LOS ANGELES -- Archaeologists have uncovered in Iceland the remains of a turf longhouse that may have belonged to Snorri Thorfinnsson, the son of Viking explorers who many believe was the first European born in the New World.
The 1,000-year-old ruins were found in a glacial valley in northern Iceland during a survey of Viking-era buildings led by University of California, Los Angeles, archaeologists. The longhouse lies buried in a hayfield 450 feet from a museum previously believed to stand on the spot of the family farm.
Preliminary results suggest the ruins date to between 1000 and 1100, or during Thorfinnsson's lifetime. Excavation of a garbage pile alongside the nearby museum suggest that site was first occupied only around 1100, or after the newly found longhouse had been abandoned, said UCLA research associate John Steinberg.
"The house I am almost sure is Snorri's," Steinberg said. "I don't know how it could be anything else."
According to Viking sagas written in the early 13th century, Gudrid Thorbjarnardottir and Thorfinn Karlsefni traveled to North America in 1004, settling in a place known as Vinland, probably the Canadian province of Newfoundland. There, a year later, their son Snorri was born.
While few dispute Vikings traveled to North America, as borne out by Norse archaeological finds at L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland, not all are convinced any children were born in the New World to those early European pioneers.
After three years, Snorri and his family returned east, eventually settling in Iceland at a seaside farm called Glaumbaer, according to the sagas.
The longhouse was probably already in ruins by the time the sagas were written 200 years later. By 1300, windblown soil likely covered the crumbling walls, formed of blocks of turf cut from the upper layers of peat bogs.
The archaeological team identified the perimeter of the nearly 1,500-square-foot house last year. This summer, the team excavated about 10 percent of the house.
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