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CA-K081History

L’Anse aux Meadows: Norse presence over 1,000 years ago

Reconstructed sod buildings at L’Anse aux Meadows, photographed in 2012; modern reconstructions, not the original remains.
Reconstructed sod buildings at L’Anse aux Meadows, photographed in 2012; modern reconstructions, not the original remains. Site Viking Anse aux Meadows 4 · Pierre Gingras · Photo source · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 4.0. Resized for display; item previews may be cropped. The image remains under the licence shown.
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L’Anse aux Meadows, at the tip of Newfoundland’s Great Northern Peninsula, holds the first known evidence of European presence in the Americas. Norse expeditions from Greenland built a small timber-and-sod encampment there over 1,000 years ago; the site was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1978.

Scope & context

The Norse site and its recognition, not the much longer Indigenous history of the area or later European colonization.

Sources behind this record

1