Norse settlement: the working camp at L’Anse aux Meadows
The Norse settlement at L'Anse aux Meadows stood near the northern tip of Newfoundland, far across the Atlantic from Iceland and Greenland. Its occupants built turf-covered houses and workshops, worked iron, and repaired equipment associated with seafaring. The camp belonged to the early 1000s. Timber cut with metal tools demonstrates activity there in 1021. This was an exploration base within a much older Indigenous landscape, rather than the beginning of human occupation on the coast. Its architecture, objects, and dated wood preserve different parts of that history.
Eight buildings occupied a narrow terrace overlooking a peat bog and small stream near Epaves Bay. Three served as dwellings, four as workshops, and one as a forge. Timber frames supported walls and roofs covered with turf. The arrangement of rooms, openings, and fireplaces followed forms used in contemporary Iceland and Greenland. Long fireplaces through the middle of floors supplied heat, cooking space, and light. These substantial structures provided the Norse settlement with living quarters and places for skilled work during its short occupation.
Ironworking connected the camp to the practical demands of ocean travel. Excavators found smelting waste and iron nails or rivets associated with boats. Woodworking also took place there, and the workshops were suited to activities such as ship repair. The camp served as a base for travel beyond Newfoundland's northern peninsula. Its combination of domestic and industrial buildings supported people who needed to maintain vessels, prepare supplies, and continue exploring from a temporary home far from their usual ports.
Small objects reveal other activities. A bronze ring-headed pin, found inside a cooking pit in one dwelling, was of a type used to fasten Norse cloaks. Another building contained a stone oil lamp and a spindle whorl, the weight that helped a handheld spindle turn. A small whetstone lay near the whorl. These finds connect the houses with clothing, lighting, and textile work as well as navigation and metalworking. The range of tasks extended beyond the forge, and the textile tools indicate that women participated in the camp's life.
The location became known to archaeological investigators in 1960. Local resident George Decker showed Helge Ingstad a group of overgrown ridges and mounds. Helge and his wife, archaeologist Anne Stine Ingstad, subsequently led an international excavation team. The ridges proved to be the lower portions of Norse turf walls. Archaeologists recovered objects and building arrangements closely comparable to those in Greenland and Iceland. Excavation continued through 1968, with specialists from Norway, Iceland, Sweden, and the United States joining the international team led by the Ingstads.
A more precise date emerged from analysis of wood. Three pieces came from different trees, included the outer growth edge, and showed cuts made with metal tools. A known increase in atmospheric radiocarbon in 993 provided an annual marker inside their tree rings. Counting outward from that marker established that the trees were cut in 1021. The result dates a particular episode of Norse activity. It does not establish the first arrival, the total length of occupation, or the identities of the people who performed the work.
Earlier radiocarbon measurements had produced much broader ranges. Some uncertainty came from the size of samples and the precision possible when the measurements were first made in the 1960s and 1970s. Wood can also be older than the activity associated with its final use. The 1021 analysis selected pieces whose outer growth edges survived, allowing the cutting year to be determined. The Norse settlement could therefore be placed within a specific calendar year while the broader chronology of its occupation remained a separate matter.
Indigenous use of the area extended back approximately 6,000 years, long before the Norse settlement. Tools and campsites belong to five or six distinct groups. Dorset people camped on the southern shore of the bay more than two centuries before the Norse arrived. The coast provided rich marine resources and lay close to Labrador. The Norse also encountered Indigenous communities farther north and in other parts of the lands they explored. Their Atlantic voyages connected this coast with the settlements they maintained in Greenland.
After excavation, the original building traces were reburied to protect them from deterioration. The recovered objects are conserved, and a partial reconstruction presents the forms of the dwellings and workspaces. The protected property extends well beyond the excavated buildings, preserving their setting beside the bog, brook, and shore. UNESCO inscribed the Norse settlement as a World Heritage property in 1978. The buildings remain in their original positions, with their turf walls and underlying archaeological layers protected beneath the covering earth.
- Parks Canada, L’Anse aux Meadows: Culture and history — parks.canada.ca
- UNESCO, L’Anse aux Meadows National Historic Site — whc.unesco.org
- Margot Kuitems et al., Nature, Evidence for European presence in the Americas in AD 1021 — www.nature.com
- Parks Canada, L’Anse aux Meadows: Indigenous Sites — parks.canada.ca