L'Anse aux Meadows is the only authenticated Viking site in North America. It was established 1000 years ago by the explorer Leif Eiriksson during his adventures in eastern North America - 500 years before Columbus' exploits in the "New World". The site was rediscovered by Helge Ingstad and his wife Anne Stine in 1960. L'Anse aux Meadows is now a National Historic Park and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the first cultural site in the world to receive this designation - a symbol of its outstanding cultural and historical value.
Tattered and rusty orange, a map recently unfurled in Beijing has reignited an international war of words over who reached the New World first.
China is the latest to throw its sailor hat into the ring, but it won't likely be the last in this long-running, hotly contested debate.
The Chinese voyage to America theory was popularized by British amateur historian Gavin Menzies in his 2002 book entitled "1421: the Year China Discovered America." The controversial, bestselling work claims that Chinese admiral Zheng He reached the Americas more than 70 years prior to Christopher Columbus' famous voyage.
Working with computer-enhanced images of gold coins minted in the Punic/Phoenician city in North Africa of Carthage between 350 and 320 BC, (please see sketch of coin right and where the world map is supposed to have been inscribed) McMenamin has interpreted a series of designs appearing on these coins, the meaning of which has long puzzled scholars. McMenamin believes the designs represent a map of the ancient world, including the area surrounding the Mediterranean Sea and the land mass representing the Americas.
If this is true, these coins not only represent the oldest maps found to date, but would also indicate that Carthaginian explorers had sailed to the New World.
Radiocarbon and DNA evidence for a pre-Columbian introduction of Polynesian chickens to Chile
We present a radiocarbon date and an ancient DNA sequence from a single chicken bone recovered from the archaeological site of El Arenal-1, on the Arauco Peninsula, Chile. These results not only provide firm evidence for the pre-Columbian introduction of chickens to the Americas, but strongly suggest that it was a Polynesian introduction.
Her work started as a casual investigation into a local curiosity. This investigation turned into a fifteen year quest which ended in the recognition of the Heavener Runestone as the work of ancient Viking travelers and its protection within a state park. Evidence of other visitors also came her way. These includes petroglyphs that record their names, drawings of the ships that brought them here, artifacts they left behind, and a solar observatory that they constructed to mark the passing of the seasons.
The Oklahoma Nero Coin
On September 24, 1976 an ancient coin was found in my hometown of Heavener, Oklahoma by Wilbert Stewart. Imperfectly round, a little smaller than a quarter, the coin appeared to have a Roman profile and a Greek inscription on the obverse. The reverse showed an eagle holding a thunderbolt, a palm branch, and two inscriptions (Fig 11-1).