Talk:L'Anse aux Meadows

Name

As I understand, "L'Anse aux meadows" is a corruption od "LAbse aux meduses", meaning "Jellyfish bay". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.230.95.126 (talk) 06:27, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

• Incorrect, it is a corruption of the French ship, that first landed there when the French settled the Great Northern Penninsula. The idea that it refers to jellyfish comes from Farley Mowat, and anything he says is quite suspect, since he was known to make up facts. The Canadian National Park and Historic Site guide, who grew up in the village as well, told me the truth when I took the tour. I believe they'd know better than an American author.68.199.65.198 (talk) 21:54, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Mowat is hardly an American, he was born in Belleville, Ontario. According to the Canadian Encyclopedia, the community of L'Anse aux Meadows was founded in 1835 by an English seaman named William Decker. However, it had been a French fishing station for centuries before that. The presumption that the name was derived from the French L'Anse-aux-Méduses, meaning "Jellyfish Bay" is speculative. Literally, L'Anse aux Meadows means "The Bay by the Meadows", in French/English.RockyMtnGuy (talk) 22:32, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

"The name [L'Anse aux Meadows] is a French-English descriptive which can be translated as the bay with the grasslands." Place Names of Atlantic Canada, University of Toronto Press, 1996, by William Baillie Hamilton, page 226.[1] There does not appear to be a consensus for either L'Anse aux Meduses (the bay of jellyfish) or L'Anse à la Médée (Medea Cove) as the source of the name L'Anse aux Meadows and they both appear to be speculation. Should either of these be presented as fact in the very first sentence of the lead? Maybe something much closer to Hamilton's description as being a French-English name for a bay with grasslands. Jerry Stockton (talk) 00:22, 12 October 2018 (UTC)

It has been over two weeks without any comment, so changing to "is a French-English name meaning the bay with the meadows." Jerry Stockton (talk) 03:53, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

My edit to say there's doubt about the etymology has been reverted by [User:Moxy] as "unsourced". I did in fact include a link to French Wikipedia, where it is said that there is no early citation for "Méduses" but there is an 1862 written source for "Médée". I read French quite well (I live there) and there isn't much doubt about what the French Wiki article says. For completeness, here's a roughly corrected Google Translate version of the paragraph:

The site now known as Anse aux Meadows is first attested as L'Anse à la Médée on a French naval chart dating from 1862. The toponym probably referred to an ocean-going vessel named after the Greek mythological figure of Medea, which was a typical name for ships of this type at the time. The cove facing the modern village of L'Anse aux Meadows still bears the name of "Baie de Medée".

The etymology of the village of L'Anse aux Meadows is not known with certainty. Parks Canada, which manages the site, says that the current name has been anglicized from l'Anse a la Médée, a form for which there is evidence, by English-speaking colonists who settled in the area. Another possibility is to regard L'Anse aux Meadows, as an anglicization of the conjectural French name L'Anse aux Méduses, though it seems that there is no written evidence for this name. The change from "Méduses" to "Meadow" could be prompted by the topography of the place which is indeed an open landscape where extensive meadows.

I should say that both changes - from Médée or from Méduses - to Meadows are speculative (and unsourced!). But the former can be shown to have existed in 1862, while the latter appears to have a 20th century origin. And of course it's quite possible that French Wikipedia here was based on an earlier version of this English-language page. But I don't think there's much doubt about the uncertainty. Thomas Peardew (talk) 14:18, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

I might also add that in French "Méduse", capitalised, means not "Jellyfish" but the mythological gorgon Medusa. It was quite a common name for French naval vessels (there's a list of 10 of them on the appropriate page): and you don't have to look much further than Gericault's painting, which he called Le Radeau de la Méduse - the Raft of the Medusa. Obviously there's no evidence to link any of these naval vessels to the bay, but it is quite possible that in either case the bay was named after a ship rather than a jellyfish.Thomas Peardew (talk) 14:32, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

Doctorates

I've added "dr." in front of Anne Stine Ingstad. She was a Dr. Philos., University of Oslo, 1978, on the L'Anse aux Meadows excavations. In addition, both Anne Stine and Helge Ingstad held several honorary doctorates.

I'm also OK with dropping both "dr." titles. What's the custom on Wikipedia?

Pretty sure the WIkipedia custom is not to use the honorific title, Dr., but there is a logical way to do so. They are both linked; the writeup on them appears to neglect their having earned Ph.D. degrees. It would be logical to add it to their personal writeups if you have an appropraite reference.

Cheers - Williamborg 01:35, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Note that the Anne Stine Ingstad writeup indicates the doctorate by using the honorific, but does not indicate in which area she earned her degree. Helge Ingstad's writeup indicates he's a "lawyer"; perhaps (probably) his degree is the Juris Doctorate; it is extremely rare to refer to a lawyer by the honorific except in a context where it is important. Williamborg 01:41, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Policy at wikipedia is not to use honorifics, as they should become clear from the context. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 02:07, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

"Continental North America"

What is "the only authenticated Viking settlement in continental North America" supposed to mean? There were settlements in Greenland too, but they don't count because Greenland is an island? But Newfoundland is an island too! If we mean "the only authenticated settlement in North America outside Greenland", we should say so. Angr 07:33, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

There were Moorhead sites in Maine and Massachusetts from whose coastal shell middens many artifacts made of metal for which the indigenous inhabitants had no nearby source were collected in the Peabody museum in Salem, MA. At Pemaquid point in Damariscotia a Norse penny was found, and at Mananna, a small island near Monhegan, bronze tools.12.187.95.180 (talk) 11:58, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

Were Women Really Present?

I find that the line at the bottom of The Settlement section, "Sewing and knitting tools found at the site indicate women were present at L'Anse aux Meadows", strongly indicates the presence of sexism today rather than the presence of women at the settlement 1000 years ago. Sewing and knitting tools indicate not that women HAD to be present, but merely that sewing and knitting needed to be done - maybe by women, maybe by men. Would an all-male settlement really refuse to sew or knit when needed? There has to be better archaeological evidence to support the presence of women, does anyone know of it? --MuséeRouge 14:28, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

The sagas speak of women at least. -- Nidator 13:47, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

The Norse sagas mention that several women traveled to North America, the most prominent of which was Gudrid Thorbjarnardottir, who was born in Iceland and traveled to Greenland about the year 1000. There, she married Thorvald Ericson, but he died in a fight with natives on an exploratory expedition to Vinland, becoming the first European known to have died in North America. After that, she married Thorfinn Karlsefni and traveled with him to Vinland as part of a group of 60 men and 5 women attempting to colonize the continent. They spent three years in Vinland, probably wintering at L'Anse aux Meadows (which was more of a temporary stopping place than a real settlement) and continuing on to their final destination further south, which has not been found. While in Vinland, she had a son, Snorri, who was probably the first person born of European descent in North America. The colonization attempt failed due to native hostility, and Gudrid, Thorfinn, and Snorri retreated to Greenland and then Iceland. I should add that the sagas are actually quite accurate, and that they found L'Anse aux Meadows by following the sailing directions in the sagas. RockyMtnGuy (talk) 20:23, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Skalholt map

The map shows what can only be the northern part of Newfoundland and calls it "Promontorium Winlandia", exactly where the L'Anse aux Meadows Norse site was found and parallel to England! 29 July 2007. Note how the "finger" of Newfoundland (on a modern map) "points" in the direction of southern Greenland and is so depicted on the Skalholt map. 3 August 2007. Please note that the grid of the map has a mistake. It has 55°N instead of 50°N, 60 instead of 55 and so on. This mistake makes the northern tip of Newfoundland appear to be at 56°N istead of 51°N (the same error on the righthand grid has the Bristol, England parallel at 56°N instead of the actual 51°N). 25 January 2008. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.149.50.250 (talk) 03:57, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Expansion/Clean Up

It seems to me that this article is fairly small and lacking in specifics about the site. A lot of the text is stuff about the Sagas, which of course is relevant, but I think the article should focus on, and go into much greater detail about, L'Anse aux Meadows: the artifacts, the structural features, the overall size of the settlement, etc. If no one objects, I'll re-acquire a couple of proffesional articles about the site, and then rewrite this article. -- User:ClovisPt

OK, I went ahead and added information that seems important, removed some of the speculation about Vinland/the Sagas, etc. I also changed "Viking" to "Norse," which is debatable, but I think is a preferable term. -- User:ClovisPt

Evidence

What's some of the evidence that without a doubt proves this was a Viking settlement? 70.59.1.169 (talk) 09:32, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

I thought this was fairly clear from the article; the material record at L'Anse aux Meadows is pretty much the same as the stuff found at sites in Iceland and Greenland that date to around the same time. Should this be made clearer in the article? ClovisPt (talk) 18:13, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

It is indeed clear from the text of the article: "definitive similarities between the characteristics of structures and artifacts" However, it would be nice if the article were to contain some images illustrating this. Shinobu (talk) 10:11, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Reconstruction?

From the images I infer that the site appears to be home to a modern reconstruction of the settlement, but the article doesn't mention it. In particular: When was it built? How accurate is it, historically? How close the the original, archaeological, settlement is it? Shinobu (talk) 10:07, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Just dating

Stine's page says discovery was 1960. So does this page. Ingstad's says '61. Which is it? Trekphiler (talk) 08:38, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

My understanding is that the site was surface examined in 1960 and that excavations commenced in 1961. 2 March 2008. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.148.67.154 (talk) 14:06, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

The name

How did this place get this Frenglish name? Aaker (talk) 00:17, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

The original name was "L'Anse aux Meduses" meaning "Jellyfish Bay". The English corrupted this to "L'Anse aux Meadows" because the landscape has a lot of meadows. I added this information to the header, with a source that may not be original but at least is local. The interesting thing about the area is that there is a strong suspicion that Basque and English fisherman were fishing on the Grand Banks of Newfoundland long before Columbus supposedly "discovered" America, but didn't tell anyone because, well, who wants to give away where the good fishing is?RockyMtnGuy (talk) 17:57, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Should it be L'Anse or L'anse? Also is the correct translation Bay or Cove? 12 February 2008 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.150.231.243 (talk) 22:20, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

If it was a proper French noun, it would probably be capitalized "l'Anse". And the correct translation could be either Bay or Cove. However, "L'Anse aux Meadows" is not really French, it's Frenglish, so who knows what the rules are?..RockyMtnGuy (talk) 04:11, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

As an interesting side-note, on a visit there several years ago, I was told by an older resident that in his youth, some residents called the town "Lancey Meadows", in an apparent attempt to make some Anglicized sense out of the name. cmadler (talk) 19:37, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

And that would be as close as you are likely to come to pronouncing L'Anse aux Meduses with an English accent.RockyMtnGuy (talk) 00:55, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Significance

..furthest.. or ..farthest..? My Oxford and Chambers English dictionaries both indicate that either word is ok. 2 March 2008. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.148.70.35 (talk) 03:18, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

1960?

Why did it take so long to find this site? 168.103.223.110 (talk) 15:49, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

They were just mounds in a grassy field, thought to be Indian burial mounds and fortunately not messed with. See [2]. Doug Weller (talk) 18:35, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Newfoundland historian William A. Munn (1864-1939), after studying literary sources in Europe, suggested that the Vikings had first landed at L'Anse aux Meadows. Also the Skálholt map of 1570 clearly shows the area as Vinland. 15 June 2008. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.148.70.188 (talk) 12:02, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Your card on the expansion of the Vikings ... (green) is false.

Look at Normandy, there is even a date: 911. Map, submitted by Toony on 21 November 2007, replaced by a drawing card, for Fraalambert January 13 2008. Which are copies of cards and Territories voyage of the Vikings, the director Bogdan Giuşcă / Wikipedia in 2005. This map incorrect (protected by copyright [sic], only a wasteland into wishes! What about the ethics of seeking always Wikipedia references), it is a recovery in crude map page 56 of the album, "The Vikings" by Michael Gibson (Editions Nathan 1977), which is a bad rehash of the sise p. 129, in "The Vikings" (editions Hatier 1966), which is a truncated map of the original English edition of "The Vikings" (Watts & Co ed. 1966), including a study of Etienne de Beaurepaire & Jean Adigard des Gautries (which you can see an excellent 34 page copy of "Heimdal" No. 1), also well reproduced in "Die Wikinger Saga," p. 30, Rudolf Pörtner, ed. Econ Verlag GmbH 1971 & 1974 Arthème Fayard, and P. 11 "Heimdal" No. 16, p. 9 No. 29, & p. 20 "Viking Normandie, ed. Copernic 1979, Jean Mabire / Georges Bernage / Paul Fichet p.90 and "The Vikings" by Maurice Gravier ed. Lidis 1984. If you are keen on history, you know that the future (High) Normandy was "sold" to the head Rollon Vikings in 911, by the French King Charles the Simple, where the Vikings had indeed conquered skillfully on the French. But what do we see? The green color, which locates, is put on the (Lower) Normandy ... So why not take the good cards in such a choice of editions? This lack of serious historical présageait it a lack of knowledge on the part of editors and / or editors of Wikipedia. For it is only 924, that Raoul of Burgundy (king of France in 923/936), the successor of Robert I (922/923), himself a replacement for Charles the Simple (922 imprisoned for having "sold" Normandy Eastern stupidly called Haute-Normandie nowadays), is forced to turn to cede Normandy Western (stupidly called Lower Normandy today, disregarding that dialect Norman Bass mean "servant") to Rollon. QED! So: Remove this pseudo card, which is historically false, misleading and geographically. The (High) Normandy fortunately does not form part of the "Large" Paris. Thank you! This request is justified and will not be debated. Shortly chaut me that this card is from a truncated administrator; tors when it fades in and withdraw the pseudo card. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gwyonbach (talk • contribs) 19:36, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Gwyonbach - I believe that the map you are describing is the one I that I just inserted above. If I understand your complaint, you are saying that the map showing Normandy is too big and that the area taken over in 911 of the are is too big,correct? I think that this map is only an estimation of the are that the Vikings had control of, rather than showing an exact geographical blueprint of the event. 911 AD only show that the Vikings became present in the area and later expanded. See Duchy of Normandy. Take Care... Dinkytown 00:10, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Dinkyton - I believe that you did not exactly understood what Gwyonbach wrote.

He mean first - on the map only western Normandy appears. second - that eastern Normandy should appear too. third - that the date appearing ( 911 ) on the map does correspond to the creation of Normandy, that in a first step was only eastern Normandy, roughly speaking Seine-Maritime and a part of Eure. fourth - that Normandy extended till middle Normandy in 924 and too western Normandy in 933.

So you see the map is uncorrect concerning Normandy is false and must been corrected or changed.

Thanks in forehand

--Thorbjorn af ler (talk) 10:14, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

A blank map is useless for most 77.126.209.185 (talk) 18:07, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Map - this was inserted into the article. with signature, copying it here where it belongs

This map is wrong. The Cotentin was not in Norman 932. It Haute-Normandie, which was originally from Normandy to Rollo in 911. Check out the right card on the French site of Viking and L'Anse aux Meadows. Thank you for having the honesty to correct. Aka Gwyonbach 82.235.197.52 (talk) 12:30, 22 January 2010 (UTC)]] moved here by user:Dougweller

Connection with the sagas

No country named Vinland was ever established, it is the name of a region. The link to "Recent archaeological studies" is also irrelevant, as no archaeologist has ever found evidence of a place named Vinland. Wikarth (talk) 23:57, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

(Copying the following message from Wikarth's user page: L'Anse aux Meadows and Vinland as a country)
Hello. I have again removed your wording of the "region wherein the 'country Vinland' was described". The sources the article refers to do explicitely state that "Vinland was a country", they do not mention the word region in this context. Therefore the article should reflect what has been suggested in the study and the on Parks Canada site, not what we think they were trying to say. De728631 (talk) 16:46, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Could some of our English speaking users please help us out here ? I am Norwegian, and understand the term "country" as related to a "state" or "separately administered region". Vinland has never been anything like that. De728631 has another opinion. The source is also clearly mixing historical and archaelogical documentation, as there are (yet) no definite archaelogical facts which can connect L'Anse aux Meadows with the area "Vinland". To avoid Uncyclopedia "facts", we should wash this section. Wikarth (talk) 09:45, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Wikarth on this one. One use of "country" does not a consensus make." Also, that same source later uses the term "the new land Vinland." I'm going to use that language for now. de Bivort 12:36, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Sounds fair enough. The source reads - at your pointer: "This was an exciting discovery, one that led Leif to call the new land Vinland, Land of Wine." In Norwegian, the term "land" is often used as opposed to "sea" - whereas "landkjenning" means "spotting land from a boat". In our language "land" is not necessarily connected to a defined area with borders and/or other limitations. I imagine there could be a similar use of the term "Land" in German, which may lead to the confusion with "country", but I am not sure why the Canadian source is so uneasy with the English. Wikarth (talk) 12:47, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Actually I don't care any more, and "land" seems to work here. Still, the lead section to Country reads: "In geography, a country is a geographical region [→ country = region, so no need to not cite the source as is]. The term is often applied to a political division or the territory of a sovereign state, or to a smaller, or former, political division of a geographical region. Usually, but not always, a country coincides with a sovereign territory and is associated with a state, nation or government." My 2 Euro-cents. De728631 (talk) 22:15, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

I talked it over with a couple of my relatives visiting from Iceland, and they were of the opinion that "land" did not mean "country" in the sagas because the Norse didn't have anything that we would consider a country. They thought it was completely unclear what the name "Vinland" really meant in the sagas. It should mean "land of wine", but it might also mean "land where berries grow." However, the L'Anse aux Meadows site does seem to correspond to areas referred to in the old Norse sagas as being in Vinland, and the artifacts found there are clearly of old Norse origin.RockyMtnGuy (talk) 05:32, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

"6000BP"?

The L'Anse aux Meadows area was originally inhabited by Native peoples as far back as 6000BP.
What does the BP mean? Is it the same as BCE (before common era, otherwise known as before the year zero)? --RThompson82 (talk) 03:28, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

I assume it means Before Present, and originate as radio carbon data? de Bivort 03:55, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

other sites

This seems to be a RS supporting Tanfield Valley. National Geographic. de Bivort 05:31, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for that - fascinating! Simon Burchell (talk) 12:55, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

Point Rosee, Newfoundland should be mentioned. This is a recent discovery: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/03/160331-viking-discovery-north-america-canada-archaeology/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/04/01/an-ancient-site-spotted-from-space-could-rewrite-the-history-of-vikings-in-north-america/Lt. T. E. Lawrence (talk) 11:35, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

A possible discovery at the moment. "The archaeologists are careful to hedge when they discuss Point Rosee and its implications. Parcak acknowledges there isn’t yet a “smoking gun” that absolutely confirms the site as Norse (in L’Anse Aux Meadows, archaeologists uncovered a bronze fastening pin and an iron smithy, among other things).“This is going to take years of careful excavation, and it’s going to be controversial,” I agree. Fascinating. Doug Weller talk 12:51, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

Well the discovery has been made. It simply hasn't been confirmed as definitely Norse, although Native American has been noted to be excluded. Point Rosee should be mentioned as another possible Norse site at the end of the "Discovery and significance" section with the others.Lt. T. E. Lawrence (talk) 09:38, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

I agree. See Point Rosee. Doug Weller talk 09:42, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

There is absolutely no evidence, whatsoever, that Point Rosee was a Norse site. "An archeological team searching for a Norse settlement at Point Rosee in the Codroy Valley has come away empty-handed, according to a project report submitted to the province. The report, filed by the team leads Sarah Parcak and Greg Mumford, is conclusive: "None of the team members, including the Norse specialists, deemed this area as having any traces of human activity," it states." [3] Lindsay Bird, CBC News, 30 May 2018

And: "No Viking presence in southern Newfoundland after all, American researcher finds" [4] Holly McKenzie-Sutter, The Canadian Press, 31 May 2018

Please see Dr. Sarah Parcak and Dr. Greg Mumford's report: Point Rosee, Codroy Valley, NL (ClBu-07), 2016 Test Excavations under Archaeological Investigation Permit #16.26, November 8, 2017. [5]

So even Sarah Parcak and Greg Mumford, the team leaders of the 2015 and 2016 excavations, don't believe that there are any traces of Norse activity at Point Rosee. Jerry Stockton (talk) 04:58, 12 October 2018 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:L'Anse aux Meadows/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Madalibi (talk · contribs) 05:50, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

I will review this article in the next few days. Madalibi (talk) 05:50, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

Here is my (incomplete) review:

Toolbox

• No DAB links
• Several external links are to articles for which journal subscription is required, but this is not a problem as such. For more comments on external links, see the section called "Notes and references" below.

Prose

• "French Canadian map": not sure a map can be "French Canadian". Even if there is no link to French Canadian, this is what the term evokes. Perhaps "French-language Canadian map" or "French Canadian map"?
• Still about that map, the "L'Anse aux Meadows" official website calls it "an 1862 French chart". Should we call it a chart and link to Nautical chart?
• Helge Ingstad refuted this theory: since it is not proven that L'Anse aux Meadows was part of "Vinland", it may not be appropriate to say Ingstad really refuted previous theories. You could say instead that "Helge Instad, however, argued that..." or "Helge Ingstad disagreed and argued instead that..." This formulation would connect better to the next sentence, which starts with "This speculation..."
• He thought that areas along the American Atlantic coast were not suitable for them. What were his arguments (in a nutshell)?
• the characteristics of structures and artifacts: "dwellings" would be clearer than "structures" (if this is indeed what "structures" refers to).
• based on the relative mass of the stone used: not clear what this means, as there not other references to stones in the paragraph.
  

[TO BE CONTINUED...]

Name of the site

• I don't think it's appropriate to present the French derivation of "L'Anse aux Meadows" from "L'Anse aux Méduses" as a fact. I notice that many sources and websites present "L'Anse aux Méduses" as a possible etymology rather than a certain one. A direct move from "L'Anse à la Médée" to "L'Anse aux Méduses" is unlikely without a transitional term like "L'Anse à la Méduse". And without written evidence like that 1862 chart, we don't know either way! All the official website of "L'Anse aux Meadows" says about the name of the site is this: The earliest recorded name for L'Anse aux Meadows appears on an 1862 French chart as Anse à la Médée or "Medee's Cove." The name is probably from "Medea," the heroine of Greek tragedy, after whom many 17th and 18th century ships were named. Settlements and shore stations were often named after ships. After the English settled in the area the name was anglicized to its present form. The bay in front of the village is still called Medee Bay.[6] Those who run the website certainly know about the "L'Anse aux Méduses" hypothesis, so they must have had a good reason not to include it in there. Suggestion: present "L'Anse aux Méduses" as a hypothesis rather than a fact.

Structure

• In the section on "Discovery and significance", three paragraphs devoted to pre-European settlements seem to cut the section in half, because they come between a claim that L'Anse aux Meadows is of confirmed Norse origin, and another claim that L'Anse aux Meadows is the only confirmed Norse site in North America. I think the most logical order of presentation for the article as a whole would be "Discovery and significance" (Ingstad's theories, brief mention of excavations from 1961 to 1968, and a brief claim that the site they discovered has been confirmed to be of Norse origins), "Norse settlement" (renamed from "Settlement": the transition would be fluid from the end of the previous section), "Pre-European settlements" (new section), and "Connection with Vinland sagas".
• The first mention of North America was by the German cleric Adam of Bremen in 1073: Considering how much speculation there is around the location (or even existence) of "Vinland", it is inappropriate to present this claim as a fact. All we have to support it is a citation from a 1974 article. (Note also that Adam's claims about vines goes against the hypothesis that helped Helge Ingstad to discover the L'Anse aux Meadows site.) Unless you present lots of reliable sources showing that there is a scholarly consensus that Adam de Bremen's text was the first to mention North America, I suggest you reword this sentence or delete it altogether. In any case I think this sentence, the quotation, and the sentence that follows would belong better under the Vinland section, where it would be given better context. [UPDATE: the 1974 article cited in the note states that, The first mention of Vinland is by the German cleric, Adam de Bremen, who was writing in about 1073. Changing "Vinland" to "North America" constitutes original research!]
• [NOTE: I made (and immediately reverted) a trial edit to show you what the article could look like after reshuffling and with fewer images. let me know if you think this looks better.]

Content
A few things are missing before the article can be considered complete:

• A few words on the community today (since L'Anse aux Meadows is an inhabited village): there is a short paragraph on this aspect of the site at http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/en/article/lanse-aux-meadows/.
• A referenced explanation to when the site was chosen as a World Heritage Site. The best place to insert this information is probably under "Discovery and significance".

Notes and references (all footnote numbers are to this version):

• Three of the four references to Stine Ingstad are to pages that are outside the page range mentioned in the bibliography. The bibliography should cite the entire book rather than a section of it.
• Note 1: you need a retrieval date, and arguably the author's name.
• Note 4 is to the index page of the L'Anse aux Meadows website: there must be a more specific page within that website that supports the information presented in the paragraph.
• Note 7 to that same index page seems unnecessary, unless you can find another more specific page to support info on pre-European settlements. Incidentally, the note says "Retrieved 006-04-12", a typo.
• Notes 8, 9, and 20: retrieval dates are not necessary for printed books and articles that are accessed online through JSTOR. These printed works are not web sources: they are just printed works that are available online.
• Note 8, which is the only reference to two full paragraphs of information on the Dorset people, is an article about Dorset settlements in Northern Manitoba. I accessed the article through my free JSTOR account, but it does not even mention L'Anse aux Meadows, let alone the dimensions of the Dorset houses found there. Are you sure the reference is right?
• Note 9: R.M. Perkins's article called "Norse Implications" seems to be part 5 ("V") of a larger work, probably on the fake Vinland map. Could you indicate either the complete title of that work, or at least add "V." to the article title?
• Note 13: the title contains "An Encyclopedia" twice, and the page numbers are incomplete.
• Note 16 to the Canadian Encyclopedia is missing the article author, the date of publication, and the access date. More seriously, that article does not mention any of the information it is used to support. Am I missing something?
• Note 20 only supports the last sentence of the paragraph it is placed in. The first two sentences of that paragraph – Norse sagas are written versions of older oral traditions. Two Icelandic sagas, commonly called the Saga of the Greenlanders and the Saga of Eric the Red, describe the experiences of Norse Greenlanders who discovered and attempted to settle land to the west of Greenland, which they called Vinland. – therefore need a reference, because these statements of fact may be chalenged.
• I'm not sure why the "References" section contains only some of the printed sources mentioned in the footnotes, and why only some of the references are in Harvard format while others are not. You should choose one citation format and stick to it (in this case full citations would probably look best), and if you want to have a bibliography, include all the cited articles and books into it.
• A minor issue: some author names appear in a different font than others.
• F. Donald Logan's The Vikings in History, Third edition (Routledge, 2005) is available on Google Books. Pages 82 to 89 (within a chapter titled "The Vikings and the New World") are all about L'Anse aux Meadows.[7] Logan is Emeritus Professor of History at Emmanuel College, Boston, so his book would seem to be a reliable source. The content of that book could replace some of the faulty references mentioned above!

Images

• I'm not sure we need such a long gallery of images. Pictures of buildings A, B, E, G, and J, seem too similar to deserve inclusion. So are two different pictures of a generic-looking boat. I moved and removed some of them as part of my trial edit (see "Structure" above) to show you what the article could look like with a smaller gallery.
• [PENDING: review of license tags and image captions]

General assessment: this is an interesting and well written article on a little corner of my country that I've never been to. It suffers from many content issues, so I've been taking more time than planned (five hours, and I'm still not done). I started with a "spotcheck" of the sources to look for copyvios. I found none, but I discovered many issues with verifiability instead. See "Name of the site", "Structure" (point 2), and "Notes and references" for details. I'm taking a break. I will look at the images and at the prose of the rest of the article in the next few days. Meanwhile, putting the article on hold to let the nominator work on the improvements! Madalibi (talk) 09:06, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

FAILED I failed the GA review, because the nominator made three GA nominations in about half an hour on 23 December 2013 (see that editor's contributions) without having made a single contribution to any of them, and did not respond to the first two reviews – Talk:Eiffel Tower/GA1 and Talk:The Shard/GA1 – which were of course failed. I don't expect a reply to this one either, so I'm failing right away. I will edit the article myself in light of what I found when I prepared the review, and I might present it again for GA in the future. Madalibi (talk) 11:39, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

discoverer, etc.

The linked topics for Helge Ingstad and Anne Stine Ingstad say in so many words that the former was the nominal discoverer, but that the latter was by training an archeologist. Changing the caption of a picture to cite only the latter doesn't present the facts which have been listed in those topics TEDickey (talk) 23:52, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Before seeing your comment, I wrote the following in a separate section that I've reformatted:

Why do you object to identifying Anne Stine Ingstad as "the discoverer of the site"? That appositive in the caption is accurate and makes the photo more meaningful to the reader. Ingstad's name does not appear in the lead, so her name alone in the caption doesn't say much. Yopienso (talk) 00:49, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Now I'll say that I don't think the reader should have to click on the links in order to learn the Ingstads discovered the site. The article on Anne Ingstad says in so many words, "Dr. Anne Stine Ingstad . . . was a Norwegian archaeologist who, along with her husband Dr. Helge Ingstad, discovered the remains of a Viking settlement at L'Anse aux Meadows . . ." I don't see how calling her the discoverer in fails to present the facts which have been listed in those topics. I'll change it to co-discoverer. Yopienso (talk) 01:47, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

After reading the info on the media viewer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%27Anse_aux_Meadows#mediaviewer/File:Anne_Stine_Moe_Ingstad_(1918-1997).jpg

I added a few more illuminating details to the caption. (FWIW--the Smithsonian credited her as the discoverer without mentioning her husband.) Yopienso (talk) 01:56, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Norse or Viking

Birgitta Wallace, Senior Archaeologist Emerita, Atlantic Service Centre of Parks Canada, Halifax, was a member of the team that excavated L'Anse aux Meadows in the 1960s and was also at the 2016 excavation of Point Rosee. She has had a long and distinguished career as a Norse archaeologist and appears to be the preeminent authority on the Norse exploration in Newfoundland. In a paper published in 2003 she states her preference for using Norse over the more popular Viking. [[8]]

The Norse in Newfoundland:
L'Anse aux Meadows and Vinland
by Birgitta Wallace,
Senior Archaeologist Emerita, Atlantic Service Centre of Parks Canada, Halifax

"Note that the term “Norse” refers to all inhabitants of Viking age and medieval Scandinavia, not just those of Norway (Webster 1988). Danes and Swedes were part of the migrations of this period, aptly named the Viking Age (c. 750-1050). Although they drastically affected the map of Europe, their role in the Norse ventures to North America was minor, and is therefore not discussed here. The term “Norse” is preferred here to the more popular “Viking”, which really refers to pirates or raiders. Although many men of the Viking Period would have been vikings at some time in their lives, women and children were not."

Maybe use the combined "Viking or Norse" very early in the article and then use Norse in the following text. Here is a little more information about Birgitta Wallace and her qualifications as a Norse expert:

Canadian Archaeological Association, 2015: [[9]]

“Birgitta’s name is synonymous with Norse archaeology and Viking-age evidence in the west. Her CV [Curriculum Vitae] contains an outstanding 95 published submissions, including top-ranked national and international journal articles and book chapters, as well as the beautiful illustrated volume, Westward Vikings: The L’Anse aux Meadows Saga. Her research has expanded far beyond the academic milieu. As the world’s expert in a field fraught with controversy, mythology, misunderstanding and enormous international interest, she has included in her writing a wealth of public outreach in attempt to educate the interested in the realities of Norse North America.” Jerry Stockton (talk) 02:21, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

• Use both.....link both ....

Norsemen = about the Scandinavian peoples and Norse term usage.

Vikings = about the Norse seafarers and the "Viking Age".

--Moxy (talk) 02:41, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

New study suggests maybe a century of activity

I've only read a few sentences of this and decided I'd post it here. [10]. Doug Weller talk 19:33, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

Removal of badly sourced content

As per WP:Circular can't use a wiki for a source.--Moxy 🍁 15:33, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

The order of things

• The more usual order of things is Notes followed by the Sources/References
• One source is not a short footnote target because it is cited in full in the notes
• the style of notes are mixed, should they all move inline or should more get pulled to sources with short footnotes?

—¿philoserf? (talk) 08:25, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Belated thanks. I just consolidated the identical refs, into a single list of full citations, as suggested above in the #GA Review. —173.68.139.31 (talk) 05:07, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

Removing info on Basques

There's a brief mention of Basques in the article, but it looks like original research - a quote from a primary and some place names. I'm being bold and removing it, but if there are reputable sources for it then we can put it back in. Cheers, Fredlesaltique (talk) 06:18, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

Suggested move of content at L'Anse aux Meadows#Norse site (c. 1000) to top of section

See [11], not used properly though. Not sure I like “ It is notable as evidence of the Norse colonization of North America and possible connection with Leif Erikson as mentioned in the Icelandic sagas, which were written down in the 1200s.” either, doesn’t seem backed by its sources. Doug Weller talk 19:04, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

Sorry for the belated reply, Doug. You are correct and I have fixed the text you quoted with sources that support the content. Thanks for pointing this out. There is a lot of literature on the subject of Norse exploration, as you know; I've been gathering sources and reading up. It's fascinating, but unfortunately, I'm easily distracted.;-) I'll add more supporting content to the body of the Norse colonization of North America article, and this one too, when I write up a summary of what's germane. Can you elaborate on what you mean by "not used properly"? I assume you mean as applied to the carbon dating estimates. Carlstak (talk) 00:08, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

@Carlstak There's this" Despite being the earliest known European outpost in North America, LAM remains enigmatic. None of the structures are identifiable as animal shelters, nor is there faunal evidence for animal husbandry—the foundation of Norse subsistence in Greenland and Iceland" and I think that and Eleanor Barraclough should be moved to the top of the section - readers often don't read a whole long section and they could come away with the wrong impression if it's not upfront. Doug Weller talk 09:14, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

Ah, that makes sense. I don't see why it shouldn't be moved per your suggestion. I will move it; if someone objects they can revert. I've got more refs on that topic as well, and will add a bit more to discussion of same in article text. Carlstak (talk) 16:16, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

"undisputed"?

Robert Burcher's and Niels Vinding's investigations (https://cphpost.dk/?p=132899 -- with a reference to Vinding's book) offer strong evidence for a different site. Their conclusions should be mentioned here and evaluated if possible.S. Valkemirer (talk) 00:09, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

I see the Vinland article as a more appropriate place, specifically, its 'Controversy over the location of Vinland' section. Beneathtimp (talk) 00:29, 29 December 2022 (UTC)