Talk:Vikings/Archive 1

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This is a page in need of a major overhaul. It gives a largely erroneous picture of Viking civilisation as being one which conforms to all the sensational stereotypes which most serious historians these days go to great lengths to debunk. I'll start to have a look at what we can do with this. sjc - How controversial is the Vinland/Newfoundland/North America thing these days? Have any definite archeological remains been found? In the old Icelandic Sagas there is mention of Vinland, but does anyone know for sure where it is, or if it even existed?

There was a stone inscribed with runes found in (I think) Pennsysvania in the 19th century, but that has been shown to be a fabrication (the language is wrong for its suppposed date of origin).

However, the remains of a Viking village have been found and excavated somewhere in Nova Scotia or thereabouts, so there's no doubt that there was at least one small settlement. (I don't have the details to hand at the moment, the book's at home - more later)

IIRC, the Vinland saga has a quite reasonably accurate description of the native tribe that the voyagers would have encountered, so with that and the actual physical evidence of a village, it seems that they did make it over the Pond...