Timber from North America was revealed to have been imported by Norse Greenlanders

In five Norse farmsteads on Greenland, archaeologists have employed wood taxonomic analysis to differentiate between imported, drift, and native wood.

Historical evidence has long suggested that the Norse colonists on Greenland in the Middle Ages (AD 985–1450) depended on imported resources like iron and wood. It has not yet been fully understood where these timber imports came from.

Lisabet Gumundsdóttir from the University of Iceland analyzed the wood assemblages from five Norse sites in western Greenland, of which four were medium-sized farms and one was a high-status episcopal manor, to understand the origins and distribution of timber on Greenland. By using radiocarbon dating and the accompanying item types, all sites were inhabited between AD 1000 and 1400.

The wood that archaeologists had previously discovered on these sites was examined under a microscope to determine the genus or species, and the results were published in the journal Antiquity.

Only 0.27% of the wood under examination, including oak, beech, hemlock, and Jack pine, was clearly an import, according to the findings. Larch, spruce, Scots pine, and fir are among the additional 25% of the total timber evaluated that could be either imported or driftwood.

Hemlock and Jack pine were not found in Northern Europe at the beginning of the second millennium AD, hence the items found in Greenland's medieval contexts had to be from North America.

This supports the historical records' claims that the Norse did buy wood from North America's east coast. According to the sagas, the explorers Leifurheppni, Þorleifurkarlsefni and Freydísall brought wood back to Greenland from Vinland.

Driftwood was one of the most significant raw resources in Norse Greenland, accounting for more than 50% of the whole assemblage in addition to the potential for import.

European wood, possibly comprising the oak, beech, and Scots pine from this assemblage, was also imported. Some, like barrel staves, may have arrived as ready-made relics, while Greenland houses may have been constructed from recycled ship wood.