A Viking village in Canada, spotted from space

Space archaeologist Sarah Parcak on the site of a possible Viking settlement on the southern coast of Newfoundland in July 2015.
Credit: Freddie Claire/ BBC

Evidence at an archaeological site in southern Newfoundland suggests it may once have been inhabited by a group of the seafaring Scandinavians. If borne out by further research, this would be only the second Viking site in North America, and the first uncovered in more than 50 years.

“You can explain away one site,” said Sarah Parcak, the archaeologist from the University of Alabama at Birmingham who led the discovery. “It’s a one-off. But I think if there’s two, there’s definitely more.”

Parcak first discovered the ancient ruin in a thoroughly modern fashion: through satellite images taken hundreds of miles above earth. Her team scanned the coastline of eastern Canada and northern New England using Google Earth to search for evidence of past human settlements.   

When the team found areas where plant growth seemed disrupted, they ordered high-resolution satellite imagery for a closer look. That led them to the southwestern corner of Newfoundland and a site researchers are now calling “Point Rosee.”

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