Vikings arrived in North America 471 years before Columbus

It is well known that the Vikings reached the Western Hemisphere long before the brutal commander of Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria, Christopher Columbus.

What is unclear, however, is the exact time when the Vikings first began settling in Iceland, Greenland and Newfoundland.

A Newfoundland website called L'Anse aux Meadows seems to have the answer.

In a study published Oct. 20 in the journal Nature, researchers reported that the timber used to build the settlement was cut down exactly 1,000 years ago, or 1,021.

To unravel this long-standing mystery, scientists combined radiocarbon dating with old-fashioned tree ring counting.

At the northern tip of Newfoundland, Canada, lie the remains of eight Viking buildings: three houses, a forge and four workshops.

Since L'Anse aux Meadows was first discovered in 1960, the site has been completely excavated and then reburied to ensure its protection.

Today, the L'Anse aux Meadows National Historic Site has an interpretation center, as well as a replica of the hidden building.

Still, there are many unknowns about this settlement and its inhabitants.

Scientists are convinced that the buildings were built by the Vikings: the wooden structures, turf walls, and roofs found in the settlements were consistent with the Vikings in Iceland and Greenland, and the settlements were consistent with the written descriptions of the Vikings' westward expansion.

But it's unclear why the Vikings settled there, and what happened to them in the end.

However, recent research seems to have settled on when they first arrived at the site, a feat that most likely marked the first time humans crossed the Atlantic.

The precise location of the date of construction was made possible by the discovery of the so-called Issey Miyake event.

In 2012, Japanese cosmic ray physicist Fusa Miyae discovered cedar trees dating back to the 8th century, and the carbon-14 content of these cedar trees peaked.

Since most carbon-14 is the result of nuclear interactions between cosmic rays and nitrogen molecules in the atmosphere, Issey Miyake proposes that the spikes he observed on the tree wheel were the result of rare and intense solar activity.

Although palace incidents are rare, radiocarbon dating of ancient trees around the world shows that one of them occurred between 992 and 993 AD.

That was exactly when the Vikings built settlements.

In a recent study, researchers examined four woodwork from the settlement of L'Anse aux Meadows and found an illustrative carbon-14 spike near the edge of the bark.

Counting outward into the surface of these objects, they found 29 rings, meaning the wood came from trees cut down 29 years after that solar flare.

Before dating, historians have only stories from Viking legends that can serve as the basis for their assumptions about the arrival of the Vikings in North America.

These stories now have written form and were originally transmitted orally, so they may evolve over time.

While some stories overlap with known historical events, others are clearly not: gods, dragons, and possibly fantasy characters such as Ibar the Boneless are mentioned in the stories.

It is worth mentioning that they also document the interaction between the Vikings and the local indigenous peoples during their expeditions.

The authors of the recent study conclude that their study "provides a new point of reference for European understanding of the Americas and the earliest known years of human migration around the Earth." ”

This proves the value of using this event as a means of dating ancient objects, they add, writing: "Our study demonstrates the potential of the AD 993 point anomaly in the atmosphere with 14C concentrations in determining the age of past migrations and cultural interactions."

Along with other cosmic ray events, this unique feature will allow for accurate dating of many other archaeological and environmental backgrounds. “