page_title: Helge Ingstad
section_title: Viking settlement of North America
hierarchical_section_title: Helge Ingstad / Viking settlement of North America
caption_attribution_description: Graphical description of the different sailing routes to Greenland, Vinland (Newfoundland), Helluland (Baffin Island) and Markland (Labrador) travelled by different characters in the Icelandic Sagas, mainly Saga of Eric the Red and Saga of the Greenlanders. Modern English versions of the Norse names.
context_page_description: Helge Marcus Ingstad was a Norwegian explorer. After mapping some Norse settlements, Ingstad and archaeologist Anne Stine Ingstad in 1960 found remnants of a Viking settlement in L'Anse aux Meadows in the province of Newfoundland in Canada. They were thus the first to prove conclusively that the Icelandic/ Greenlandic Norsemen such as Leif Erickson had found a way across the Atlantic Ocean to North America, roughly 500 years before Christopher Columbus and John Cabot. He also thought that the mysterious disappearance of the Greenland Norse Settlements in the 14th and 15th centuries could be explained by their emigration to North America.
  Helge Ingstad died at Diakonhjemmet Hospital in Oslo at the age of 101.
context_section_description: In 1960, he discovered the remains of what later proved to be a Viking settlement at L'Anse aux Meadows at the northernmost tip of Newfoundland in Canada.
  It is the only known site of a Norse or Viking village in Canada, and in North America outside of Greenland. Dating to around the year 1000, L'Anse aux Meadows remains the only widely accepted instance of pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact and is notable for its possible connection with the attempted colony of Vinland established by Leif Ericson around the same time period or, more broadly, with Norse exploration of the Americas.
  Archaeological excavation at the site was conducted in the 1960s by an international team led by archaeologist Anne Stine Ingstad (Helge Ingstad's wife) and under the direction of Parks Canada of the Government of Canada in the 1970s. Following each period of excavation, the site was reburied to protect and conserve the cultural resources.
  The settlement at L'Anse aux Meadows has been dated to approximately 1,000 years ago, an assessment that tallies with the relative dating of artifact and structure types. The remains of eight buildings were located. They are believed to have been constructed of sod placed over a wooden frame. Based on associated artifacts, the buildings were variously identified as dwellings or workshops. The largest dwelling measured 28.8 by 15.6 m (94 by 51 ft) and consisted of several rooms. Workshops were identified as an iron smithy containing a forge and iron slag, a carpentry workshop, which generated wood debris, and a specialized boat repair area containing worn rivets. Besides those related to iron working, carpentry, and boat repair, other artifacts found at the site consisted of common everyday Norse items, including a stone oil lamp, a whetstone, a bronze fastening pin, a bone knitting needle, and part of a spindle. The presence of the spindle and needle suggests that women were present as well as men. Food remains included butternuts, which are significant because they do not grow naturally north of New Brunswick, and their presence probably indicates the Norse inhabitants travelled farther south to obtain them. Archaeologists concluded that the site was inhabited by the Norse for a relatively short period of time.
caption: The different sailing routes to Greenland, Vinland (Newfoundland), Helluland (Baffin Island) and Markland (Labrador) travelled by different characters in the Icelandic Sagas, mainly Saga of Erik the Red and Saga of the Greenlanders. The names are the common modern English versions of the old Norse names
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