Scientists have analysed wood samples from trees using a bygone cosmic storm as a reference point to reveal an exact year that Vikings were present in America.
According to a study published in the Nature journal, per National Geographic, researchers examined wooden artefacts to determine the exact year that Vikings journeyed to the L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland, Canada. The data retrieved indicated that European seafarers were felling trees in the area as early as A.D. 1021, exactly 1,000 years ago.
While the precise date corroborates previous evidence of Viking sagas, it also provides the earliest known record of a transatlantic crossing. "This is the first time the date has been scientifically established," archaeologist Margot Kuitems, a researcher at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands and the study's co-author, told NBC News.
"Previously the date was based only on sagas — oral histories that were only written down in the 13th century, at least 200 years after the events they described took place," she added.
The new evidence derives from preserved pieces of wood that were excavated in and around the L'Anse aux Meadows site, with three samples all pointing to the same year.
A solar storm in A.D. 993 released an enormous pulse of radiation that was absorbed and recorded in the rings of the world's trees. Scientists examined the signals that were left behind by the preceding "cosmogenic radiocarbon event" in the rings to determine the exact radiocarbon dates for the felling of the trees at the Vikings settlement.
"If you have a tree with lots of rings and have the bark edge, it's just a question of counting," Michael Dee, a radiocarbon dating expert at the University of Groningen, who led the new study, told NatGeo. "The [previous] radiocarbon dates stretch between the beginning and the end of the Viking Age. We're proving it happened by 1021 at the latest."
This study is particularly significant as it offers a secure juncture for late Viking chronology and presents the earliest known year for the presence of Europeans across the Atlantic.
Various aspects of the Viking Age have made the headlines in recent times. A DNA study last year revealed that most Vikings were not as fair-haired and blue-eyed as pop culture would have us believe. A month later, archaeologists unearthed the 1200-year-old remains of a large Viking temple in Norway that was dedicated to the worship of Thor and Odin.
For more on Marvel's very own God of Thunder, get all the latest on Thor: Love and Thunder.
Adele Ankers is a freelance writer for IGN. Follow her on Twitter.
