# What was the original local indigenous name for the 'old Indian camp' L'Anse Aux Meadows? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 20, 2023, 11:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-original-local-indigenous-name-for-the-old-indian-camp-lanse-aux-meadows/994878 "2023-12-20T11:32:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Octagon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/2acd7d/32.png) [@Octagon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Octagon)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2023, 11:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-original-local-indigenous-name-for-the-old-indian-camp-lanse-aux-meadows/994878/1 "2023-12-20T11:32:28Z")
What was the original local indigenous name for the ‘old Indian camp’ L’Anse Aux Meadows? ---
**Author:** ![mixdenny](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mixdenny/32/2962_2.png) [@mixdenny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mixdenny)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2023, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-original-local-indigenous-name-for-the-old-indian-camp-lanse-aux-meadows/994878/2 "2023-12-20T19:15:59Z")
Heck, they don’t even know where L’Anse Aux Meadows came about. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2023, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-original-local-indigenous-name-for-the-old-indian-camp-lanse-aux-meadows/994878/3 "2023-12-20T19:30:16Z")
From the Wikipedia article > [@](#): > > Before the Norse arrived in Newfoundland, there is evidence of occupations by five [Indigenous groups](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aboriginal_peoples_in_Canada) at the site of L’Anse aux Meadows, the oldest dated at roughly 6,000 years ago. None were contemporaneous with the Norse occupation. The most prominent of these earlier occupations was by the [Dorset people](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorset_people), who occupied the site about 300 years before the Norse. Birgitta Wallace gives radiocarbon date ranges for these groups of c. 4000–1000 BCE for the [Maritime Archaic tradition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maritime_Archaic_tradition), c. 1000–500 BCE for the [Groswater tradition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groswater_tradition), c. 400–750 CE for the Middle Dorset, c. 800–850 CE for the [Cow Head Group](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cow_Head_Group) and Beaches traditions, and c. 1200–1500 CE for the Little Passage tradition.[[18]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%27Anse_aux_Meadows#cite_note-CanadianEncyclopedia2021-18) We don’t have many records from before circa 700 CE, so the short answer is “we don’t know”. It doesn’t say anything about local indigenous settlement between 1000 CE and the time of the discovery, if that’s what you’re looking for. Again, if there was a settlement and it had a name, we don’t appear to know it. I had read (I think on The Straight Dope) that the current name is a corruption of **L’Anse aux Méduses** (“Jellyfish cove”), but apparently there is controversy about that: > [@](#): > > L’Anse aux Meadows is a French-English name which can be translated as “Grassland Bay” (lit. “[the] bay with [the] grasslands”).[[12]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%27Anse_aux_Meadows#cite_note-Hamilton-12) How the village itself came to be named “L’Anse aux Meadows” is debated. One possibility is that “L’Anse aux Meadows” is a corruption of the French designation **L’Anse aux Méduses** , which means “[Jellyfish](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jellyfish) Cove”.[[13]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%27Anse_aux_Meadows#cite_note-13)[[14]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%27Anse_aux_Meadows#cite_note-14)[[12]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%27Anse_aux_Meadows#cite_note-Hamilton-12) A more recent supposition is that the name derives from “_L’Anse à la Médée_ " (_Medea_ Cove”)[[15]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%27Anse_aux_Meadows#cite_note-Horwitz-15) the name it bears on an 1862 French naval chart. Whether _Medea_ or _Medusa_ , it is possible that the name refers to a French naval vessel.[[16]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%27Anse_aux_Meadows#cite_note-16) The shift to “Meadows” from **Méduses** or _Médée_ may have occurred because of [folk etymology](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folk_etymology) linking the name to the open landscape around the cove, with many [meadows](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meadow).[[17]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%27Anse_aux_Meadows#cite_note-17) > **[L'Anse aux Meadows](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%27Anse_aux_Meadows)** > > L'Anse aux Meadows (lit. Meadows Cove) is an archaeological site, first excavated in the 1960s, of a Norse settlement dating to approximately 1,000 years ago. The site is located on the northernmost tip of the island of Newfoundland in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador near St. Anthony. > With carbon dating estimates between 990–1050 CE, tree-ring analysis dating to the year 1021 and a mean carbon date of 1014 overall, L'Anse aux Meadows is the only undisputed site of pre-Colum... ---
**Author:** ![Octagon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/2acd7d/32.png) [@Octagon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Octagon)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2023, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-original-local-indigenous-name-for-the-old-indian-camp-lanse-aux-meadows/994878/4 "2023-12-21T15:12:35Z")
Thanks CalMeacham I thought there would be an Algonquin name for the L’Anse aux Meadows site, given its First Nation pre-history and settlement. ---
**Author:** ![keeganst94](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/a6a055/32.png) [@keeganst94](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/keeganst94)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2023, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-original-local-indigenous-name-for-the-old-indian-camp-lanse-aux-meadows/994878/5 "2023-12-21T15:49:57Z")
Like CalMeacham said, the Dorset were the last known indigenous settlers at L’anse aux Meadows, and we don’t know what they called it. There is no evidence of occupation by the [Beothuk](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beothuk) people, who inhabited Newfoundland up to contact with Europeans. Even if the Beothuk people had occupied the site, it’s unlikely we would have known their name for it; the Beothuk actively avoided European settlers and fishermen, and when contact did occur it was often violent. The Beothuk went extinct in the early 19th century, and [very little is known about their language](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beothuk_language). It may have been related to Algonquian, but there are so few records it’s hard to say.