Vikings and the discovery of America before Columbus, Digi Mart USA News: For a long time, the story that Norse sailors reached a land called Vinland was considered a legend recorded in Icelandic sagas. According to these accounts, the Norse sailed west in skeid, a type of open-sea vessel, rather than in the dragon ships often pictured in popular culture.
The Vikings began raiding and settling across Europe from the 8th century, operating from Norway, Denmark and Sweden. Their expansion carried them to the Shetland, Faroe and Orkney Islands, and eventually to Iceland in 874, according to the source.
The Saga of the Greenlanders describes further expansion into the North Atlantic. Erik the Red reached Greenland in 985, and his son Leif Erikson is said to have pushed farther west to a region called Vinland.
Whether they actually set foot in North America centuries before Christopher Columbus remained a mystery until 1960.
That year, Norwegian archaeologists discovered a Viking encampment at L’Anse aux Meadows, on the northern tip of Newfoundland in Canada. Sod houses, forge remains and metal objects such as rivets, a spindle whorl and a brooch confirmed a settlement of roughly 70 to 90 people, mostly men.
The site was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1978.
Radiocarbon dating of tree rings later linked the settlement to a solar storm in 1021, allowing researchers to date it more precisely. Relations with Indigenous peoples deteriorated, and the Norse presence lasted only about twenty years.
