Was there a Norse fort located in Provincetown, MA? is it really mentioned in the Sagas?

by Fireandbud

I recently ended up in a little debate on Reddit, see here.

A while back while touring Provincetown, a friend and I found an old tourist map in the library (not sure on the date). it identified the site of an Old Norse Fort, dating to the viking exploration of the americas. According to what i read at the time, I believe the fort dated to 1007 or something like that, and that the provenance of the fort was confirmed by the use of a ballast stone of Icelandic origin in the construction. The vikings spent a winter there, then left the following summer. There is now a bed and breakfast named after the fort built above the location. However, several years later some random redditor is trying to tell me this is a fake.

Can someone sort this out?

y_sengaku

tl;dr: It is unfortunately very highly likely that the site in question is not a genuine Norse site.

While I'm rather very skeptical of the source value of Vinland saga tradition in general, however. The following are some very basic information on the alleged Norse settlements in the New World:

  • So far, L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland is the only ascertained Norse settlement by the scholars. All the other archaeological sites are at most of very dubious nature.
  • Alleged Old Norse place name [of a certain peninsula], identified by the Danish antiquarian Rafn (1837) with Cape Cod, was Kjalarnes. Two Vinland sagas actually ascribe different persons to the naming of the peninsula. While in the saga of Greenlanders it was Thorvald, Leif's brother, *the saga of the Erik the Red states that Thorfinn Karlsefni named the peninsula.
  • The alleged tradition of Norse visit to now Province town seems to be based on the former version of the tradition. The English translation of the saga of Greenlanders had already been available in the 19th century. The following is the translated passage in question: 'The second summer Thorvald explored the country to the east on the large ship, going north around the land. They ran into stormy weather around one headland, and they were driven ashore, smashing the keel of the ship. They stayed there a long time, repairing their ship. Thorvald then said to his companions, "I want us to raise the broken keel up on this point and call it Kjalarnes (Keel point)." This they did' (The Saga of the Greenlanders, Chap. 4, the translation is taken from: Smiley 1997: 642).
  • This identification of Kjalarnes with Cape Cod itself has been heavily dated, however. All or at least 3 of the 4 attempted identification of this place name after the discovery of L'Anse aux Meadows point instead to Nova Scotia (either Cape Breton Is. or mainland of Nova Scotia) (Gísli Sigurðsson 2000: 233).
  • So, the newer studies, though every of them are highly speculative, tend largely to confine the alleged geographical range of the Norsemen's activity in the New World to around the Gulf of St. Lawrence and Nova Scotia, though the last journey of Þorfinnr Kalfsefni can be located west further to now New England.
  • Imported stone from 11th century Iceland? Icelanders imported timber from Norway to build their church as late as late 12th century. The alleged oldest stone fortification from the Norse settlement area in the North Atlantic Isles is Cubbie Roo's Castle, Wyre, Orkney, but it only dates back to the middle of the 12th century.

References:

  • The Sagas of Icelanders: A Selection, with the preface by Jane Smiley. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1997.

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  • Campbell, Gordon. Norse America: The Story of a Founding Myth. Oxford: OUP, 2021.
  • Gísli Sigurðsson. 'The Quest for Vinland in Saga Scholarship'. In: Vikings: The North Atlantic Saga, ed. William W. Fitzhugh & Elisabeth Ward, pp. 323-37. Washington DC: The Smithsonian Institute, 2000.