(p. A8) A new look at wooden artifacts found amid the ruins of an ancient homestead shows that Vikings had crossed the Atlantic Ocean and settled in North America as far back as 1021—exactly 1,000 years ago and almost five centuries before Columbus’s famous voyage.
. . .
To pinpoint the year that Vikings occupied the site, the scientists scoured the ancient settlement for wooden artifacts, hoping to find any made from trees that had grown during an unusually intense burst of cosmic radiation known to have occurred in the year 993.
. . .
Using the carbon spike as a reference point, they counted the tree rings in each specimen until they reached the bark, indicating the year the tree was cut down—in this case 1021.
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(Note: the online version of the story has the date October 20, 2021, and has the title “Viking Artifacts Give Precise Date for Europeans’ Earliest Presence in North America.”)