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A drop off Viking settlement get it on as " Hóp , " which has been mentioned in sagas passed down over hundred of year , is said to have back up godforsaken grape vine , abundant salmon and inhabitants who made canoe out of beast hides . Now , a big archaeologist says the small town likely resides in northeastern New Brunswick .
If Hóp is found it would be the secondVikingsettlement to be discovered in North America . The other is at L’Anse aux Meadows on the northern point of Newfoundland .
The only known Viking site in North America is located at L’anse aux Meadows, Newfoundland. It was declared a World Heritage site.
Over the X , student have suggest possible positioning where the stiff of Hóp might be found , including Newfoundland , Prince Edward Island , New Brunswick ( on the east coast of Canada ) , Nova Scotia , Maine , New England and New York . However , using the verbal description of the colony from sagas ofViking voyages , along with archaeological work carried out at L’Anse aux Meadows and at Native American sites along the east coast of North America , an archaeologist has narrowed down the likely location of Hóp to northeastern New Brunswick . The likeliest location there ? The Miramichi - Chaleur bay domain . [ In Photos : Viking Settlement Discovered at L’Anse aux Meadows ]
base on the enquiry , " I am placing Hóp in the Miramichi - Chaleur bay area , " Birgitta Wallace , a fourth-year archaeologist emerita with Parks Canada who has done wide research on the Vikings in North America , told Live Science . Hóp , she said , may not be the name of just one closure , but rather an area where the Vikings may have create multiple short - term closure whose accurate locations change from year to year . tale of theViking voyageswere passed down orally before being write down , and " Hóp " may have been misunderstood as being just one website when it could have referred to several seasonal settlements , Wallace said .
Narrowing the search
Wallace found that northeastern New Brunswick is the only place that meets all the criteria in the sagas for Hóp : It check wild grapes and salmon , roadblock sandbars and a aboriginal population that used animal - hide canoe . " New Brunswick is the northern limit point of grapes , which are not native either to Prince Edward Island or Nova Scotia , " said Wallace , mark that grape vine were not found in Maine , either .
Additionally , " roadblock sandbar happen along the coasts of [ Prince Edward Island ] , Massachusetts and Long Island , but they are peculiarly dominant along the New Brunswick east glide , " Wallace say . Wild salmon was abundant in easterly New Brunswick at the time , but research behave by archaeologist Catherine Carlson shows that they were not see at pre - Columbian aboriginal American sites in Maine or New England , Wallace said .
obliterate canoe were used by the Mi’kmaq people in the Miramichi - Chaleur Laurus nobilis area , and that region was so abundant in wild Salmon River ( before overfishing in the retiring one C caused the population to strike ) that the Mi’kmaq used the Salmon River as a totem ( a tool of spiritual significance ) , Wallace sound out . " The only arena on the Atlantic seaboard that accommodates all the saga criteria [ for Hóp ] is northeastern New Brunswick , " Wallace told Live Science .
This wood fragment may be a boat patch. It was found at L’Anse aux Meadows, the only confirmed Viking settlement in North America. Viking ships likely sailed from L’Anse aux Meadows to Hop.
Additionally , excavation atthe Viking settlementat L’Anse aux Meadows revealed the clay of three butternuts and wood from a white walnut tree — metal money that are aboriginal to New Brunswick , Wallace allege . They also reveal the presence of white ash , beech , eastern hemlock and white elm — all of which can be found in New Brunswick .
Finding Hóp
While Wallace can narrow down the localization of Hóp , finding the actual site(s ) will be difficult and perhaps inconceivable , Wallace said .
Hóp was likely used as a summer coterie , and any tents or buildings constructed there would have been used only for a few months at most , making them difficult for archeologist to find , Wallace state . At the death of the summer , the Vikings probably brought the remains of anyone who diedback to Greenland(the home base for the Vikings in the region ) . Any tools they used would probably have been bring back to Greenland or L’Anse aux Meadows . to boot , the saga indicate that the Vikings at Hóp would have focused on gathering woods and food , an activity that would n’t leave alone a large trace in the archaeological record , as constitutional materials do n’t preserve well . Furthermore , the landscape painting in the Miramichi - Chaleur bay arena has changed , and any Viking site ( or sites ) could be paved over .
Even so , " I hope that all archaeologist work in this area keep their eyes opened just in caseful they should go across something not fitting the ethnical patterns they set out to explore , " Wallace told Live Science .
An essay containing some of Wallace ’s inquiry was print recently in Canada ’s story magazine .
to begin with published onLive Science .
