Tanfield Valley

Tanfield Valley, also referred to as Nanook, is an archaeological site located on Cape Tanfield, along the southernmost projection of Baffin Island in the Canadian territory of Nunavut. It is possible that the site was known to Pre-Columbian Norse explorers from Greenland and Iceland. It may be in the region of Helluland,[1] spoken of in the Vinland sagas (Saga of the Greenlanders and Saga of Erik the Red).[2][3]

Tanfield Valley

Shown within Baffin Island
Location	Cape Tanfield, Qikiqtaaluk Region, Nunavut, Canada
Coordinates	62°39′14″N 69°34′11″W
Site notes
Archaeologists	Moreau Maxwell, Patricia Sutherland

Part of a series on the
Norse exploration of North America
Places Vinland Markland Helluland L'Anse aux Meadows Eastern Settlement Western Settlement Middle Settlement Gunnbjörn's skerries Great Ireland Tanfield Valley Straumfjörð
Alleged artifacts Maine penny Skálholt Map Kensington Runestone Vinland Map
Explorers Erik the Red Leif Erikson Thorvald Eiriksson Freydís Eiríksdóttir Gunnbjörn Ulfsson Snæbjörn Galti Bjarni Herjólfsson Thorfinn Karlsefni Helgi and Finnbogi
Literature Saga of Erik the Red Grœnlendinga saga Flateyjarbók Hauksbók Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum Book of Icelanders Skræling Greenlandic Norse
Researchers Galvano Fiamma Adam of Bremen Carl Christian Rafn Helge Ingstad Anne Stine Ingstad Birgitta Wallace Patricia Sutherland Robert McGhee Gwyn Jones William W. Fitzhugh

The Helluland Archaeology Project was a research initiative that was set up at the Canadian Museum of Civilization, now the Canadian Museum of History, to investigate the possibility of an extended Norse presence on Baffin Island with trading with the indigenous Dorset people.[4] It is now on hiatus following Patricia Sutherland's ouster from the museum in 2012.[5] Excavations led by Sutherland at Tanfield Valley found possible evidence[6] of medieval Norse textiles, metallurgy and other items of European-related technologies. Wooden artifacts from Dorset sites include specimens which bear a close resemblance to Norse artifacts from Greenland. Pelts from Eurasian rats have also been discovered.[7][8]

However, the eight sod buildings and artifacts found in the 1960s at L'Anse aux Meadows, located on the northern tip of Newfoundland, remains the only confirmed Norse site in North America outside of those found in Greenland.

Moreau Maxwell (1918–1998), professor and curator of Anthropology at Michigan State University, had previously researched the site in his study of the prehistory of Baffin island, the findings of which were summarized in his publication Prehistory of the Eastern Arctic (1985).[9]