Viking site found on Baffin Islnd

National Geographic has an interesting article about a Viking site in Canada.  Archaeologists have found  whetstones with wear grooves bearing traces of copper alloys such as bronze—materials known to have been made by Viking metalsmiths but unknown among the Arctic's native inhabitants.

In the 1960s two Norwegian researchers,discovered and excavated the Viking base camp at L'Anse au Meadows on the northern tip of Newfoundland—the first confirmed Viking outpost in the Americas. Dated to between 989 and 1020, the camp boasted three Viking halls, as well as an assortment of huts for weaving, ironworking, and ship repair.

Profesor Patricia Sutherland  of Memorial University Newfoundland first caught wind of another possible Viking way station in 1999, when she spotted two unusual pieces of cord that had been excavated from a Baffin Island site by an earlier archaeologist

Sutherland noticed that the strands bore little resemblance to the animal sinew Arctic hunters twisted into cordage. The cords turned out to be expertly woven Viking yarn, identical in technique to yarn produced by Viking women living in Greenland in the 14th century.

The discovery prompted Sutherland to scour other museum collections for more Viking artifacts from Baffin Island and other sites. She found more pieces of Viking yarn and a small trove of previously overlooked Viking gear, from wooden tally sticks for recording trade transactions to dozens of Viking whetstones.

The artifacts came from four sites, ranging from northern Baffin Island to northern Labrador, a distance of a thousand miles (1,600 kilometers). Indigenous Arctic hunters known as the Dorset people had camped at each of the sites, raising the possibility that they had made friendly contact with the Vikings.

Intrigued, Sutherland decided to reopen excavations at the most promising site, a place known as Tanfield Valley on the southeast coast of Baffin Island. In the 1960s U.S. archaeologist Moreau Maxwell had excavated parts of a stone-and-sod building there, describing it as "very difficult to interpret." Sutherland suspected that Viking seafarers had built the structure.


Since 2001 Sutherland's team has been exploring Tanfield Valley and carefully excavating surviving parts of the mysterious ruins. They have discovered a wide range of evidence pointing to the presence of Viking seafarers: pelt fragments from Old World rats; a whalebone shovel similar to those used by Viking settlers in Greenland to cut sod; large stones that appear to have been cut and shaped by someone familiar with European stone masonry; and more Viking yarn and whetstones. And the stone ruins bear a striking resemblance to some Viking buildings in Greenland.

Still, some Arctic researchers remained skeptical. Most of the radiocarbon dates obtained by earlier archaeologists had suggested that Tanfield Valley was inhabited long before Vikings arrived in the New World. But as Sutherland points out, the complex site shows evidence of several occupations, and one of the radiocarbon dates indicates that the valley was occupied in the 14th century, when Viking settlers were farming along the coast of nearby Greenland.

Sutherland speculates that parties of Viking seafarers travelled to the Canadian Arctic to search for valuable resources. In northern Europe at the time, medieval nobles prized walrus ivory, soft Arctic furs, and other northern luxuries—and Dorset hunters and trappers could readily stockpile such products. Helluland's waters teemed with walruses, and its coasts abounded in Arctic foxes and other small fur-bearing animals. To barter for such goods, Viking traders likely offered bits of iron and pieces of wood that could be carved into figurines and other goods, Sutherland says.

If Sutherland is correct, the lines of evidence she has uncovered may point to a previously unknown chapter in New World history in which Viking seafarers and Native American hunters were partners together in a transatlantic trade network. "I think things were a lot more complex in this part of the world than most people assumed," Sutherland said. James Tuck agreed. "It's pretty convincing that there was a much larger Norse presence in the Canadian Arctic than any of us thought."

Intriguing stuff!

Could this be how Ivar the Boneless got his nickname?

It seems that the Vikings were not just raiders and great seafarers - archaeologists and scientists have revealed that they were also expert fishmongers trading cod across extraordinary distances across Europe, from the Norwegian Arctic to England and the Baltic.

Scientists have perfected a technique of analysing cod bones which was originally developed to track modern fish stocks. It analyses collagen, which carries chemical traces of the water the fish originally swam in. Applied to bones from archaeological sites, it is beginning to show a picture of fish transported remarkable distances from AD950 on, when the quantity of bones shows a huge rise in consumption.

The team, led by archaeologists at Cambridge University, say that when fish were chopped up for processing, matching the results from fish bones and heads shows that in some cases they are separated by thousands of miles. The research, reported in this month's Journal of Archaeological Science, also shows the 1,000-year-old origins of the modern problem of declining fish stocks, as fishing grounds had to supply far more than a local market. The emergence of commercial fishing "may represent the point at which people started to have an impact on marine ecoystems," said James Barrett, of Cambridge University's archaeology department.

More fascinating stuff. It does raise a question in my mind. Could Ivar’s nickname boneless be a testament to his fish filleting rather skills after all....

Egil the Scally and Irish Basques

Photo Hunt is the next post

There was an interesting item in Monday’s Guardian. A genetic survey of men living in the Liverpool area indicates that they have Viking ancestors.

The research focused on people whose surnames were recorded in the area before its population underwent a huge expansion during the industrial revolution. Among men with these "original" surnames, 50% have Norse ancestry. The find backs up historical evidence from place names and archaeological finds of Viking treasure which suggests significant numbers of Norwegian Vikings settled in the north-west in the 10th century.

The researchers used historical documents, including a tax register from the time of Henry VIII, to identify surnames common in the region. They then recruited 77 male volunteers with "original" surnames, and looked for a genetic signature of Viking ancestry on the Y chromosome. They report in Molecular Biology and Evolution that a Y chromosome type, R1a, common in Norway, is also very common among men with original surnames.

This is a very interesting discovery. Archaeological evidence eg the longboat recently found, rather rediscovered, at the Railway Inn in Meols on the Wirral and the place names in the area (Kirby, Thingwall etc) are an indication that the area was settled by Vikings.

In 2001 there was a fascinating series called Blood of the Vikings which looked to see if the Vikings had left a genetic trace in the British population Over 2,000 DNA samples were taken from people across the British Isles. The results found that a significant percentage of men in the Orkneys and the Shetlands have Viking ancestry (no surprise there; the islands were under Danish control until 1469 and the indigenous language, Norn, didn’t die out until the end of the 18^th century. The picture in England wass very difficult, however: Only Penrith in Cumbria was any significant race of Viking DNA found. The tests done in and around the Wirral found virtually no trace at all. It would seem that this new survey has discovered evidence missed by the earlier search focussing on a narrower sample.

The DNA survey conducted for the programme were the subject of a paper by Cristian Capelli et al of University College London called A Y Chromosome Census of the British Isles . Showed that the indigenous Britons were not totally supplanted by the Saxons except at the Cornish and Welsh fringes. Many people in England have indigenous ancestors, although the number dues rise as you head west. Also the DNA samples of indigenous Britons are very similar to those in Ireland. This would have indicated that a lot of Britons have Celtic ancestors. However, there is a marked similarity between “Celtic” DNA and Basque DNA. This would indicate that the people described as Celts were not Iron Age immigrants but have been in the islands for many millennia. If this is the case then Celtic influences were more likely to have come via through cultural transmission. But that is a whole different post

Sunstones and seafaring

The Vikings were great sailors and great navigators - of this there is no doubt. But despite their evident skills, their ability to travel significant distances out of sight of land gave rise to speculation as to whether they had access to some form of navigation aid (Not a magnetic compasses as they would not have been available or not until very late Viking period). 40 years ago a Danish archaeologist suggested that they might have used crystals (known as sunstones) to polarize sunlight and thus find the Sun’s location. This. website lists some of the pros and cons of this idea

Interestingly today’s Guardian carried a report that seems to give additional weight to the sunstone idea Tests aboard a research vessel in the Arctic ocean found that certain crystals can be used to reveal the position of the sun even if the sky was obscured by cloud or fog.

Researchers led by Gabor Horvath at Eotvos University in Budapest spent a month recording the polarisation of sunlight while at sea. Although polarisation is not apparent to the naked eye, it can be seen using certain crystals which could work in all but the worst weather conditions

Professor Michael Berry, a physicist at Bristol University, said: "They've shown that even if the sky is full of clouds and moisture, the polarisation of the sunlight doesn't change very much, and that's a real surprise. If you know the time already, then once you know the position of the sun you know what direction you're sailing in."

Another one of those sort of news items that fascinates me…