Norse artifacts on Ellesmere Island

Schledermann, Peter

doi:10.1017/s003224740000245x

Cited by 2 publications

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References 1 publication

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“…The Norse artifacts include unmodified Viking ship rivets, woollen cloth fragments, a woodworker's plane, chain-mail sections, a charred oak fragment, and the wooden carving of a face with distinctive non-Inuit features. The nature of the objects and radiocarbon dating of the Norse cloth and the house ruins where the items were found indicate an actual presence of Norsemen in the Smith Sound/Kane Basin region in the late twelfth or early thirteenth centuries AD (Schledermann 1979(Schledermann , 1980(Schledermann , 1993(Schledermann , 1996Schledermann and McCullough 1980;McCullough 1989: 240). The concentration of so many Norse objects only 90 km southeast of Washington Irving Island lends considerable support to the idea that the cairns discovered by Nares on Washington Irving Island had been constructed by Norsemen.…”

Section: Norse Evidence In the Eastern High Arcticmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mystery cairns on Washington Irving Island

McCullough

Schledermann

1999

Polar Record

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In 1875, members of the British Arctic Expedition under the command of George S. Nares discovered two ancient-looking stone cairns on Washington Irving Island at the entrance to Dobbin Bay, eastern Ellesmere Island, Nunavut, Canada. At least one of these cairns was destroyed by the expedition members to construct their own cairn. The possibility that these cairns were built by Norse voyagers to Kane Basin is supported by the large number of Norse artifacts recovered from Thule culture Inuit sites in the Bache Peninsula region just south of Washington Irving Island. Surveys of the island have identified scattered boulders marking the location of the cairns, but the question of the builders' identity still remains a mystery.

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Section: Norse Evidence In the Eastern High Arcticmentioning

confidence: 99%