New Satellite Images Reveal Fresh Evidence That Vikings Settled in North America

The Vikings’ claim to be the first Europeans to reach North America will receive a huge boost, with the announcement of the discovery of a new site that marks the farthest known westerly point of the Norse exploration across the Atlantic.

Scientists working with the BBC will today reveal that they believe they have discovered only the second known Viking site in North America, on the Canadian island of Newfoundland, 400 miles south-west of a settlement discovered in the 1960s – the farthest known point of all the Viking voyages.

The remains of metal and turf, dating to sometime between 800AD and 1300AD, were excavated after sophisticated new satellite searches, and give further credence to the claim that it was the Vikings, not Columbus, who were the first European explorers to discover the Americas.

The discovery also brings the Norse explorers hundreds of miles closer to the United States, raising hopes among some that evidence may yet emerge that the Vikings once walked upon the shores of New England.

The 90-minute BBC documentary will document how Sarah Parcak, a “space archaeologist” at the University of Alabama, used high-resolution imagery from satellites orbiting nearly 500 miles above the globe, to spot disturbances under the earth in an area of Southern Newfoundland known as Point Rosee.

Infrared imagery captured the outlines of a building of a similar size to longhouses discovered at L’Anse aux Meadows, the only previously known Viking site in North America, which was discovered in 1960 and is thought to date to just before 1000AD.

Experts have been searching for five decades for further evidence to backup stories in the Viking Sagas that the Nordic invaders spread from settlements in Greenland, into North America, but have been hampered by the sheer scale of Canada’s massive eastern seaboard.

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