Vinland

Vinland, Vineland, or Winland (Vínland) was an area of coastal North America explored by Vikings. Leif Eriksson landed there around 1000 AD, nearly five centuries before the voyages of Christopher Columbus and John Cabot. The name appears in the Vinland Sagas, and describes Newfoundland and the Gulf of Saint Lawrence as far as northeastern New Brunswick. Much of the geographical content of the sagas corresponds to present-day knowledge of transatlantic travel and North America. In 1960, archaeological evidence of the only known Norse site in North America, L'Anse aux Meadows, was found on the northern tip of the island of Newfoundland. Before the discovery of archaeological evidence, Vinland was known only from the sagas and medieval historiography. The 1960 discovery further proved the pre-Columbian Norse exploration of mainland North America. L'Anse aux Meadows has been hypothesized to be the camp Straumfjörð mentioned in the Saga of Erik the Red. Vinland was the name given to part of North America by the Icelandic Norseman Leif Eriksson, about 1000 AD. It was also spelled Winland, as early as Adam of Bremen's Descriptio insularum Aquilonis ("Description of the Northern Islands", ch. 39, in the 4th part of Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum), written circa 1075. Adam's main source regarding Winland appears to have been king Svend Estridson, who had knowledge of the "northern islands". The etymology of the Old Norse root vin- is disputed; while it has usually been assumed to be "wine", some scholars give credence to the homophone vin, meaning "pasture" or "meadow". Adam of Bremen implies that the name contains Old Norse vín (cognate with Latin vinum) "wine" (rendered as Old Saxon or Old High German wīn): "Moreover, he has also reported one island discovered by many in that ocean, which is called Winland, for the reason that grapevines grow there by themselves, producing the best wine." This etymology is retained in the 13th-century Grœnlendinga saga, which provides a circumstantial account of the discovery of Vinland and its being named from the vínber, i.