{"id":13970,"date":"2016-04-02T17:00:48","date_gmt":"2016-04-02T22:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hcstx.org\/?p=13970"},"modified":"2016-04-02T17:00:48","modified_gmt":"2016-04-02T22:00:48","slug":"ancient-history-were-the-vikings-first-to-discover-north-america-the-evidence-sais-yes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/2016\/04\/02\/ancient-history-were-the-vikings-first-to-discover-north-america-the-evidence-sais-yes\/","title":{"rendered":"Ancient History: Were The Vikings First To Discover North America? The Evidence Sais Yes"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"articleBodyText version-2 section\">\n<div class=\"article-body-text component version-2\">\n<div class=\"component-content\">\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-13971\" src=\"https:\/\/hcsblogdotorg.files.wordpress.com\/2016\/04\/map2.jpg\" alt=\"map2\" width=\"458\" height=\"287\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The Vikings&#8217; claim to be the first Europeans to reach North America will receive a huge boost, with the announcement of the discovery of a new site that marks the farthest known westerly point of the Norse exploration across the Atlantic.<\/p>\n<p>Scientists working with the BBC will today reveal that they believe they have discovered only the second known Viking site in North America, on the Canadian island of Newfoundland, 400 miles south-west of a settlement discovered in the 1960s \u2013 the farthest known point of all the Viking voyages.<\/p>\n<p>The remains of metal and turf, dating to sometime between 800AD and 1300AD, were excavated after sophisticated new satellite searches, and give further credence to the claim that it was the Vikings, not Columbus, who were the first European explorers to discover the Americas.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"articleBodyImage section\">\u00a0<span class=\"m_first-letter\">T<\/span>he discovery also brings the Norse explorers hundreds of miles closer to the United States, raising hopes among some that evidence may yet emerge that the Vikings once walked upon the shores of New England.<\/div>\n<div class=\"articleBodyText section\">\n<div class=\"article-body-text component \">\n<div class=\"component-content\">\n<p>The 90-minute BBC documentary\u00a0will document how Sarah Parcak, a \u201cspace archaeologist\u201d at the University of Alabama, used high-resolution imagery from satellites orbiting nearly 500 miles above the globe, to spot disturbances under the earth in an area of Southern Newfoundland known as Point Rosee.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"m_first-letter\">I<\/span>nfra-red imagery captured the outlines of a building of a similar size to longhouses discovered at L\u2019Anse aux Meadows, the only previously known Viking site in North America, which was discovered in 1960 and is thought to date to just before 1000AD.<\/p>\n<p>Experts have been searching for five decades for further evidence to back-up stories in the Viking Sagas that the Nordic invaders spread from settlements in Greenland, into North America, but have been hampered by the sheer scale of Canada\u2019s massive eastern seaboard.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"articleBodyImage section\">\n<div class=\"article-body-image component \">\n<div class=\"component-content\">\n<figure><span class=\"article-body-image-image-container\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"article-body-image-image aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/content\/dam\/news\/2016\/03\/31\/vikings_2-xlarge_trans++BLexaPiOBa-lbTxCY9do8ah6nAGRHlyitt2Jz2zQRKs.jpg\" alt=\"viking boat\" width=\"199\" height=\"285\" \/><\/span><figcaption> <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"articleBodyText section\">\n<div class=\"article-body-text component \">\n<div class=\"component-content\">\n<p><span class=\"m_first-letter\">D<\/span>r Parcak said: \u201cTypically 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.<\/p>\n<p>This new site could unravel more secrets about the Vikings, whether they were the first Europeans to \u2018occupy\u2019 briefly in North America and reveal that the Vikings dared to explore much further into the New World than we ever thought.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Professor Judith Jesch, director of Nottingham University\u2019s Centre for the Study of the Viking Age, who was not involved in the programme, described the discovery as \u201cquite exciting\u201d. She said: \u201cIn a way it confirms what we think about L\u2019Anse aux Meadows.<\/p>\n<p>That site may have been a way-centre, this new site might be another place where you could gather resources, and make some money.\u201d Remains of butternuts and other artefacts discovered at the L&#8217;Anse aux Meadows site suggest that the Vikings may have ventured much further south, but Professor Jesch said she did not believe they reached the modern-day United States.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"articleBodyImage section\">\n<div class=\"article-body-image component \">\n<div class=\"component-content\">\n<figure><span class=\"article-body-image-image-container\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"article-body-image-image aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/content\/dam\/news\/2016\/04\/01\/greenland_viking_search_bbc-large_trans++cpoWzwBIzlnewd68KzIvqMSLB5l84RipgJaV97BHC8U.jpg\" alt=\"The Vikings Uncovered (No. n\/a) - Picture Shows: and archaeologists searching for lost Viking settlements in South Greenland Dan Snow -\" width=\"319\" height=\"198\" \/><\/span><figcaption> <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"articleBodyText section\">\n<div class=\"article-body-text component \">\n<div class=\"component-content\">\n<p><span class=\"m_first-letter\">S<\/span>he said: \u201cFinding Vikings in the United States is the Holy Grail for many people, not least because there are many Americans of Scandinavian descent who would like to think that they were following in the footsteps of their ancestors. But I don\u2019t think they made significant progress past New Brunswick, in Canada.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Dan Snow, who presents the programme, said: \u201cWere the Vikings really the first Europeans to settle North America?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe know of one Viking site on the very northern tip of Newfoundland but was this part of a wider Viking territory?<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It felt like Sarah\u2019s team were making history, both in the high tech labs and on the ground in windswept Newfoundland.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>All you Viking Fans Be Sure to Set your DVR&#8217;s for The Vikings Uncovered which will air on BBC One at 8.30pm, on Monday April 4th.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Read the Original Article at<strong> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/news\/2016\/03\/31\/how-vikings-made-the-new-world-their-own\/\">Telegraph<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Vikings&#8217; claim to be the first Europeans to reach North America will receive a huge boost, with the announcement of the discovery of a new site that marks the farthest known westerly point of the Norse exploration across the Atlantic. Scientists working with the BBC will today reveal that they believe they have discovered&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[3647,475,10796],"tags":[10819,2548,3648,10820,10821,10822],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13970"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13970"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13970\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}