| Project Detail |
First contact: understanding timing, duration, geographical extent and lasting significance
The Norse were present in the Americas in 1021 CE, before Christopher Columbus. Filling in major gaps in our knowledge, the EU-funded CONTACT project will explore when, where and for how long Europeans went to the Americas prior to Columbus. It seeks to shed light on who they may have encountered and whether there were any lasting impacts of these first transatlantic connections. It will use the newly developed tools of spike radiocarbon dating and ancient DNA provenancing to test Norse transatlantic expansion. Project work will include a framework for reanalysing the earliest connections between the Old and the New Worlds.
For ten thousand years, the world was divided in two. Almost all human societies belonged to either the Old or the New Worlds. Amid this consummate isolation, the two worlds followed their own cultural and ecological trajectories. The loop was finally closed when the Norse arrived in the Americas in 1021 CE. However, the story of this closure ironically remains one of the most significant gaps in our knowledge of the past. This project addresses the timing, duration, geographical extent and lasting significance of this period of first contact. Using the newly developed tools of spike radiocarbon dating and ancient DNA provenancing, current understanding of the Norse transatlantic expansion will be both tested and extended. Data of unprecedented precision will cast the history of Greenland into sharp relief, allowing fresh insights to be gained on the role of conflict, climate and trade in the ultimate abandonment of the colony. Furthermore, by analysing artefacts on either side of the Atlantic, the true extent and temporality of the Norse presence in the New World will be unveiled. Drawing all the new evidence together, CONTACT will be able to trace the story of the period as it has oscillated down the centuries between fact and fiction. In so doing, it will establish a framework for reanalysing the earliest connections between the Old and the New Worlds. |
