At the tip of Newfoundland’s Great Northern Peninsula lies the first known evidence of European presence in the Americas. In 1960, George Decker, a citizen of the small fishing hamlet of L'Anse aux Meadows, led Helge Ingstad to a group of mounds near the village that the locals called the "old Indian camp".
Helge Ingstad and Anne Stine Ingstad carried out seven archaeological excavations there from 1961 to 1968. L'Anse aux Meadows is currently the only confirmed Norse site in North America. Eventually it became a federal site and now it is part of the Parks Canada Agency family of National Historic sites, National Parks, and Marine Conservation Areas. It was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1978.
The reconstructions are based on the size, shape and features that were found here in L’Anse aux Meadows. However as the museum basically had foundations and little else, information was taken from Icelandic sites that were covered in volcanic ash when Mount Hekla erupted in 1104. The preservation of wall and roof details helped complete the picture for L’Anse aux Meadows.
You will meet costumed Viking interpreters as you tour the recreated base camp and discover original artefacts from this internationally renowned archaeological find.
Text source: Wikipedia & pc.gc.ca
Image by D. Gordon E. Robertson - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10931775
