Tanfield Valley

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Tanfield Valley
Location map Canada Baffin Island.png
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Shown within Baffin Island
Location Imiligaarjuit, Qikiqtaaluk Region, Nunavut, Canada
Coordinates 62°39′14″N69°34′11″W / 62.65389°N 69.56972°W / 62.65389; -69.56972
Site notes
ArchaeologistsMoreau Maxwell, Patricia Sutherland

Tanfield Valley, also referred to as Nanook, is an archaeological site located on Imiligaarjuit (formerly Cape Tanfield), along the southernmost part of the Meta Incognita Peninsula of Baffin Island in the Canadian territory of Nunavut. It is possible that during the Pre-Columbian era the site was known to Norse explorers from Greenland and Iceland. It may be in the region of Helluland , [1] spoken of in the Icelandic Vinland sagas ( Saga of the Greenlanders and Saga of Erik the Red ). [2] [3]

Contents

Archaeological investigations

Moreau Maxwell (1918–1998), professor and curator of Anthropology at Michigan State University, researched the site in his study of Baffin Island's prehistory, the findings of which were summarized in his publication Prehistory of the Eastern Arctic (1985). [4]

The Helluland Archaeology Project was a research initiative at the Canadian Museum of Civilization (now the Canadian Museum of History) to investigate the possibility of an extended Norse presence on Baffin Island, including possible trade with the indigenous Dorset people. [5] The project went on hiatus following Patricia Sutherland's ouster from the museum in 2012. [6] While the project was active, excavations led by Sutherland at Tanfield Valley found possible evidence [7] of medieval Norse textiles, metallurgy and other items of European-related technologies. Wooden artifacts from Dorset sites include specimens which bear a close resemblance to Norse artifacts from Greenland. Pelts from Eurasian rats were also discovered. [8] [9]

However, the eight sod buildings and artifacts found in the 1960s at L'Anse aux Meadows, located on the northern tip of Newfoundland, remain the only confirmed Norse site in North America outside of those found in Greenland.

References

  1. ↑ "The Saga of Erik the Red". The Icelandic Saga Database. Sveinbjörn Þórðarson. Retrieved 12 January 2019. This land they gave name to, and called it Helluland (stone-land).
  2. ↑ Pringle, Heather (November 2012). "Vikings and Native Americans". National Geographic. 221 (11). Archived from the original on October 22, 2012. Retrieved January 28, 2013.
  3. ↑ "World of the West Norse: Greenland to Baffin". Cornell University Library. December 8, 2015. Archived from the original on June 13, 2015. Retrieved January 20, 2016.
  4. ↑ William A. Lovis (March 1998). "Moreau Sanford Maxwell". Society for American Archaeology Bulletin. 16 (2). Archived from the original on June 13, 2010.
  5. ↑ "Helluland Archaeology Project". Canadian Museum of History. Archived from the original on September 14, 2015. Retrieved October 18, 2015.
  6. ↑ Stueck, Wendy; Taylor, Kate (4 December 2014). "Canadian Museum of History reveals researcher was fired for harassment". The Globe and Mail . Retrieved 3 January 2019. On the program, host Carol Off interviewed Dr. Sutherland […] Off asked Dr. Sutherland whether she might have been fired from the Canadian Museum of Civilization (which was renamed the Canadian Museum of History last year) because her research was out of step with government views of Canadian history. Sutherland agreed […]
  7. ↑ Barber, Elizabeth Wayland (1992) Prehistoric Textiles: The Development of Cloth in the Neolithic and Bronze Ages with Special Reference to the Aegean, Princeton University Press, "We now have at least two pieces of evidence that this important principle of twisting for strength dates to the Palaeolithic. In 1953, the Abbé Glory was investigating floor deposits in a steep corridor of the famed Lascaux caves in southern France […] a long piece of Palaeolithic cord […] neatly twisted in the S direction […] from three Z-plied strands […]" ISBN   0-691-00224-X
  8. ↑ Pringle, Heather (October 19, 2012). "Evidence of Viking Outpost Found in Canada". National Geographic News. National Geographic Society. Archived from the original on October 21, 2012. Retrieved January 28, 2013.
  9. ↑ Margo Pfeiff (July 29, 2013). "When the Vikings were in Nunavut". Up Here. Archived from the original on April 18, 2016. Retrieved April 6, 2016.

Further reading

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