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Map of Viking landing area in Newfoundland



Map of Newfoundland coast, showing Viking landing site in inset box.


Location of the Vinland described in the Viking sagas has been the subject of much speculation. In 1960, Norwegian archaeologists Helge Ingstad and his wife Anne Stine investigated at Epaves Bay in Newfoundland at a site called L'Anse aux Meadows (Meadow Cove), and discovered  the only Viking settlement so far known in North America.

The excavation of L'Anse aux Meadows revealed the outlines of eight sod-walled structures, one with features suggesting it was a bath-house of a type known from the Norse occupation of Greenland. This is the first solid, material evidence that the Vinland described in the Viking sagas was a real place visited ca. AD 1000 by Leif Erickson and his companions.

[For more details, see Vikings in Vinland.]

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