BBC article re more evidence of Vikings in North America

[Imperial Dave]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-35935725

plus this will be shown on Monday 4th April on BBC1 20.30

[Jim Webster]

I'm not surprised, as a boy I read the Henry Treece Viking trilogy 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking_Trilogy

[valentinianvictor]

I have read various reports in the past of what appear to be finds linked to the Vikings down the east coast of the USA, but there was a general feeling that they were more in the line of exploration parties rather than settlements. This program may raise a very uncomfortable issue for some historians in the USA...

[Imperial Dave]

I thought the programme last night was quite good to watch albeit in the vanilla-ised BBC populist viewing stylee 

[Nick Harbud]

I also watched the programme last night.  Although it is impressive that turf walls can be detected from orbit and under 6" of soil, the settlement found seemed very similar to those previously identified on Newfoundland.  Thus, it does not really upset any strongly held beliefs regarding extent of Viking trade/colonisation in North America.

[Erpingham]

I also watched the programme last night.  Although it is impressive that turf walls can be detected from orbit and under 6" of soil, the settlement found seemed very similar to those previously identified on Newfoundland.  Thus, it does not really upset any strongly held beliefs regarding extent of Viking trade/colonisation in North America.

Agree - I was astonished they made such claims when all they seem to have detected was another temporary base exactly where mainstream archaeologists would expect it to be.  Maybe further excavation will reveal a longer term settlement site, with evidence of farming and burials.  That would be a game changer.

I did enjoy the programme - serious remote sensing.  Bit too much padding though - how many pictures of a CGI satellite or a knarr cleaving the waves did we need?  At least there were no cheesy re-enactments.

[Andreas Johansson]

Agree - I was astonished they made such claims when all they seem to have detected was another temporary base exactly where mainstream archaeologists would expect it to be.

A TV documentary exaggerating the importance of what it's reporting on? That's surely less than astonishing.

[Mark G]

I remember that brief period when history docs had no cgu and relied on reenactors instead.
It's a shame that passed so quickly.

[Jim Webster]

Watching six re-enactors trying to pass themselves off as a battle had a charm all of its own 

[Erpingham]

Watching six re-enactors trying to pass themselves off as a battle had a charm all of its own 

Then it turns into groundhog day, with the same six re-enactors, in the same shots, edited in the same way, being every battle

Or, in this case, the same CGI satellite sequence being used as a linking device over and over.

There was some good use of reconstruction in this documentary - two different Viking ship replicas (shame they didn't think to talk about why one was the sort you might use for exploration and one for raiding), a reconstructed turf longhouse so we knew what they were digging up should look like and even a bit of blacksmithing. There were bleak, wintery shots of cgi York and burning monasteries used sparingly.  So by no means all fluff.

[aligern]

Good programme. Just double the length needed to tell the story. No one mentioned why the Vikings would have carried treated ire to use as raw material rather than carrying nails?
R

[Erpingham]

No one mentioned why the Vikings would have carried treated ire to use as raw material rather than carrying nails?
R

It was left hanging a bit.  The obvious answer is the bog iron was collected locally (they seemed to be digging in a bog), roasted in the excavated spot and then smelted elsewhere on site.  Or perhaps they shipped it back up the coast to L'Anse aux Meadows, where we know they had metal working.  Part of this would be about the availability/accessibility of bog iron on Newfoundland, which I don't think was mentioned.

[Dave Beatty]

The evidence continues to mount showing the possibility that the Kensington Runestone is genuine after all...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kensington_Runestone

[Imperial Dave]

had a conversation with child no.2 the other day...

her: who was it that discovered America....you know.....erm.....who was it etc?

Me: the Vikings

her: no not them the other one

Me; no really the Vikings

her: after them I mean

Me: Christopher Columbus (sighs)

her: yep that's the one

[Tim]

Dave

I don't know but I suspect it was more likely that the americas were discovered by a Paleo-Indian whose name is unknown to us (not least because it was before they discovered/invented writing, or because it was not important enough for them to write down).

If you read the lyrics of the Bob Dylan song "Bob Dylan's 115th Dream" it imples that he discovered it before Columbus...