Author Topic: Were the Vikings Smoking Pot While Exploring Newfoundland?  (Read 1032 times)

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Offline Sanguine

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Were the Vikings Smoking Pot While Exploring Newfoundland?
« on: July 31, 2019, 12:00:46 am »
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 The discovery of cannabis pollen near a Viking settlement in Newfoundland raises the question of whether the Vikings were smoking or eating pot while exploring North America.

The researchers also found evidence the Vikings occupied this outpost for more than a century, way longer than previously believed.

Located in northern Newfoundland, the site of L'Anse aux Meadows was founded by Vikings around A.D. 1000. Until now, archaeologists believed that the site was occupied for only a brief period. The new research, published today (July 15) in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggests that the Vikings lived there possibly into the 12th or even the 13th century. [In Photos: Viking Outposts Possibly Found in Canada]...

https://www.livescience.com/65940-were-vikings-smoking-pot-in-newfoundland.html

Online Elderberry

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Re: Were the Vikings Smoking Pot While Exploring Newfoundland?
« Reply #1 on: July 31, 2019, 12:25:25 am »
Norwegian Vikings grew hemp
December 14, 2012
Cannabis was cultivated 1,300 years ago at a farm in Southern Norway.

http://sciencenordic.com/norwegian-vikings-grew-hemp

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The Sosteli farmsted, in Norway's southermmost Vest-Agder County, offers strong evidence that Vikings farmers actively cultivated cannabis, a recent analysis shows. The cannabis remains from the farmsted date from 650 AD to 800 AD.

This is not the first sign of hemp cultivation in Norway this far back in time, but the find is much more extensive than previous discoveries.

“The other instances were just individual finds of pollen grains. Much more has been found here,” says Frans-Arne Stylegar, an archaeologist and the county's curator.
Rope and textiles

Sosteli is also further away from current-day settlements than other sites where cannabis finds have been made.

Hemp is the same plant as cannabis, or marijuana. But nothing indicates that the Vikings cultivated the plant to get people high.

Most likely it was grown for making textiles and rope.