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The Norse in Vinland
Vinland is the name the Norse gave the land they found west of Greenland, and L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland is the one settlement that has been found again. L'Anse aux Meadows is the only confirmed Norse site in the Americas, and its discovery in 1960 settled a question the sagas had raised for centuries. The date of 1021 is unusually precise because a cosmic ray event in 993 left a global marker in tree rings, letting each ring be counted from there. That the settlement was abandoned is the historically interesting part: the distance was too great, the party too small, and the resistance from people already living there too strong.
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