"Vikings In Greenland Adapted To The Cooling Of Their World" Topic

It seems like they relied less and less on livestock and crops, and more on what the ocean had to offer (to a diet similar to that of their Inuit neighbors):

link

They adapted to the cooling, but there were other reasons for the eventual collapse of their 2 main colonies there. One of them being that they were never enough colonists to sustain the effort. Also, there are Inuit tales of conflict that can't be ignored.

QUESTIONS:
1) Anyone ever tried to game Greenland Vikings vs Inuits (or Algonquin they might have encountered when traveling South)? Did you dress your Vikings in more skins and furs than woven fabrics?
2) What did your terrain look like for those games? Somewhat icy, or a full blown arctic winter look? Got pictures of your table/game?

Dan
TMP link

link

There has been a recent study of Walrus ivory from Medieval contexts, which indicates that something like 80% of Europe's ivory was coming from Greenland in trade. The same study pointed out that the 'Black Death' of the mid-1300's reduced Europe's demand for ivory to nearly zero.

So, collapse of trade and increased danger for any shipping would result in the Greenlanders being unable to access the things they couldn't make locally & which were needed for survival – mainly iron. The Danish Crown also had stuck their hands in, stopping the Icelanders from having their own shipping, everything had to be done through 'licenced' Danish traders – the Icelanders had been the main traders with Greenland and even in 'good' times, a 50% loss of ships was not thought unusual.

Bsrlee

Fantastic information there! I had no idea about the shipping restrictions.

I recall reading long ago that, back when the weather was still warm enough to have sheep, the Greenland colonists exported some of their wool back to Europe. I can't remember the source at the moment. Did you ever read anything about that?

Apparently the sheep have been doing great again in Greenland these last couple of hundred years. Too late for the Viking colonists, of course. Interesting enough, most of the modern sheep owners and herders in Greenland today are Inuit.

Dan

Jared Diamond wrote about this in his book Collapse:How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed.

link

"The Danish Crown also had stuck their hands in, stopping the Icelanders from having their own shipping, everything had to be done through 'licenced' Danish traders "

Hah! That right there is the explanation. If you want to destroy anything let the government get involved. And you don't need to read a book.

Dave

Mal: "That's what governments are for – get in a man's way."

Dan

Oh yeah, the government did it, what a simplistic outlook. Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed describes a far more complex web of reasons for civilization collapse. I read this book probably going on ten years ago, but here's a summary of Greenland (taken from Wiki) which sounds like what I remember reading:

"The Greenland Norse (climate change, environmental damage, loss of trading partners, hostile neighbors, irrational reluctance to eat fish, chiefs looking after their short-term interests)."

Loss of trading partners is in there and is possibly due to Danish interference, but if I remember what I read (a few years ago now) they wasted resources hunting for walrus, which they didn't eat. For whatever weird reason, the Greenlanders didn't harvest the sea. Plenty of protein swimming around out there, but they really never went after it. They never seemed to learn from the Inuit and they wound up fighting with the Inuit. Yeah, the government did it.

Lloyd- +1

…..what a simplistic outlook

But it scratches that conspiracy itch for some.

LOL. Obviousily some folks left their sense of humor out in the rain and it shrunk. When we all know it was Doggerland that was responsible.

The "I see deniers everywhere and skepticism on every post" conspiracy itch?

Dan

Ooww Government run! Actually what I recall reading was that the Europeans refused to adept indigenous ways because they were not Christians.

I'd need a lot of convincing before I believed that starving people didn't try every food source available. Considering the number of people who've died trying to eat grass or bark, if someone told me "the fish were right there, and people were too stupid or crazy to eat them" I'd start asking whether the fish really were there then, or whether the people were prevented from eating them.

On the other hand, "the government did something which hurt a lot of people--but not the government" is something for which I have abundant historical examples.

Doesn't mean the government was at fault in this instance, and I suppose this could be the one time in human history when large numbers of people starved rather than trying new foods, but it's going to take more to convince me than a man with no training in history or archaeology who thinks he can cover 12 civilizations per book.

Write a book to tell people something they really want to believe, and it's remarkable how few questions they ask.

Robert, here is a summary of Collapse: wrt the collapse of the Greenland Norse

link

As food goes, excavating the Viking middens show few signs of fish and seal bones. Also, analysis of Viking graves showed clear signs of malnourishment.

…….but it's going to take more to convince me than a man with no training in history or archaeology who thinks he can cover 12 civilizations per book.

You are not talking about Jared Diamond I hope. His undergrad degree was a combined one in anthropology and history. His PhD is in physiology and biophysics.

Thanks Bowman, that link is great. Robert, I hope you took a look at it, better you should read either of Diamond's books. They are well written, thoughtful, and timely.

"Ooww Government run! Actually what I recall reading was that the Europeans refused to adept indigenous ways because they were not Christians."

Considering that Greenland was colonized in the 986, and Iceland didn't even start to convert to Christianity until 999, and still had pagans as late as the 13th century, I'm calling 'shenanigans' on this one.

Considering that Greenland was colonized in the 986, and Iceland didn't even start to convert to Christianity until 999, and still had pagans as late as the 13th century, I'm calling 'shenanigans' on this one.

Not really evidence to disregard the statement out of hand. However, it is just conjecture that the Christian Norse would have disregarded the natives on the basis of their Christian beliefs and not unbelievable in the slightest.

One intriguing fact is that very few fish remains are found among their middens. This has led to much speculation and argument. Most archaeologists reject any decisive judgment based on this one fact, however, as fish bones decompose more quickly than other remains, and may have been disposed of in a different manner. Isotope analysis of the bones of inhabitants shows that marine food sources supplied more and more of the diet of the Norse Greenlanders, making up between 50% and 80% of their diet by the 14th century.

Arneborg, J.; Heinemeier, J.; Lynnerup, N.; Nielsen, H.L.; Rud, N.; Sveinbjornsdottir, A.E. (2002). "C-14 dating and the disappearance of Norsemen from Greenland" (PDF). Europhysics News. 33 (3): 77–80. doi:10.1051/epn:2002301.

I also found several other articles noting no significant signs of malnutrition in the later inhabitants.

That malnutrition/starvation meme was a hot topic 20 years age – newer research (as quoted) contradicts that.

That malnutrition/starvation meme was a hot topic 20 years age – newer research (as quoted) contradicts that.

Yes, I read the article and the Wiki entry also. From the link above, you'll remember the chart showing that the new research indicates an increase in fish (and seal) consumption in the last 150 years of Greenland's occupation. This is from isotopic analysis of midden bones.

J. You/ Science; Data:"Climatic signals in multiple highly resolved stable isotope records from Greenland," Vinther et al, 3 November 2009; "Norse Greenland settlement," Dugmore et al., 2007; "Human diet and subsistence patterns in Norse Greenland AD c.980–AD c.1450," Arneborg et al. 2012

They may have been eating 50-80% by 1400 as the article suggests. But by then it was too late and their colony was soon gone.

Same general trends are seen here:

PDF link

Let's not just focus on one aspect. Societal failures are all from multiple causes. Personally, I suspect that if the weather remained temperate the Norse would have prevailed.

Dn Jackson please do more reading Christianity becomes the law in 1000. Supported by the King of Norway Olaf Tryggvason who had interesting notions of evangelicalism. Where there pagan after 1000? Sure but for the most part they stayed in the closet.

As a teacher, I wonder how the diagram portraying the 'Little Ice Age' would go over among colleagues who are solely convinced climate change is seemingly based on Al Gore's claims …

Thor Heyerdahl wrote about the extensive numbers of Norse colonists in North America:

link

Despite what the NY Times article claims, the book 'No Boundaries' was ever published in English. (possibly a truly 'inconvenient truth'?)

Joseph Stayer felt that "government inference" was the Medieval innovation that led to what we would today call the modern nation state. link

However, it is just conjecture that the Christian Norse would have disregarded the natives on the basis of their Christian beliefs and not unbelievable in the slightest.

This seems a reasonable conjecture based on many other examples. In colonial Australia, pioneers, explorers, escaping convicts often perished in the wilderness due to their inability to survive in a landscape indigenous Australians found to replete with foodstuffs and water.

Look up Burke & Wills if you want an example.

This article gives five reasons for the collapse: a sounder basis than the facile government-scapegoat claim.

Collapse of the Greenland Viking Settlements – iupui

The most interesting, I think, is the environmental degradation of the landscape caused by the Norse farmers use of inappropriate farming techniques.

Seems spurious to me. The overwhelming evidence in North America is Europeans adapting indigenous practices where appropriate.

This seems a reasonable conjecture …

Far from it. Catholic doctrine would not call for the disregard of any – Christian teachings are that everyone has a soul and has been created by God. Only post-reformation period changes this fundamental tenet and introduces all sorts of varied and contradictory beliefs.

Whether the indigenous people would have embraced Christian teachings or would have just attacked the Norse is a different story (that is covered in Sagas).

"Far from it. Catholic doctrine would not call for the disregard of any – Christian teachings are that everyone has a soul and has been created by God. Only post-reformation period changes this fundamental tenet and introduces all sorts of varied and contradictory beliefs."

Sigh…

Dapeters

"Sigh"?

That was one of the reasons/excuses given by 15th and 16th century Popes and the various Catholic rulers of the time for conquering the New World, to make converts of the natives (and get the gold and other resources, of course).

Why bother to tell their explorers/conquerors to go out and "make converts" if they (the Catholics) didn't believe that the natives had a soul? Wasn't that one of the very first things told to Atahualpa and other natives upon making contact with them, to accept the Catholic version of Christianity?

Is that being disputed somehow these days?

Dan

Diamonds book has a lot of assumptions in it, including some without basis in fact. So read with a BIG grain of salt.

Didn't they eat fish in Norway before going to Greenland?

Fishing is not an activity unique to the New World.

Didn't some Europeans go to the New World to fish prior to Columbus?

Didn't Cortez claim that Montezuma converted to Christ prior to his death?

Mike Bunkermeister Creek
Bunker Talk blog

Mike

Didn't you know? The Scandinavians were all vegan back then! :)

Dan

Diamonds book has a lot of assumptions in it, including some without basis in fact. So read with a BIG grain of salt.

And of course you provide no facts to base your comment on either. In fact, as Diamond explains, midden excavations showed little seafood in the Norse diet until the last 150 years of their occupation. Goragrad makes an interesting point that fish bones don't last as long as other bones and therefore may be underrepresented. That is possible but it doesn't explain the lack of seal bones, which are found in the Inuit trash heaps. The link, by Nelson et al and Arneborg et al above, confirms this.

Didn't they eat fish in Norway before going to Greenland?

Fishing is not an activity unique to the New World.

Yes and No. See above.

Didn't some Europeans go to the New World to fish prior to Columbus?

Yes, but there is no actual hard evidence of any landfall, as of yet. But then that is to be expected anyway.

Didn't Cortez claim that Montezuma converted to Christ prior to his death?

Well this is an area of special interest to me. I doubt that actually happened, even though there is no evidence for or against that. Montezuma was technically under house arrest all the while the Spanish were in Tenochtitlan. However, he did have access to the outside world. He connived to have his more warlike brother Cuitlahuac released from the same situation he was in. Cuitlahuac then galvanized the Aztec troops even more against the Conquistadors. Prior to that, he was in communication with Panfilo de Narvaez, who had arrived in Mexico to have Cortez arrested. So I doubt he was seriously considering conversion as he was always plotting against the Spanish.

Any writings from Cortez need to be considered in context. We have his long letters written to his King, which basically give a justification for all his actions in the New World. Most scholars understand them to be self serving propaganda as Cortez pleads his case.

That was one of the reasons/excuses given by 15th and 16th century Popes and the various Catholic rulers of the time for conquering the New World, to make converts of the natives (and get the gold and other resources, of course).

Well, I think a converted, newly conquered people were easier to control than an unconverted newly conquered people. The Spanish truly understood this. But that is getting a bit off topic.

[q]Well, I think a converted, newly conquered people were easier to control than an unconverted newly conquered people. The Spanish truly understood this. But that is getting a bit off topic.[/q]

Maybe one needs to understand the Spanish, being Catholic, had knowledge of the fact one must receive the Sacraments in order to be saved (go to Heaven); therefore the conversion is necessary for Salvation.

This is something completely outside and separated from conquering.

We can see that Latin America does not have the racial strife that North America has because of the Catholic Faith, nor has it since 1531AD.