03/13/2021
Seriously Discover Magazine? Just how much credibility do you think you have when your "vikings" article features a guy in a horned helmet and a cloak make of animal skins?
Second there will never be "evidence" of Norse exploration or settlement in North America as long as the academically safe answer is to declare every new find or discovery a hoax. For centuries every time there was a possible discovery of evidence of Europeans in North America prior to Columbus the virtually immediate response of academia was to declare it a "hoax" even if the "hoax" had to be decades in the making and relied on a long string of happenstance to bring the hoax to fruition.
Declaring something a hoax requires no evidence, the expert who declares something a hoax doesn't have to prove who or how the hoax was perpetrated. Further declaring something a hoax carries virtually zero professional risk, once labeled a hoax examination by the accredited experts in the field stops, with only amateurs or those with "fringe theories" continuing to examine the find. Of course anything discovered by amateurs or fringe theorists is immediately dismissed because the "foremost experts in the field" have already declared the find a hoax.
The list of Vikings in America hoaxes is nearly endless, filling entire books, because aside from L’Anse aux Meadows every piece of evidence has been declared a hoax or "inconclusive". If Norse Sagas were given even 10% of the credibility which academia grants to Native American folklore, virtually every one of the finds that were declared a hoax or inconclusive would be presented as absolute proof of the credibility of Norse Sagas.
Centuries before Columbus, a small band of Norse people explored the Canadian coast. For now, the only proof is a single settlement. Here’s what’s known about how the Vikings came to North America, where they landed and why they left.
