Before Columbus? The Mystery of the Vinland Map

• Event Date: Thursday, April 21, 2005
• Time: 4:00 pm (CDT)
• Location: Spurlock Museum, 600 S. Gregory St., Urbana, IL
• Cost: Free Admission

• Talk

A Talk by Garman Harbottle
Senior Chemist, Brookhaven National Laboratory

In the 1950s, a parchment map depicting "Vinland," near present-day Labrador or Newfoundland, surfaced in Europe. Now housed at Yale University, this map has been the subject of intense controversy: is it the earliest map of North America or is it a modern forgery? Using radiocarbon dating, scientists offer convincing evidence of authenticity and a date of 1434 A.D., nearly sixty years before the arrival of Columbus.