Scientists may have just uncovered an ancient Viking site in North America using satellites
The Vikings were a seafaring group from Scandinavia that sailed around the world, raiding and pillaging along the way, about 1,000 years ago.
The new site is about 300 miles south of the only other known Viking site, called L'Anse aux Meadows near the northern tip of Newfoundland. It was discovered using satellites. Sarah Parcak, a space archaeologist who recently won a $1 million prize from TED, has been using this method around the world to uncover and preserve ancient sites.
Using the satellites, Parcak saw clues that the site held more than meets the eye.
"What's amazing about satellites, is that they don't just process the visual part of the light spectrum, but when we process the data, all of a sudden we start seeing really subtle detail - it's just amazing new technology," Parcak said in a NOVA video clip.
Parcak and her team picked up signs of iron, which the Vikings used in everyday life. What's more, the way the iron was made could not be connected to any other group living in the area at the time.
Here's a map showing the new site, which is located north of Maine in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador, in relation to the one discovered in 1960:
Vikings are thought to have discovered North American a solid 500 years before Christopher Columbus arrived. But up until now, the only traces of Viking settlements in North America have been at L'Anse aux Meadows. This new site could change everything.
"Either it's … an entirely new culture that looks exactly like the Norse and we don't know what it is," Parcak told the Washington Post. "Or it's the westernmost Norse site that's ever been discovered."
And no, this is not an April Fools' joke.
The new site will be explored further in a two-hour documentary called "Viking Unearthed" on PBS.