Antiquity (2023). DOI: 10.15184/aqy.2023.13
Posted on 04/21/2023 11:16:38 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
Archaeologists have used wood taxa analysis to distinguish between imported, drift and native wood from five Norse farmsteads on Greenland.
Historical records have long suggested that medieval Norse colonists on Greenland (AD 985–1450) relied on imported material such as iron and wood. Until now, it has not been fully recognized where these imports of wood came from...
All sites were occupied between AD 1000 and 1400 and dated by radiocarbon dating and associated artifact types.
A microscopic examination of the cellular structure of the wood previously found by archaeologists on these sites enabled the identification of tree genus or species, and the results were published in the journal Antiquity.
The results show that just 0.27% of the wood examined were unambiguous imports, including oak, beech, hemlock and Jack pine. Another 25% of the total wood studied could be either imported or driftwood, including larch, spruce, Scots pine and fir.
Because hemlock and Jack pine were not present in Northern Europe during the early second millennium AD, the pieces identified from the medieval contexts in Greenland must have come from North America.
This confirms the historical sources, that the Norse did acquire wood from the east coast of North America. The sagas indicate that the explorers Leifurheppni, Þorleifurkarlsefni and Freydísall brought back timber from Vínland to Greenland.
In addition to the possibility of import, driftwood was one of the most important raw materials in Norse Greenland, making up over 50% of the combined assemblage.
Wood also came from Europe, likely including the oak, beech and Scots pine from this assemblage. Some may have come as ready-made artifacts, such as barrel staves, while reused ship timber could have been brought to use in buildings on Greenland.
(Excerpt) Read more at phys.org ...
The other GGG topics added since the previous digest ping, chrono sort:
The current page of Archaeologica, some already posted, some for the coming week.
Þorleifurkarlsefni. Now that’s a name!
So the oral traditions are true
The Norse are still importing timber. They just use IKEA to do it nowadays.
If you consider one wood shard out of 370 to be conclusive proof, this demonstrates that the Norse were in what is now Canada and the US long before Columbus. This somewhat improves the likelihood that the Kensington Runestone in Minnesota really came from early Norwegian settlers.
Lousy for personalized license plates though. :^)
How does one choose between Thor, Lief, Karl and Sefni?
Thor-Leaf-Ur-Karl-Sef-Knee...?
Depends on your mood that day, I suppose. :-/
So they chose gender fluid names?
P
LOL
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