The new excavations took place 1973-76. Previous digs had been confined to the Norse buildings and other visible features on the site. The Canadian Parks Service work took in the
areas between the buildings and bogs on either side of the terrace on which the buildings were
located, as well as along the shoreline south of the site. The goals of the new excavations were
to document in greater detail the function of the site to clarify its relationship to the native
cultures and to gather additional environmental data. A great many more artifacts were
encountered, and the distribution of these, combined with data from chemical, metallurgical, and
palynological, petrographic, phosphate, wood diatomes, and other analyses make it possible to
identify the site with confidence as a basecamp for the exploration of Vinland. Occupied for just
a few years around the year 1000 and that it was organized and owned by Leif Ericson. We also know now that no less than four
native groups, both Indian and Eskimo, preceeded the Norse on the site, and that it was occupied
by an Indian group long after the departure of the Norse. There were however, no native people
on the site when the Norse were there.
The Norse buildings are located on a narrow terrace bordered to the east by a sphagnum bog and
encircling a funnel-shaped sedge peat bog. A small brook cuts through the terrace and winds its
way along the southwestern perimeter of the bog. The topography has changed somewhat since
the time of the Norse. This part of Newfoundland is rising as part of peristatic sea level changes.
It has been suggested that the bog basin was a shallow lagoon at the time of the Norse. The
environmental data gathered shows, however, that there had never been a lagoon here and that
the bog had begun to develop some two thousand years before the Norse at a time when the area
underwent a severe climate deterioration. The bog was wetter during the time of the Norse, with
standing water around its margin. The Norse aggravated the situation by stripping much of the
surface sod for use in their buildings. During the summer it would have been difficult, if not
impossible, to walk across it. Much of the time the ground would have been frozen, however.
Today, there is almost constant frost about 50 cm below the surface.
The Norse buildings were constructed of sod over a timber frame. The buildings were mainly of
two kinds: large multi-roomed halls and smaller pit buildings. These latter were small square
huts sunk into the ground. There was also a small rectangular house next to one of the halls.
The large halls are distinctly Icelandic in shape and layout. These buildings have traits common to those built around the
end of the 10th century but lack details developed after the 11th century. The same style of buildings had then
been transferred to Greenland with Eric the Red and his colony.
The date of the buildings and their artifacts agrees well with the 141 radio-carbon dates now
available for the site. The small size of the middens, the lack of evidence for building repair and
the unstratified cultural deposits indicate that the occupation was short-lived, a few years at the
most.
The buildings form three complexes, each containing a hall and a pit building. The complex
nearest the brook also has a small house flanking the hall. In addition there is a hut for the
smelting of iron away from the rest of the buildings.
The Ingstads had encountered about 125 artifacts inside or immediately outside the buildings.
Of these, about 100 were nails or fragments of nails. The rest of the artifacts were small
personal items that had been lost by their owners. Among them were a cloak pin of bronze, a
glass bead and three items associated with clothes making: a spindle whorl for spinning wool,
flax or hemp, a fragment of a bone needle for "single needle knitting", and a small whetstone for
sharpening sewing needles and scissors.
During the Parks excavations an additional 650 Norse items (and many more native objects)
were encountered, primarily in the bog. Most were of wood and consisted of carpentry debris
thrown out from one of the halls. The wetness and the tannic acid of the bog had preserved them
in mint condition. The debris included chips and slivers from shaping wood with a broadaxe.
There were also a great number of wooden skewers, pieces of ropes made from spruce roots, a
container of birch bark and rolls of the same bark, and a bow for an auger. Most objects were
broken and, probably discarded after being replaced with new parts. Among them was a board
that resembles a mending patch found in their home county of Viking Dublin used for repairing their ships.
One of the most exciting discoveries made by the Ingstads at L'Anse aux Meadows was the fact
that iron had been smelted at the site, the first instance of iron working in the New World. The
furnace was in the centre of the floor in what was first thought to be a smithy, but now known to
have been a hut built expressly for the furnace. The hut was sunk into a steep bank at a point
where the brook makes a sharp bend and forms a small rapids. Having only three walls, the hut
was open towards the brook and the bog. This is precisely the type of furnace hut used on large
Viking Age iron production centres in Norway. The method used for the smelting of iron was
direct reduction. The furnace itself was little more than a low shaft of large stones set over a
shallow pit in the ground. A bellows had probably been inserted into this shaft to pump oxygen
to the fire. Clay was used to line the pit and make the stone shaft airtight. The fuel was charcoal
produced in a pit kiln 7 m southwest of the furnace hut. The ore was local bog iron roasted for
removal of the water. As the bog iron was smelted in the furnace, impurities trickled out of the
pit via a channel and coagulated into slag. The iron dropped to the bottom of the pit forming a
bloom. Once the process was completed, the furnace was broken open and the bloom retrieved.
Parts of the shaft and the slag were discarded on the spot or thrown down the slope to the brook.
Metallurgical analyses have shown that the iron had been smelted at a temperature of about 1250
degrees Celsius and that the bloom had been reheated first inside the furnace hut and later in the
little house to a temperature of around 900 degrees Celsius. The hot iron was hammered to
remove further impurities. Only when this had been done could the bloom be forged into
objects. The smelting procedure was highly inefficient, producing five times as much slag as
iron. All in all the operation was a minor one, producing in total only about 3 kg of iron.
Analysis of artifact distributions is one of the archaeologist's most important tools in
reconstructing activities on a site. When we look at the distribution of the L'Anse aux Meadows
artifacts, certain patterns are striking. Almost all (87%) of the iron smelting slag comes from the
area of the furnace hut. The smithing slag from the forging of the iron into objects, comes
primarily from the southernmost complex where it is concentrated in one room of the hall. Of
the nail fragments found on the site, 78% come from the northernmost complex where they were
concentrated to a shed attached to the eastern side of the hall. In the case of L'Anse aux
Meadows we can say with certainty that their presence is due to boat (or ship) repair. X-ray
photos reveal that the nails have been clipped off for removal, their roves split with a chisel
blow. Metallurgical analysis shows that these discarded nails were not produced from the local
bog iron. Similar debris was found in a boat repair area of the Swedish site Paviken on the
Baltic island of Gotland. Ship nails rust after prolonged submersion in salt water and have to be
replaced periodically. Post and log imprints in the shed floor show that wood supports were
used during the repair of Viking ships. It was here the rusted nails were removed and replaced
with new ones. The new ones were made from iron produced in the furnace and forged into
nails in the smithy in the southernmost hall. Not very many were needed. Less than 3 kg would
be sufficient for about 100 nails, a minute amount but one that nevertheless has left a trace in the
archaeological record.
Although preservation conditions are the same throughout the bog, carpentry debris is found
primarily outside the middle complex. (The boat repair patch suggests that the carpentry was
aimed at boat repair. Ships were vital for the safe return to Iceland or Greenland, and it would
have been essential to keep them in a seaworthy condition.
It is intriguing that the four elements of work are each associated with a specific complex: the
production of iron and forging of nails in the furnace hut and the southern complex, carpentry in
the middle complex, and actual repair in the northern complex. This is a very structured
operation. It would have required an assertive leader to organize the actions of everyone.
The layout of the buildings also give clues to their function and that of the site. The halls were
residences, and each contained one or more rooms where people ate, slept and socialized. Each
of these rooms had wooden platforms with bedstead and seating along the sides and an open
fireplace in the centre of the floor. Other rooms were workshops. There was one workshop in
each hall, each associated with a specific activity: a smithy in the complex nearest the brook,
carpentry shop in the middle complex, and shed for boat repair in the northernmost complex.
Each hall also had an unusually large storage room.
The halls are massive structures, the longest one measuring 28 m in exterior length. Only the
elite owned halls of these proportions. The construction is solid, with rows of posts inside.
These, plus masses of sod accumulated outside the halls, show that the buildings had been
substantial, with proper roofs and meant to withstand winter. Thus they were not simple buoir,
the temporary structures mentioned in the sagas.
On Scandinavian sites, pit buildings were usually workshops and it is probable that they filled
this purpose also at L'Anse aux Meadows. The paucity of artifacts inside them make it difficult
to say exactly how they were used, but they seem to have been tied in with the specific workshop
activity of each complex. They could have served as living quarters for persons of inferior social
status, probably slaves. Heavy chores, for instance the cutting and hauling of building sod,
collecting bog iron and wood were usually relegated to slaves, so it is likely that some were
brought to L'Anse aux Meadows.
The small house in the southernmost complex was a combination of dwelling and workshop.
The roasting of bog ore and first hammering of the bloom took place here.
From the size of the total floor space in the living quarters one can deduce that the settlement
could accommodate about 100 people. Some of these people were more important than the rest
because the two largest halls both have a small private chamber in addition to a large common
one. Such privacy was afforded only to a leader who might have shared it with his wife, or if she
was not on the voyage, with his special retainers. A fragment of a small gilded brass ornament
found in the middle complex is also an indication of social prominence. The small house next to
one of the halls is of the kind inhabited by people who ranked low on the social scale.
Most of the activities on the site seem to have been carried out by males. Iron working,
carpentry, and boat repair were male chores. The spindle whorl, the knitting needle and the
needle hone indicate that women were present, however.
An intriguing picture of L'Anse aux Meadows is beginning to emerge from the type of artifacts
and building, their internal relationship and, indeed, the location of the site itself. The
settlement is the standard West Norse community. It has no byres, barns, enclosures or other
structures associated with the livestock found in normal settlement situation. Likewise the
cluster of three large simultaneously occupied halls is highly unusual as is the high proportion of
storage and workshop space. The iron nails suggest that boat building and repair were
particularly important.
The only settlement in the West Norse area where we find such a cluster of dwellings, large
storage spaces, and specialized activities were at the markets or ports of trade. These differ in the fact that the dwellings are simple buoir, booths,
not halls like in L'Anse aux Meadows. L'Anse aux Meadows has certain aspects in common with the trading centres: the
clustering of buildings, the workshops and the ship repair. But the houses are large permanent
substantial dwellings, not seasonal huts, and all the workshops are geared to ship repair, not
goods for sale. What type of settlement is it then?
The location of the site itself contrasts sharply with the normal settlements in Iceland and
Greenland. The latter were never on the open, exposed coast but at the heads of sheltered fjords
and otherwise protected areas with good communications to the interior. By contrast L'Anse
aux Meadows site is in one of the most exposed locations in Newfoundland, the wind sweeping
in from all sides, with a harbour that affords no sanctuary against the elements. The extensive
impassable woods and marshlands and lack of navigable rivers make a penetration inland almost
impossible. The site faces west to the Strait of Belle Isle, not north and the open sea. This is a
strategic position, suitable for keeping an eye on vessels entering the strait.
The large storage spaces indicate that goods were collected. L'Anse aux Meadows was perhaps a
trans-shipping station, a "gateway", to which goods were brought from elsewhere. Coined by
the anthropologist Burghardt, the term gateway refers the point through which all traffic moves
into and out of a resource region. Situated at the fringe of the resource zone, it forms the link
between the area of resources and the core settlement. Characteristic for settlements of this kind
is that they were owned and controlled by a political authority, a chieftain or king residing in the
core area. This leader usually maintained his command via a deputy who controlled the goods
coming in and going out and who regulated all activities.
One find in particular within the Norse artifact concentrations in the bog confirms that the
L'Anse aux Meadows occupants collected commodities from other areas. This was the
discovery of three butternuts, Fuglans cinerea, a North American variety of the walnut as well as
a burl of butternut wood worked with metal tools. The nuts and burlwood were found in
different locations but all were within Norse artifact concentrations. Butternuts have never
grown north of the St. Lawrence Valley and northeastern New Brunswick where they are found
along the inner reaches of the large Miramichi and St. John rivers. Thus the people who lived
and worked at L'Anse aux Meadows had also visited more southerly locations.
A particularly interesting fact is that the northern limit of the butternut coincides more or less
with that of wild grapes in North America.
These wild grapes grow in deciduous woods where the vines climb high in the air winding
themselves around tall maples or other trees. Thus the Norse accounts of Vinland may well be
based on a first-hand experience of both grapes and vinvio, wood from a grape tree. Such wood,
emanating from mature deciduous trees, would obviously have been regarded as a major
resource to any visitor from Iceland or Greenland. It is not unfeasible that in addition to nuts
both grapes and fine hardwood were brought to L'Anse aux Meadows.
