In later ages, particularly in the twentieth century, the exact location of Vinland became hotly debated. The first
Among the possible locations ofVinland are Cape Cod, in Massachusetts, and Narragansset Bay, in Rhode Island, both shown in this map of southern New England.
Question that scholars wanted to answer was where Leif had erected his camp, Leifsbudir. The answer seemed to come in 1960, when Norwegian explorer Helge Ingstad and his archaeologist wife, Anne, uncovered the remains
Of a medieval Norse settlement at L'Anse aux Meadows, in northern Newfoundland. As explained by American historian Samuel E. Morison, among numerous other Viking artifacts the Ingstads found
Two great houses closely corresponding to the Norse dwellings earlier uncovered in Greenland. The bigger is 70 feet long and 55 feet wide. The floors were of hard-pressed clay, the walls of turf, and the roof of timber, covered with sod. There is a central hall with a fire-pit in the center, and a little ember-box of flat stones in which coals were kept alive during the night. Around the fireplace are raised-earth benches which the Norsemen doubtless covered with polar bear and other skins. One can imagine Leif and his [followers] lounging there at night
And exchanging tales about their former adventures.67
The Ingstads were able to date the site to about the year 1000, exactly when the sagas said that Leif's expedition occurred. So they and other scholars became convinced that L'Anse aux Meadows was Leifsbudir. However, many were not so sure that Leif's settlement was also Vinland. "Here is the stumbling block," Morison says. "Wild grapes cannot possibly have grown as far north as L'Anse aux Meadows. Their utmost coastal limit in historic times has been southern Nova Scotia,
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