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Among the 800 artifacts archaeologists also led a party of 160 men and women in three ships.
found soapstone oil lamps, a bone needle and They stayed three years, and his wife, Gudrid,
more iron nails. Some of the smaller houses gave birth to a boy, Snorri, presumably the first
appeared to be workshops for carpenters and European born in America.
weavers. A spindle whorl attested to work with
textiles, and since Vikings considered this One of the advantages of the L'Anse aux
women's work, at least some of the expeditions Meadows camp, scholars say, was its safe
must have included women. distance from native Indians. But at other
settlements, the Vikings had several bloody
The absence of evidence of any barns, Dr. encounters with the Indians, whom they called
Wallace said, indicated that this was not a Skraelings, a derogatory Old Norse word
farming settlement, but a base camp for the meaning wretch. In a time before gunpowder, the
Vikings as they surveyed the region for likely Vikings with spears and axes held no arms
places for more permanent occupation. advantage over the Indians with bows and
arrows, and the Indians outnumbered them.
In an essay for the exhibition's companion book,
Dr. Wallace wrote, "The silent ruins of the "Internal conflicts as well as attack from the
L'Anse aux Meadows site tell a fascinating story natives eventually led to their departure,"
of the people who built them, when they were concluded Dr. Gisli Sigurdsson, a Norse scholar
there, what they did and why they were there." at the Arni Magnusson Institute in Reykjavik,
Iceland.
This week's heavy snow on the
restored houses evoked a vision of "We have been to the Moon, but
the Vikings' first winter here: we haven't yet established bases
Labrador, their Markland, is barely there," Dr. Wallace said. "The
visible across the strait leading same was the case for the Norse
from the Atlantic Ocean into the and Vinland."
Gulf of St. Lawrence. A small fishing boat rests
on a wooden stand. Fish hang drying on a rack. Long afterward, though, Vikings from Greenland
Firewood is stacked near the entrance to the long repeatedly visited the shores of Labrador for
house. Smoke, rising through a roof hatch, is timber and food. Archaeologists have found
swept away in the stiff wind. Norse artifacts, including spun yarn, there and on
northern Baffin Island. Since neither the early
Inside, people lounge on benches facing a fire for Eskimos nor their immediate Inuit successors
warmth and cooking. They sharpen knives and spun yarn or worked wood by sawing, nailing
axes, carve pieces of wood and mend clothing, and mortising, Dr. Patricia Sutherland of the
garments of wool from home and animal skins Archaeological Survey of Canada said, the
from their travels. By the light of a soapstone artifacts pointed to extensive contacts with the
lamp in a corner, someone fingers the ring head Greenland Norse for several centuries.
of the bronze pin, calling up memories of Beginning this summer, Dr. Sutherland will
Europe. conduct new studies of these artifacts and search
for more in the Canadian Arctic.
All the while, they spin stories of seas they have
sailed and places they have found, stepping But archaeologists hold out little hope of finding
stones of land across the North Atlantic, first the another Viking camp like L'Anse aux Meadows.
Faeroe Islands northwest of Scotland, then Some previous finds have turned out to be
Iceland and Greenland, now here at the gateway misleading or bogus. A Norse penny minted in
to Vinland. Someday their tales would be written the late 11th century turned up at an Indian site
down as the Norse sagas. The ones about in Maine, but it is generally thought to have
Vinland would scarcely be believed, at least not gotten there by trade. A stone tower in Newport,
until the discovery of these ruins. R.I., once hailed as Viking, was actually built in
the 17th century. Both Minnesota's Kensington
Serious Viking exploration of Vinland probably Stone, bearing Norse writing, and Yale's Vinland
lasted little more than a decade. After Ericson's Map are now widely judged to be modern fakes.
single expedition, his role as Vinland explorer
was assumed by Thorfinn Karlsefni, who once