This is quite interesting to me.
While taking sediment cores from a nearby peat bog to help study the ancient environment, archaeologist Paul Ledger and his colleagues discovered a previously unknown chapter in the story of L’Anse aux Meadows. Buried about 35cm (14 inches) beneath the modern surface, they found signs of an ancient occupancy: a layer of trampled mud littered with woodworking debris, charcoal, and the remains of plants and insects.
Based on its depth and the insect species present, the layer looks like similar surfaces from the edges of Viking Age Norse settlements in Greenland and Iceland. But organic material from the layer radiocarbon dated to the late 1100s or early 1200s, long after the Norse were thought to have left Newfoundland for good.
Not least because the biggest mystery to my mind in all of this is not why the Vikings came over; it’s why they left. I can understand why the Greenland colony was abandoned; even at its best the place was and is inhospitable to Europeans. But Newfoundland would have been perfectly capable of supporting a Norse colony. So why didn’t the Norse stick around?
I suspect that I’ll never know, so I’m just going to blame aliens. Or a time-traveling movie crew.
According to the sagas themselves what drove them off was Indian attacks. They were also engaged in bloodfeuds among themselves at the same time which didn’t do much for their ability to present a united front against the Indians. @_@
Why didn’t they stay? Simple logistics. Over-extended supply lines. England and Spain to America is easy and follows ocean currents once you’ve done it, Norway to Newfoundland is at least 25% longer through less hospitable and navigable waters, even with stops in Iceland and Greenland along the way.
Yeah, but southern Newfoundland isn’t exactly a horrible place to live in the winter, as I understand it. Guess they never found any supplies of iron or good trees.