Vikings in North America

Gone Medieval

History Hit

History

4.6 • 2.2K Ratings

🗓️ 9 November 2021

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Five centuries before Christopher Columbus set foot in America, the Vikings had already crossed the Atlantic. Using new dating techniques, scientists studying timber buildings at L’Anse aux Meadows on the northern tip of Canada’s Newfoundland, have established the Norse settled in AD 1021, 471 years before Columbus’s first voyage. While it’s already known the Vikings landed in North America, exactly when they settled has remained an estimate, until now. Cat was joined by Dan Snow to speak to archaeologist Birgitta Wallace about this breakthrough research: discover how a long-ago Solar storm provided vital information for the study, the significance of the date, and what's left to be discovered in the future. You can read more about the evidence here.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Have you ever wondered why one of Ruan Cathedral's towers is called the Tower of Butter, or what
0:06.2	animals have faced trials in courts for, or even how the black country got its name?
0:12.4	Well, you can find the answers to questions like these and hundreds more in our new book,
0:18.4	The History Hit Misscellanie. It's the perfect present for any history fan.
0:23.3	It's available to buy now from your favourite bookshop or by visiting historyhit.com forward slash
0:29.8	book.
0:34.0	Hello and welcome to Gone Medieval. I'm Dr. Cap German. Now, you likely to have caught the
0:39.8	big news the other week that a brand new method of dating has, for the very first time,
0:44.4	been able to pin down an exact date for the Viking presence in North America
0:48.7	at the Lancer Medo site in Canada. This was possible because the method
0:52.6	identifies spikes in radiocarbon concentrations caused by solar flares in the atmosphere in the past
0:58.8	that are locked into organic artifacts. Now, we've known about the presence of Vikings in North
1:04.6	America for several decades because archaeological discoveries first made in the 1960s
1:10.0	located a settlement there. This seemed to back up the sagas that describe travels from
1:14.7	Greenland to this mysterious territory called Vingland. And now, the new dating technique has been
1:20.1	able to pinpoint a precise date for the settlement of 1021, so exactly a thousand years ago.
1:27.8	Today's episode is a little bit different as it is in a crossover between Gone Medieval and
1:32.2	Dan Snow's historyhit because to find out more about Viking North America, then and I both
1:37.6	wanted to talk to the rather legendary archaeologist Begitta Wallas who working largely for
1:42.5	Parks Canada was in charge of the excavations at Lancer Medo's from the 1970s onwards.
1:47.8	We had a brilliant conversation and I hope you all enjoy it.
1:52.4	Thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Thank you very much for inviting me.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from History Hit, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of History Hit and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.