Maine Penny

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The Maine penny is a Norwegian silver penny dating to the reign of Olaf Kyrre. It was found in 1957 at the Goddard site, the extensive archeological remains of an old Native American settlement at Naskeag Point, Brooklin, Maine on Penobscot Bay. The coin is one of only a few pre-Columbian Norse artifacts found in the United States and is generally though not universally regarded as genuine. Other Norse artifacts have been found in Canada, particularly at L'Anse aux Meadows.

After excavation at the site a collection of 30,000 items was donated to the Maine State Museum. The coin was at first thought to be a British penny from the 12th century. In 1978 experts from London became suspicious it might be Norse. Kolbjorn Skaare determined the coin had been minted between 1065 and 1080 AD, more than 50 years after the last of the Vinland voyages described by Norse saga accounts, indicating later Norse contact with North America. The Goddard site has been dated to 1180-1235 and the people living there at the time are generally considered to be ancestors of the Penobscot. Skaare considered whether the artifact may have been falsely added to the site but since the coin was fairly rare and more common coins from Leif Ericson's era would have been more easily had and less expensive to plant in the site, this notion has been discounted. Moreover, the coin was in the museum for 21 years before being identified, which also also lowers any chance the finders might have been attempting a fraud.

By some accounts the penny was found with a perforation, hinting it was used as a pendant. This area of the coin is said to have since crumbled to dust from corrosion.

The penny's coastal origin has been offered as possible evidence Vikings traveled further south than Vinland and that the coin might have been lost or traded locally. However, the penny was the only Norse artifact found at the Goddard site, which according to substantial evidence was a hub in a large native trade network. For example, an artifact generally identified as a Dorset Eskimo burin was also recovered there, hence the penny likely came to Maine through native trade channels from Labrador or Newfoundland where it may have first been traded with the Vikings, or either stolen or found at a Viking settlement.