wayno Tanner suggested that Vinland is located on the northern tip of Newfoundland - in Pistol Bay. In the late 50s, several researchers conducted reconnaissance in this area, and American archaeologists A.M. Mallory and E. Mellgor explored the northwest coast of Newfoundland on foot. But they couldn’t find anything, including in the vicinity of the fishing village Lance-o-Meadows, founded in the first third of the 19th century by William Decker.

In 1960, Ingstad appeared in Lance-au-Meadows. First of all, he drew attention to the fact that there are meadows around the village. The following year, he arrived there not alone, but with his friends on the Haliten yacht. According to his book “In the footsteps of Leif the Happy” (published in Russian in 1969 in Leningrad), local fisherman John Decker (a direct descendant of the founder of the village, William Decker) showed the Norwegian in 1960 to swollen mounds in the middle of a grassy plain by the sea. Ingstad immediately became interested in them.

In the summer of 1960, Helge Ingstad reached the northern tip of Newfoundland, where the tiny Black Duck River flowed into Epaven Bay. Despite John Decker's claim about the ancient ruins, he did not fully believe his luck. All his preliminary calculations, made on the basis of a thoughtful analysis of the sagas, seemed to testify in favor of Newfoundland. Currents, descriptions of the coast in the stories of the Vikings said that they could visit this island in any case.

It is worth saying that Ingstad found himself in Lance-au-Meadows for a reason. Prior to that, he undertook a large-scale voyage along the east coast of the United States and Canada - from Rhode Island and through Nova Scotia to Newfoundland. He traveled part of the way, swam part, somewhere he was thrown up by aircraft. But Ingstad had little time, and the coastline seemed endless. Why he drew attention to a few tiny hillocks in the north of Newfoundland, history is silent. Most likely, because such an arrangement of the Norman settlement completely fit into his theory, which he generally did not hide.

It is noteworthy that Ingstad's expedition was not the work of a lone amateur, as some journalists often imagine. From the very early stage, his expedition was financed by such serious structures as the National Geographic Society of the USA, the British Royal Society, the University of Oslo, a number of US universities, etc. organizations. Also, the Canadian Navy and Air Force provided the expedition with airplanes (on which Ingstad flew several times all over Newfoundland and Labrador), ships and Construction Materials. Things got to the point that at one time the expedition even had a destroyer of the Canadian Navy at its disposal. In the Canadian Navy, Rear Admiral K.L. personally oversaw the expedition. Dyer.

Canadian Navy destroyer

It is also interesting that the excavations carried out at the mouth of the unknown river Black Duck were regularly visited by US senators and congressmen, members of the British Parliament, Newfoundland Governor Joseph Smallwood, church leaders, etc. characters.

“It is appropriate to say a few words about how carefully the Canadian authorities treated my expeditions, how willingly they helped us. The Newfoundland government and the Department of Northern and National Districts have done a lot for us. In particular, in one of the departments of the department, a map of the Lance-au-Meadows area was compiled for us .... The Canadian Air Force conducted aerial photography, and military sailors helped us with transport.- wrote Ingstad himself. The search and excavation of the Leif Eriksson farm in 1960-1964 was a serious, state-owned enterprise, with a corresponding scope.

It is also interesting that even before the shovel of archaeologists plunged into the ground of the mouth of the Black Duck, the Montreal newspapermen, at the suggestion of Ingstad and his financiers, trumpeted that a village of ancient Vikings had already been found in the Canadian wilderness. As the Norwegian himself admitted, this confused him a lot.

Excavations have begun

Viking settlement plan in Newfoundland

Despite this, the excavation of a tiny farm in Newfoundland, with the involvement of a good dozen venerable archaeologists (since 1962) and local labor, proceeded very slowly. In 1961, Ingstad, at the head of a small reconnaissance expedition, appears off the coast of the island on the Halten rescue schooner, which he had recently acquired. This expedition did not include professional historians or archaeologists (except for Ingstad's wife, Anna Steen). Ingstad's childhood friend Dr. Odd Martens, the sea traveler Erling Brunborg, Ingstad's daughter Benedict and the captain of the schooner Paul Sernes set off on the journey.

Thus, in this entire group, the only person who understood at least something in archeology was Anne Steen. The excavations began with a small area, which was located almost at the very river (see diagram). Here, Steen found a small depression, which she called the "coal chamber" - the inhabitants raked coal into it at night so as not to re-ignite the fire in the morning. In addition to this site, the expeditionaries cleared several more, but could not find anything worthwhile.

Of the finds in 1961, it is worth noting a rusty nail, a piece of slag and a bunch of burnt stones. In the opinion of a slightly discouraged Ingstad, “acidic soil” was to blame for the small number of artifacts, as well as vigilant Indians and Eskimos, who stole Scandinavian artifacts for souvenirs.

“How could they pass by houses or ruins? For an Indian or an Eskimo, a piece of iron was like gold for white. Undoubtedly, they have worked hard.” he concluded.

True, in the same year, Anna Steen found a recess in the turf, and immediately called it a forge. But in general, the results of 1961 were not happy - the excavations were in full swing, but no traces of the ancient Scandinavians were found. Meanwhile, Helge Ingstad himself spent a lot of his energy and hours as Canadian Air Force pilots, flying around Labrador (Markland) and Newfoundland, climbing into the taiga jungle and sailing ships along their coastline ...

As he himself later admitted, it was important for him to make sure that Lance-au-Meadows corresponded to the information from the sagas about the location of the Norman settlement. True, it still could not have done without an unfortunate blunder. In the Scandinavian sagas, passages from which were quoted above, it was clearly and unequivocally indicated that the Vikings founded their settlement not by the sea, but by the lake. And the settlement excavated by Ingstad was located by the sea ...

In the sagas, it was reported that this lake was connected to the sea by a river (a channel, in Old Norse - hope), along which the ships of the Normans rose to the very reservoir, next to which they built their houses. Needless to say, the tiny and short stream of the Black Duck did not in any way draw on a “hope” that even a tiny boat can pass through. The most interesting thing is that there really was a small lake in the upper reaches of the river, but, alas, Ingstad did not find anything there.

Another scheme of the Norman settlement at Lance-au-Meadows. Please note that the buildings are scattered so that it is impossible to organize their defense. Although the sagas say that a fence was built around the houses.

In the "Saga of Eric the Red" the place of the village of Thorfinn Karlsevne is localized in this way:

“Karlsefni swam south along the coast, and with him Snorri, Bjarni and others. They sailed for a long time and finally came to the river, which flowed into the lake, and then into the sea. There were large sandbanks at the mouth of the river, so that it could only be entered at high tide. Karlsefni and his people went to the mouth and called this place Ozerko ... Karlsefni and his people built a dwelling for themselves on a slope near the lake. Some houses were close to the lake, others were further away. They spent the winter there.

In a similar way, the village is mentioned in the Greenlanders' Saga, which describes the journey of Leif Eriksson:

“They headed west, skirting the cape. There was a great shoal, and at low tide the ship ran aground, so that the sea was far away. But they were so eager to land as soon as possible that they did not wait until the ship was on the water again, and ran to the shore, where the river flowed from the lake. And when their ship was back on the water, they got into the boat, swam up to him and brought him into the river, and then into the lake. There they dropped anchor, carried their sleeping bags ashore, and made themselves dugouts. But then they decided to spend the winter there and built themselves big houses. Both in the river and in the lake there was plenty of salmon, and such a large one that they had never seen before..

So, we clearly see that the houses of the Normans are on the shore or near the lake, which is connected to the bay by a river. There is nothing like it in Lance-au-Meadows.

Helge Ingstad and Anne Steen at Lance aux Meadows, 1962

In 1962, Ingstad recruited a new team, this time it included truly professional archaeologists. Iceland is represented by Doctor of Archeology and History Kristjan Eldjarn, Professors Turhallur Vilmundarson and Gisli Getson, Sweden by historian and archaeologist Rolf Petre, Canada by William Taylor, Doctor and Archaeologist of the National Museum of Canada and Doctor of Newfoundland University Jan Whitiker, Norway by Kari Henningsmoen, a geologist, photographer Hans Wiede Bang, Helge Ingstad himself and his daughter Benedikta, and Anne Steen for Denmark. As you can see, the group turned out to be strong.

The stellar team of doctors and professors is faced with an important task - to excavate the Norman settlement, to obtain evidence of the discovery of America by the Vikings. Transportation of the expedition members from Halifax to Lance-au-Meadows went generally without a hitch on the Canadian Navy's USS Histor. At the excavation, things went more cheerfully. Anne Steen was excavating a large building, which was considered a typical Old Norse longhouse (long house), archaeologist Petre discovered a bone needle. She was immediately recognized as suitable for the "Norman type", like the found piece of copper. And Icelandic scientists dug up a pit found in the previous year, which Anne Steen prophetically called a forge (slag and an anvil stone were found here). In its place was also found an oval soapstone lamp, a product of the Dorset Eskimos. Thus, on the site near the river, it was possible to find a forge and a pit for burning charcoal, but the most important element of ancient metallurgy - furnaces, Ingstad's expedition to Lance-au-Meadows did not find.

Remains of what is believed to be a "long house" at Lance-au-Meadows

Ingstad considered the results of the excavations in 1962 to be encouraging, but he did not yet have one hundred percent evidence in favor of the belonging of the farm to the Normans. He and Anne Steen, who led the archaeological part of the expedition, were well aware that such evidence could only be the discovery of clear and indisputable objects of the material culture of the ancient Scandinavians.

In the autumn of 1962, by order of the Governor of Newfoundland, pavilions were erected over the excavations. The following year, the composition of the expedition was updated. Now the place of the Scandinavians was taken by the Anglo-Saxons - the University of Illinois archaeologists Charles Bereis and John Winston, from the Norwegian University of Oslo - archaeologists Hans Wiede Bang and Nikolai Eckhoff, as well as Henry Collins from the Smithsonian Institution and Junius Byrd from the American Museum of Natural History. The expedition of Ingstad turned into a huge enterprise, according to the number of specialists who took part in it. And although in 1963 the excavations were in full swing, however, luck was in no hurry to pamper the scientists. More and more often they came across typical Indian and Eskimo artifacts - harpoon tips, lamps, etc., the number of which exceeded a hundred and continued to increase. It was absolutely not what they were looking for. In vain was the attempt of archaeologists to find anything Norman in the channel of the Black Duck - for this, the stream was even taken to a new channel, and the old one was carefully dug up. Uselessly.

In 1963, the researchers completed the excavations of the so-called. "long house" with sides of 20 and 12-16 meters. The finds in the house did not indulge in variety: a few rusty nails, pieces of slag, a quartzite touchstone, a stone lamp “reminiscent of Icelandic”. This was too little to draw any conclusions. True, Collins and Byrd have already compiled a report for the US National Geographic Society, in which they unequivocally stated that the settlement found by Ingstad is Norman.

However, Helge Ingstad and, accordingly, Leif Eriksson managed to enter American history only in the following year, 1964. In addition to Anne Steen, Junius Byrd, Brigitte Wallace of the Carnegie Museum, and Canadian archaeologist Tony Beardsley worked at Lance-o-Meadows that year.

“The dream never left us: to find such an undeniably Norman object that even non-archaeologists could immediately see that the Normans lived in Lance-au-Meadows for a thousand years”, - Helge Ingstad himself admitted.

On August 4, 1964, Anne Steen prepared a pit for Beardsley, in which he discovered a Scandinavian soapstone whorl, a small object with a diameter of 3-4 centimeters. It was the first object of material culture found during the excavations in 4 years and which could be firmly recognized as Old Norse! In total, by the end of 1964, archaeologists had completely excavated 8 sites and Anna Steen discovered a tiny bronze pin. It was the second subject that most scholars recognized as Scandinavian. And, unfortunately, the last one.

Excavations at Lance-o-Meadows went back to 1965-1967, but no other Scandinavian artifacts were found.

Bronze pin and soapstone whorl

In 2010, the remains of a woman were examined in Iceland and it was found that she was an Indian, arrived in Iceland around the year 1000 and remained there to live.

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Literature

• Anokhin G.I. To ethnic history Greenlandic Normans // Romania and Barbaria. To the ethnic history of peoples foreign Europe: Sat. / Ed. S. A. Arutyunova and others - M. Nauka 1989. - S. 131-163.
• Bakless D. America through the eyes of the discoverers / Per. from English. 3. M. Kanevsky. - M.: Thought, 1969. - 408 p.: ill.
• Boyer Regis. Vikings: History and Civilization / Per. from fr. M. Yu. Nekrasov. - St. Petersburg. : Eurasia, 2012. - 416 p. - 3000 copies. - ISBN 978-5-91852-028-4.
• Vikings. Raids from the north / Per. from English. L. Florentyeva. - M. : Terra, 1996. - 168 p.: ill. With. - (Encyclopedia "Disappeared Civilizations"). - ISBN 5-300-00824-3.
• Vozgrin V. E. Greenland Normans // Questions of history. - 1987. - No. 2. - S. 186-187.
• Jones Gwyn. Normans. Conquerors of the North Atlantic. - M.: Tsentrpoligraf, 2003. - 301 p.
• Dougherty Martin J. Viking world. Everyday life Children of Odin / Per. from English. V. L. Silaeva. - M.: Publishing house "E", 2015. - 224 p.: ill. - Series " Dark side stories". -

The real discoverer of America in the United States is not Christopher Columbus, but the Viking Leif Ericsson. Every year on October 9, this event is celebrated in the country. The material traces of Leif in the New World - a bronze pin and a soapstone whorl - were unearthed in Canada in the 60s of the XX century by the Norwegian adventurer, vagabond and writer Helge Ingstad.

Over a thousand years ago, the ancient Scandinavians settled the Faroe and Orkney Islands, Iceland, and then southern Greenland. You can read more about what mysteries exist regarding the Greenlandic settlements of the ancient Vikings in this detailed article. In short, the Norman colony in Greenland existed for about 400-500 years, and then, for unknown reasons, disappeared.

Archaeological excavations in Greenland, Danish scientists began in the 20s of the last century. At the same time, the possibility of voyages of the Greenlandic Vikings to America began to be seriously discussed - fortunately, southwestern Greenland was separated from Baffin Island in the New World by the Davis Strait, about 350-450 kilometers wide. However, Europeans knew about the possible colonization of America by the Vikings much earlier - when information appeared about the mysterious country of Vinland (Country of Grapes).

Ruins of a Norman church in Greenland