New research on Norsemen in Greenland

[cmac2012]

Why Did Greenland's Vikings Vanish? | History | Smithsonian

Fascinating stuff. I'm naturally interested, all my ancestry, that I know of, is from Scando nations as well as Viking influenced Scotand and Ireland.

Europeans didn’t return to Greenland until the early 18th century. When they did, they found the ruins of the Viking settlements but no trace of the inhabitants. The fate of Greenland’s Vikings—who never numbered more than 2,500—has intrigued and confounded generations of archaeologists.

Those tough seafaring warriors came to one of the world’s most formidable environments and made it their home. And they didn’t just get by: They built manor houses and hundreds of farms; they imported stained glass; they raised sheep, goats and cattle; they traded furs, walrus-tusk ivory, live polar bears and other exotic arctic goods with Europe. “These guys were really out on the frontier,” says Andrew Dugmore, a geographer at the University of Edinburgh. “They’re not just there for a few years. They’re there for generations—for centuries.”

So what happened to them?

Thomas McGovern used to think he knew. An archaeologist at Hunter College of the City University of New York, McGovern has spent more than 40 years piecing together the history of the Norse settlements in Greenland. With his heavy white beard and thick build, he could pass for a Viking chieftain, albeit a bespectacled one. Over Skype, here’s how he summarized what had until recently been the consensus view, which he helped establish: “Dumb Norsemen go into the north outside the range of their economy, mess up the environment and then they all die when it gets cold.”

Accordingly, the Vikings were not just dumb, they also had dumb luck: They discovered Greenland during a time known as the Medieval Warm Period, which lasted from about 900 to 1300. Sea ice decreased during those centuries, so sailing from Scandinavia to Greenland became less hazardous. Longer growing seasons made it feasible to graze cattle, sheep and goats in the meadows along sheltered fjords on Greenland’s southwest coast. In short, the Vikings simply transplanted their medieval European lifestyle to an uninhabited new land, theirs for the taking.

[t walgamuth]

But what happened to them? Did they come back when it got too cold?

[cmac2012]

C'mon Tom, ya got to read the article! No, they didn't come back, not to settle in the same way anyhow. As for what happened to them, that is still in some dispute. Some say they died off ugly, famine, starvation etc. Others think they slowly migrated back home. I lean to the latter POV.

[t walgamuth]

I read that article too I think, or saw a similar thing on Netflix. There were no bodies lying around as if they had died from disease or something and they felt they had not taken their stuff as they would have if they went back to Sweden (?)

[cmac2012]

The article said that there have been very few valuable artifacts found, suggesting that they took those with them back to Norway, etc.

[Botnst]

My favorite speculation is that they went west and assimilated into the tribes. Taking valuables with them as trade goods and to establish status. Plus being good with a war axe would probably be a useful entre.

Who needs evidence when I can make it up?

Actually, I'm on the "went back home" side. They wee seafarers. I doubt they would stay starving in Groenland when they could take a trip home.

[cmac2012]

Apparently they considered the natives they encountered to be crude people. Not likely that they assimilated. There was very little timber in Greenland, past tense is probably not accurate, still very little. So ship repair and building was difficult, building probably impossible.

I didn't realize the wealth attached to walrus ivory. Just about like gold.

[elchivito]

Given the scarcity of valuables left behind and the fact that "they even closed the doors", I'm going with the "screw this we're outta here" hypothesis. Occam's Razor.

I wonder if anyone has bothered to look into whether any Inuit oral tradition talks about their being there or what happened to them? The locals are often overlooked in these situations. Archaeologists ignored the migration "myths" of the extant SW Puebloan tribes for decades when puzzling over where the Anasazi came from and went. To their enduring embarrassment.

[kerry]

Some of them went to Newfoundland but that didn't work out. They're in the oral history of the region. L'Anse aux Meadows is worth a visit. First iron smelter in North America to make nails to repair their ships. Visiting the Viking ship museums in Scandinavia was a great experience a few years ago. Sailed on an authentic reproduction at Roskilde. Surprised at how well a square rigged ship sailed to weather.
New Viking site on SW Newfoundland was found last year.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking_Ship_Museum_(Roskilde)