The identification of Vinland

Abstract

During the past 200 years, few informed persons have doubted that abouta.d. 1000 the Norse attempted to colonize a part of the New World that theycalled Vinland. But the location of Vinland and the meaning of the word itself have long been subjects of dispute among scholars, and the lack of incontrovertible evidence of Norse occupation has permitted a proliferation of hypotheses. Among the earliest speculators in this matter were Torfaeus (1705) and Forster (1784), but the initiation of spirited controversy may be credited to Rafn (1837), who first forcibly drew public attention to the fact that it was the Norse who, some 500 years before Columbus, discovered the New World.