Unwashed, uncivilized, bloodthirsty masses rampaging and pillaging—it’s the popular image of the Vikings, but there have been a number of archaeological finds that have truly made us rethink our image of the entire culture. And perhaps just as surprising is the fact that plenty of the stories which we thought were tall tales might actually be true.
10 Writing The Ending Of Viking Sagas
We have two main sources of information on Viking trips to the New World: The Saga of the Greenlanders and The Saga of Erik the Red. These sagas weren’t written down until several hundred years after the trips, so a lot of the information they contain has been taken with a grain of salt. While they’re pretty descriptive of what the Vikings were after on their journey and what happened when they got there, the sagas don’t say anything about what happened after the Vikings left. We know they did leave, but we weren’t sure where they went until recently.
One source of contention is that the two sagas differ on the fate of Thorfinn Karlsefni after leaving the New World. Greenlanders says that he moved to Glaumbaer, Iceland, while The Saga of Erik the Red holds that he moved back into his original family estate. Of the two works, Erik is generally considered more accurate, but a recent archaeological find might finger Greenlanders as the true history, at least as far as Thorfinn is concerned.
In 2001–2002, researchers discovered a huge longhouse buried underground in Glaumbaer. The floor was found in a layer of rock that put the date at about A.D. 1104, and we can be certain about that because it’s discolored by the remains of an eruption by Mount Hekla. The longhouse is massive, about 30 meters (100 ft) by 8 meters (25.5 ft), which suggests that it belonged to someone pretty powerful—like Thorfinn Karlsefni. The design of the longhouse is also pretty distinct. It’s definitely Viking in origin, but it has a structure that’s more similar to the contemporary houses found in Newfoundland than those found in areas more native to the Viking culture.
While it’s still not 100 percent certain that the settlement did belong to Thorfinn and his family, all the evidence falls into place. According to the sagas, Thorfinn and his wife left the New World, settled somewhere in Iceland, and raised an entire clan. Finding the settlement where they lived out their days would be an incredible historical achievement.
9 L’Anse Aux Meadows
Another long-held debate is who the first people to make the trip across the Atlantic were. Currently, the ancient settlement in Newfoundland seems to be the front-runner for one of the earliest European presences in North America, and it’s a fascinating look into 11th-century Viking culture.
The site is incredibly well preserved, and it’s thought to have been occupied until at least 1500. Homes and workshops are built with the same style and method as contemporary buildings in Iceland and Greenland, and excavations have shown that not only was it a Viking settlement, but it was occupied by humans as far back as 5,000 years ago.
The Viking era has yielded four buildings that are thought to have been used as workshops, a forge, and eight houses. Forged pieces of ironwork have been found on the site, including a lot of domestic items like nails and buckets. It’s not certain how long the site was occupied, or whether it was a seasonal outpost, but it was given the name of “Leif’s Camp” because of its connection with the infamous Leif Eriksson.
8 Teeth Filing
We know that body modification is far from a new idea, but recent finds show that the Vikings took it to whole new levels of painful. In 2009, a mass grave of Viking warriors was discovered in Dorset, England. Oxford University archaeologists tasked with studying the remains found something incredibly strange—their teeth had been filed, with incredible precision, to create patterns etched deep into the enamel. The patterns were so intricate and so carefully done that it’s believed they were the work of a craftsman skilled in the art of filing. Not only would the process have been too difficult for someone to do to themselves, it would also have been way too painful.
According to the Swedish National Heritage Board, there are a huge amount of teeth with similar markings found in the Viking cemetery located at Kopparsvik, Gotland. The procedure seems to have taken off sometime around the 10th century, and the types of etchings seem to have been up to the person. Some teeth have only a mark or two dug on their upper front teeth, while others have up to four marks. It’s not clear whether it was done for intimidation, as a status symbol, or just to show just how worthy a fighter the person was. Archaeologists have also guessed that the Vikings may have filled in the grooves with charcoal or other substances to make them even more prominent.
