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past feature
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Viking's Travels
Scientists
have used mass spectrometry to carbon date
a parchment map of the New World that
predates Christopher Columbus' voyage by
about 50 years. A Smithsonian Institution
study, published in the July issue of the
journal Radiocarbon concludes that the
map's parchment was produced around 1434.
This predates Christopher Columbus' voyage
by about 50 years, adding to evidence that
Vikings reached the New World before he
did.
Jacqueline Olin and other researchers from
the Smithsonian used a thin strip of
parchment taken from the map to date it by
radiocarbon dating with accelerator mass
spectrometry.
The authenticity of the map has been
debated for some time when a benefactor
donated it to Yale University. Yale has
not taken a position on whether the map is
authentic. The map depicts a
representation of the world including the
north Atlantic coast of North America. It
includes text in medieval Latin and a
legend that describes how a Norseman, Leif
Eiriksson found a new land called Vinland
around the year 1000 A.D. Other evidence
of such a voyage exists from traces of a
Viking settlement excavated in
Newfoundland, Canada in the 1960s.
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