Spectrum; 89; And the Vikings Came

You I'm David Proud at Science Editor for our National Educational Television. Norway is a long, narrow, mountainous strip of land on the northwestern edge of the European

continent. The word Norway means the way north, and may originally have designated the sea lane along the coast. From the beginning of its history, Norway has maintained its connection with the outside world with its ships, first for conquest and then later for trade. A natural byproduct of this heavy commitment to the sea was exploration. With fragile, open, wooden ships, the Vikings range the North Atlantic looking for new lands to settle and new wealth to bring home. The old Viking sagas tell of a place called Vinland, discovered by Leif Ericsson in his crew about 1000 AD. For many years, scholars have believed that Vinland was really in North America and that Ericsson was the man who discovered our continent, some 500 years before Columbus made his trip to the New World. But the archaeological proofs of where Ericsson actually landed could not be found.

The search ranged all the way from New York State up through Nova Scotia, but no Vinland. Then in 1960, Helga Incstead, explorer and author found the ruin of a North settlement, dating to almost exactly the proper time in Newfoundland. Spectrum came to Norway to interview Dr. Incstead about his discovery and the work that's been done ever since. Dr. Incstead, I know a little bit about Vikings, I think we all do, but who were they really? The Vikings were the people from Sweden, Norway and Denmark, and the Viking time came with an explosive force in about a year, 800, and these young people, they sailed abroad far. The Swedes most went to the Baltic, down to the Black Sea, the Danes most went to England for the South, France, to Norwegian also went to England, to the Scottish island, continued

down to the Mediterranean, and even as far west as to Istanbul. And it was a robbery, in killing, of course, it was a tough time, but it was also an other side of it, and that was exploration, finding of new countries, where people could settle with their family and state. You mean they weren't all warriors, there was an agrarian side to it? Of course it was, I mean Norway, it was farmers and Sweden, it was farmers, but it might have been so, there was too much room in old countries, and then they started to travel west, and then that start came from Norway, you know, we have the Donkos facing the North Atlantic Sea. So when talking about the discovery of North America, it is not anything that happened,

yes, certainly it is a historical line there. And then from Iceland, there was a difficult travel, because it was of ice in the sea, and then the man Eilich Terehd, he appeared on the scene. Well really, then what you're saying is that the progression was a very natural one for them to get to North America, sort of step by step by step by step, I have never been able to figure out the genealogy, Eric the Red and Leif Ericsson, what was their relationship? Eric the Red, he was the father, Leif Ericsson, and Eric the Red, he came from Norway,

said in Iceland, and then he was chased out of Iceland, and then he wanted to find a land to the west that he had heard about in a hasty way, and then he sailed this cold Greenland and afterwards he colonized Greenland, and that colony, North colony in Greenland, that existed for 500 years, from 986 to about 1500, and then it disappeared completely. We do not know what happened to the North people living there, and after all there were about 4,000 people living there. Are there any theories about what happened? Yes, there are many theories, but we don't know for certain, some people talk about the change in the climate, or the scientists talk about the Eskimos having killed them, but in fact we don't know, the only thing we know coming to Greenland, I made an expedition

there before, that was kind of the stepping stone for my expeditions to North America. You don't see the old North people, you don't see the ruins, there had 300 farms, there had about 17 churches, even a bishop seat, that was under the Norwegian bishop in Norway. All these ruins can be seen, separately nice, in order to fall down some of it, but the other, you can put your hands on them. And they just vanished? The people, it's the one of the greatest mystery, they just disappeared, that's all we know. Well now, what about this final jump? Was it Eric the Red that finally went to the New World? No, that was not him, it was his, the first place it was a man that sailed and so it his name was Björne, and then came life, the son of Eric the Red, and he wanted to find the land that Björne had seen, and you know it was, it was not very surprisingly that

they discovered North America, in fact it was a neighbor country, it was only 200 miles across from Greenland, across the Davies straight to Labrador, then I could only follow the coast going south. And of course they were used to sailing much longer distances than that. Yes, sure, they had, they used to sail during all these hundreds of years, they sailed back and forth to Norway, right across North Atlantic, in the open boats, and that was a distance of about 1,500 miles on the one way. What was this great pressure, though, to keep on moving, to keep on exploring? Of course we cannot say anything for certain about it, but many times in history when you see people moving away from their own country, that's because they are maybe a little too crowded and also a spirit of adventure, it is not very different from the immigration

to the United States, I think the reasons might be both same. Could you describe what kind of men and women the Vikings were? It's not so easy to describe, of course we have the Icelandic literature that gives a number of stories, so you get an impression of very strong people, and they also had a culture, and after all they were not very much different from you and me sitting here, I don't think so. Vinland was a name in a saga, and people have been looking for it for a long time, they were looking for the Norse settlements in North America, how did you happen to come upon it? Well, I mentioned to get away with my life, I made this expedition to East Green, to the settlement in Greenland, an examinolose, for ruins, and have worked long time with

this historical material, and after a while it, I came to the conclusion that Vinland must be looked for further north than most scientists had believed before, you see, this matter has been examined and studied for the vast 200 years. So the saga's mention, that where life Ericsson came, he found grapes, and he found, and they also concluded that a name, wine, Vinland means, it refers to wine, now there was a Swedish scientist who thought it was not right, he thought that the first syllable, Vin, that is the same as we find in a number of place names in Norway and in Sweden, and it means aggressive plains, a place that is good grazing for the cattle, and that was very important for these people.

You really have to be a historian before an archaeologist, don't you? Yeah, I always been very much interested in the history, and in this case I believe it was necessary. Well, now what did this discovery of the word, the different meaning of the word, mean to you? That was a one, I gave a number of reasons for my theory about Vinland being further to the north, and that was one of very important reasons, because formally you see, if they believed that Vinland had a meaning of a place very full of wine, then they had to look at it. That was sort of, probably sort of, in most of Sussex, and further sort, where the grapes are growing wild, so that I could cut that out, and then I could look further north. Could you describe a little bit of the expedition itself, how you actually came upon it?

Yeah, at the same time, when I put forward that theory, I also maintained that it should be possible, if a man made a systematic search by boat and by plane along the coasts of North America, it should be possible to find some traces of the horses to the Vikings. In such an expedition, I made in 1960, and I traveled from the early spring to late in the fall and examined all kinds of basins and so on, and there were many, many disappointments. Then it last late in the fall, I got a trek of something that smelled good, and I followed that trek, and it last I came to the very northern tip of Newfoundland, and there was a nice, aggressive plane there.

It's a fishing settlement, a very small one, living completely outside this world. There was no road, the coastal boat didn't go there, and there I met the man by name, George Decker, he was a fine, tough old Viking, I must say, he died a couple of years ago. He was a very good friend, and he showed me these ruins. I say, oh, ruins, you could hardly see them, it was on a, there were a located on the beach terrace, about 12 feet, about sea level, and then we saw a very faint outline, but there must be horses, that was a certain thing, and the whole landscape and the living condition, very much impression, that he was something very much like the farms I've seen in Greenland. But of course, only excavation could tell the story. And you weren't able to excavate right away, were you?

No, I was not going to do that, no. So next year, and then for the, all the following years up to now, we have made seven archeological expeditions, with participation of international teams of scientists, from your country, from Canada, from Sweden, Iceland and Norway. And excavated these whole sites and other matters, this year is going to be the last we are going across this summer, no, then we'll be finished. Well, now what have you found that really convinces you, and of course, convinced your colleagues, that this was in truth a North settlement that existed about what, one thousand eighty? Yeah. Well, there was a number of, of feeders, of great importance was the shape of the horses, the host sites, before the, this host, horses were built according to the same method used in Greenland and in Iceland, about the year-thousand, that's very important.

And some of the horses were large, one of them, one of the hosts was about seventy by fifty-five feet, and all of them was pretty big to, would that be what they used to call the long houses? No. That big house consisted in fact of six rooms, and one of the rooms was what you, Michael Hall, where you had a long fire in the middle, and you could see on the sides, there was little high of a people who had been sitting there a thousand years ago, talking about the new country. And yes, it was long-host type, that's the oldest type of horses from the Viking time. And what else did you find? When we found some different things, of course the condition for preservation was very pure.

This was on the terrace, very acid terrace, so even bones had been disintegrated, most of it, if it hadn't been exposed to fire, it was only like so dust, most of the bones, everything of wood, of course, had disappeared too. Now we found a bone needle of those types, and we found some nails, and a few other things, and probably the most important find we made. That was this small little thing here, it doesn't look very much, but it is important. It is made of soapstone, it's what you call the spindle world. The women used it for spinning, and they put it on a stick through that round hole, and I don't know all the details, my wife can explain it better how the women worked it, but the mediturner onion in that way the thread was twisted. And this is made probably from an old pot, or maybe an oil lamp, you see, it's kind

of curved on one side and completely black, so that's very important, because any archaeology is from Norway and Sweden and Denmark, when they see this, they know right away, this is a North spindle world. That was the conclusive finder. We had so much, I mean, the whole thing was certain even before we found that, but we found that what I always wanted to find, something very conspicuous that everybody could see it clearly, that this really was North. Why didn't you find more artifacts, really? In first place, of course, it was, as I mentioned, the condition for preservation was very pure. So everything of the wood, of course, used lots of wood for spoons or whatever it was. And on the other hand, you know, these people, they didn't own much.

This is Tosnia's ago. What did they have? They had an X and a knife, maybe, that was not a precious thing, and a few other things that was the bow and arrows and such things. And they certainly took good care of that thing, they couldn't afford to lose, not like we, when we have something as little bad shape, you throw it away by something new, they couldn't do that. To lose a knife in the wilderness, that would be a terrible thing. So it's the same way I met them, I lived with the Indians and Eskimos. That's the way they were very carefully took care of every little, every small thing. Did you find any evidence that there were women and children in the settlement? Well, this is an evidence of women. And we know from the sagas telling about these different Wienland voyages, they were different of them.

First they came alive, then came his brother, Torben, he was killed by a native stone. And then was tough in Karls VII, he traveled with 160 ships, and now with three ships and 160 men and also women, that's mentioned in the sagas, and he had cattle with him, because he had his plan was to establish a colony in these new countries, a colony in America. Well, the obvious question presents itself like Greenland, what happened to these people, these settlers? It is told about Karls VII that he returned, he came into fight with the natives and some of the people that killed him, it is written in these old sagas that even if he considered the country as being very favorable, good and nice country, he didn't dare to stay there because he understood that there would never get peace. And they couldn't fight successfully with the Indians? No.

Who are the Eskimos, I guess? Yeah, we don't really know, it might be both. You see, when Columbus discovered America, nobody is going to take anything away from him, I think it's only foolish to make a lot of business. So he had guns, and he was superior, he is a weapon very superior to natives, but you know, these Vikings, not too many of them, they used bone arrows and spears, they had swords of course. I mean, they didn't have much more than the Indians, they were the same thing, and they were much the Indians, and Esk must have many more in numbers. So they were simply driven out? Yeah, these people are returned than to, that we know, this first expedition, but I would think it's very surprisingly, if there hadn't been quite a few more journeys to North America than we know about it, because after the way was known, why shouldn't they, why shouldn't

they go out of a fetched timbre or maybe do hunting or whatever it is, but I mean, we don't know too much about that. Is there any evidence that they went further south? We have no evidence about it, it might be possible, I can say, but there's no evidence. Some people think there's evidence in this tower, you know, in Newport tower. I don't think this is Viking, some people think, no, I don't think we have any evidence of that. Well, what happened to the Vikings? They all went back, and presumably the Iceland settlement remained functional. They actually went out, going all the way to Greenland, then they started to pull back in, didn't they? Yes, and where are the Vikings today? What actually occurred?

Did they stop being a group of people and, you know, discreet group? You mean in Greenland? In Greenland, and actually, you know, just as a group. Well, of course, they changed, I mean, then they came new times, they were not heating anymore, and the church got the power, and these people changed hundreds of years, went along, you know, and so they came a different time, and people acted differently. I know you're going back this summer for another more excavation. What do you hope to find? We never know what we are going to find, we always hope, you know. So I mean, there is the soil, you cannot see, and we scrape, and we scrape, and we hope the soil, maybe some implements, maybe something else, maybe nothing, we don't know. But in any case, we are certain to get the shape of a house or a large room that we discovered last year.

That's what's taking you back. Yeah, we've got to finish that. Certainly, we've found a new thing in the nearer to finish it. How large was the Venezuelan settlement? How big an excavation? We have found an excavated seven house sites, some of them are rather large. What would that mean in terms of people? That's sort of a very difficult thing. That will be guessing, you know, and I'm a little afraid of doing that, but you may say that as large as these houses are, there must be quite a few people having lived there, I would think. And then we also found a smithy, and that was very interesting. The blacksmith? The black smithy. It is. It's a blacksmith that is standing there and swinging his hammer, you know, a thousand years ago. And it was a very small room that was dug into the terrace. And right into the middle of the room, there was a kind of a level stone that was solid in the ground.

That had been the end will, and all around it it was completely black and we found hundreds of pieces of slag and small pieces of iron and also bog iron. So it's every indication of that this North people living there in North America, they produced iron from bog iron, the same way as the Vikings did in Greenland, Iceland, Sweden and all and so on. It's another tie back. Yeah, it's a very, it was a very common thing. That's the way they got the iron. They didn't have steel, did they? No, they didn't have steel. They just used iron. So it was kind of a soft, kind of soft toots, but it was so light, for swords and knives and so on. And you see you find this bog iron, we were surprised before, that you turned around the turf close to the, to the bog and that of a leg completely covered the backside of the turf.

It neon noodles, some as big as a hen's egg and smaller than it. That was the iron. You have spent a great deal of your life up in the North country and working with the people and investigating the people that grew and up there. What's the difference as an archaeologist in exploring in the North as opposed to desert areas or some of the warmer climates? I haven't done any work in the warmer climate except in the Mexico ones up in the mountains there. But of course there is a difference. If you come far to the North, of course, the cold itself would preserve things, be it in the sub-trop, the sub-artigan, that was a difference, of course. And at the same time we are going to the South, you find a big things, art and so on. You know, in the North you have to live a more primitive life and consequently your tools

and everything you have is fairly primitive too. Have you put all this together into any kind of a volume? I've written a popular book that's published in Norway and all over Europe, but it's going to be published in United States and England these spring, I believe. Well, I know you're working on a scientific publication now and that will be on the North findings. Yes, that's what we are doing now and that's trying to get that in a good shape or a scientific book. Let me ask you a personal question, if I may, I know that you started life as a lawyer and you were leading a relatively comfortable life here in Norway and all of a sudden you packed up, went up to the North, became a trapper, started investigating in these very difficult places. Why?

I had a very good business at the lawyer and I was a little afraid of making too much money in fact because then you are tied down and I mean if you have something in you that you want to do during the short time you live you have to start when you are young. And that's the only reason that you left? That's the only reason I left because I wanted to do what I like to do before I got too old. Well, I'm not quite sure how to describe you really, you're a historian and archaeologist and a man that obviously seems to be able to make his dreams and then make them come true and thank you very much. Thank you. This is David Prelett, NET, in Oslo, Norway. David Prelett, NET, in Oslo.