Anne Stine Ingstad | |
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Born | Anne Kirstine Moe 11 February 1918 |
Died | 6 November 1997 79) | (aged
Nationality | Norwegian |
Alma mater | University of Oslo |
Known for | Archeology at L'Anse aux Meadows |
Spouse | Helge Ingstad |
Children | Benedicte Ingstad |
Awards | Order of St. Olav |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Archaeology |
Part of a series on the |
Norse colonization of North America |
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Anne Stine Ingstad (11 February 1918 – 6 November 1997) was a Norwegian archaeologist who, along with her husband explorer Helge Ingstad, discovered the remains of a Norse settlement at L'Anse aux Meadows in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador in 1960. [1] [2] [3]
Anne Stine Moe was born and raised in Lillehammer, in Oppland county, Norway. Her parents were attorney Eilif Moe (1889–1954) and Louise Augusta Bauck Lindeman (1886–1966). Ingstad was the sister of Norwegian art historian and pianist, Ole Henrik Moe (1920–2013). She married Helge Ingstad in 1941, after which she became his scientific collaborator. [4]
She studied archaeology at the University of Oslo in the 1950s. She took a master's degree in Nordic archeology in 1960. From 1960 to 1961, she was curator at the Norwegian Forestry Museum at Elverum. [2]
Between 1961 and 1968, Helge Ingstad and Anne Stine Ingstad conducted research resulting in the discoverery of settlement traces at L'Anse aux Meadows on the island of Newfoundland. They led an excavation of the settlement with an international team of archaeologists from Sweden, Iceland, Canada, U.S. and Norway. The excavation revealed the remains of an early 11th century Norse settlement. These remains included sod houses, a forge, cooking pits and boathouses. The settlement is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site and a National Historic Site of Canada.
After she had become a state research fellow in 1977, Anne Stine Ingstad took up a new field of research, the processing of the textile finds from the Kaupang and Oseberg excavation sites. Following her research, together with archaeologists Bjørn Myhre and Arne Emil Christensen jr. , she wrote the book Osebergdronningens grav (1992). [5]
Anne Stine Ingstad died in November 1997 at the age of 79, leaving behind her 98-year-old husband Helge and their daughter Benedicte Ingstad, professor of medical anthropology at the University of Oslo. [7]
Vinland, Vineland, or Winland was an area of coastal North America explored by Vikings. Leif Eriksson landed there around 1000 AD, nearly five centuries before the voyages of Christopher Columbus and John Cabot. The name appears in the Vinland Sagas, and describes Newfoundland and the Gulf of Saint Lawrence as far as northeastern New Brunswick. Much of the geographical content of the sagas corresponds to present-day knowledge of transatlantic travel and North America.
Leif Erikson, also known as Leif the Lucky, was a Norse explorer who is thought to have been the first European to set foot on continental America, approximately half a millennium before Christopher Columbus. According to the sagas of Icelanders, he established a Norse settlement at Vinland, which is usually interpreted as being coastal North America. There is ongoing speculation that the settlement made by Leif and his crew corresponds to the remains of a Norse settlement found in Newfoundland, Canada, called L'Anse aux Meadows, which was occupied approximately 1,000 years ago.
Helge Marcus Ingstad was a Norwegian explorer. In 1960, after mapping some Norse settlements, Ingstad and his wife archaeologist Anne Stine Ingstad found remnants of a Viking settlement in L'Anse aux Meadows in the province of Newfoundland in Canada. They were thus the first to prove conclusively that the Icelandic/Greenlandic Norsemen such as Leif Erickson had found a way across the Atlantic Ocean to North America, roughly 500 years before Christopher Columbus and John Cabot. He also thought that the mysterious disappearance of the Greenland Norse Settlements in the 14th and 15th centuries could be explained by their emigration to North America.
The Norse exploration of North America began in the late 10th century, when Norsemen explored areas of the North Atlantic colonizing Greenland and creating a short term settlement near the northern tip of Newfoundland. This is known now as L'Anse aux Meadows where the remains of buildings were found in 1960 dating to approximately 1,000 years ago. This discovery helped reignite archaeological exploration for the Norse in the North Atlantic. This single settlement, located on the island of Newfoundland and not on the North American mainland, was abruptly abandoned.
Skálholt is a historical site in the south of Iceland, at the river Hvítá.
Helluland is the name given to one of the three lands, the others being Vinland and Markland, seen by Bjarni Herjólfsson, encountered by Leif Erikson and further explored by Thorfinn Karlsefni Thórdarson around AD 1000 on the North Atlantic coast of North America. As some writers refer to all land beyond Greenland as Vinland; Helluland is sometimes considered a part of Vinland.
St. Anthony is a town on the northern reaches of the Great Northern Peninsula of the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. St. Anthony serves as a main service centre for northern Newfoundland and southern Labrador. St. Anthony had a population of 2,180 in 2021, compared with 2,258 in 2016, 2,418 in 2011, 2,476 in 2006 and 2,730 in 2001.
The year 1961 in archaeology involved some significant events.
The Vinland Sagas are two Icelandic texts written independently of each other in the early 13th century—The Saga of the Greenlanders and The Saga of Erik the Red. The sagas were written down between 1220 and 1280 and describe events occurring around 970–1030.
A knarr is a type of Norse merchant ship used by the Vikings for long sea voyages and during the Viking expansion. The knarr was a cargo ship; the hull was wider, deeper and shorter than a longship, and could take more cargo and be operated by smaller crews. It was primarily used to transport trading goods like walrus ivory, wool, timber, wheat, furs and pelts, armour, slaves, honey, and weapons. It was also used to supply food, drink, weapons and armour to warriors and traders along their journeys across the Baltic, the Mediterranean and other seas. Knarrs routinely crossed the North Atlantic carrying livestock such as sheep and horses, and stores to Norse settlements in Iceland, Greenland and Vinland as well as trading goods to trading posts in the British Isles, Continental Europe and possibly the Middle East. The knarr was constructed using the same clinker-built method as longships, karves, and faerings.
Norwegian Canadians refer to Canadian citizens who identify themselves as being of full or partial Norwegian ancestry, or people who emigrated from Norway and reside in Canada.
Wonderstrands refers to the Furðustrandir, a stretch of coastline mentioned in the Icelandic Eiríks saga, relating the deeds of Erik the Red. It was reported to be located north of Straumfjörð and south of Kjalarnes promontory.
L'Anse aux Meadows is an archaeological site, first excavated in the 1960s, of a Norse settlement dating to approximately 1,000 years ago. The site is located on the northernmost tip of the island of Newfoundland in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador near St. Anthony.
Sop's Arm is a local service district and designated place in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. The community was formed in the 1930s and 1940s by families moving from surrounding communities, including Jackson's Arm. In the 1950s and 1960s families from nearby Sop's Island moved to Sop's Arm, towing their houses across the channel of water.
Íslendingur is a replica of the Gokstad viking ship and was sailed across the Atlantic Ocean in 2000. It is on display at the Viking World museum in Njarðvík, Reykjanesbær, Iceland.
Norwegian of the Century was a poll carried out by the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation in 2005, the 100-year anniversary of Norwegian independence. The poll was SMS-based and over 400,000 Norwegians voted over the course of the year. To qualify as "Norwegian of the Century", the nominee must have lived between 1905 and 2005. All Norwegians were eligible for nomination, and there were initially 600 people on the list. A "Great Norwegian Committee" consisting of Nils Arne Eggen, Astrid Nøklebye Heiberg, Guri Hjeltnes, Harald Norvik, Erling Sandmo and Cathrine Sandnes narrowed the list down to 50. Another poll was conducted, again SMS-based, with the results presented live on NRK1 on 17 December 2005. The winner, with 41% of the vote, was King Olav V. Former Prime Minister Einar Gerhardsen was second with 24%, followed by Erik Bye with 15%. The results for the top 50 spots were as follows:
Straumfjörður (Icelandic), or Straumfjǫrðr, sometimes anglicised to Straumsfjordr, Straumfjordr, Straumsfjord or Straumfjord, is according to the Sagas of Icelanders a fjord in Vinland where Thorfinn Karlsefni set up a temporary settlement. It is described in the Saga of Erik the Red, but not in the Greenland saga. Its name translates to "Current-fjord", "Stream-fjord" or "Tide-fjord".
Point Rosee, previously known as Stormy Point, is a headland near Codroy at the southwest end of the island of Newfoundland, on the Atlantic coast of Canada.
Birgitta Linderoth Wallace is a Swedish–Canadian archaeologist specialising in Norse archaeology in North America. She spent most of her career as an archaeologist with Parks Canada and is best known for her work on L'Anse aux Meadows, currently the only widely accepted Norse site in North America.