Posted on 11/29/2007 10:26:32 AM PST by blam
Ancient Greenland mystery has a simple answer, it seems
First: A reproduction of Tjodhilde's Church stands in Brattahlid, Greenland. It was the first Christian church in North America. Colin Woodard
Did the Norse colonists starve? Were they wiped out by the Inuit – or did they intermarry? No. Things got colder and they left.
By Colin Woodard | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
from the November 28, 2007 edition
Reporter Colin Woodard describes an ecumenical service at a Greenland church built by legendary Norseman "Erik the Red."QASSIARSUK, Greenland - A shipload of visitors arrived in the fjord overnight, so Ingibjorg Gisladottir dressed like a Viking and headed out to work in the ruins scattered along the northern edge of this tiny farming village.
Qassiarsuk is tiny (population: 56), remote, and short on amenities (no store, public restrooms, or roads to the outside world), but some 3,000 visitors come here each year to see the remains of Brattahlid, the medieval farming village founded here by Erik the Red around the year 985.
When they arrive, Ms. Gisladottir, an employee of the museum, is there to greet them in an authentic hooded smock and not-so-authentic rubber boots. "There were more visitors this year than last," she says. "People want to know what happened to the Norse."
The Greenland Norse colonized North America 500 years before Christopher Columbus "discovered" it, establishing farms in the sheltered fjords of southern Greenland, exploring Labrador and the Canadian Arctic, and setting up a short-lived outpost in Newfoundland.
But by 1450, they were gone, posing one of history's most intriguing mysteries: What happened to the Greenland Norse?
There are many theories: They were starved off by a cooling climate, wiped out by pirates or Inuit hunters, or perhaps
(Excerpt) Read more at csmonitor.com ...
GGG Ping.
Evidence for them “up and leaving” came to light as the glaciers melted and uncovered their settlements. [/sarc]
If they would have just held out!!!!
You mean that Greenland really was green once and they didn’t merely name it that as a marketing gimick? :o
Wonder how they would have treated Algore?
Ya sure yu betcha!
The population of the Greenland community grew to about 30,000.
L lean towards the research that speculates that, in escaping the crushing cold of the approaching Little Ice Age, they took to the waterways in Canada and ended up intermarrying with North American Indian tribes along the Great Lakes - and most particularly, the Mandans.
Do some research on the Mandans...fascinating.
What the climate got cooler? How can this be? I thought the earth will be the temp of molten lead in a year or two
There was a History show on awhile ago that blamed a cooling period AND their new-found Christianity to blame. The cooling was a fact and their crops failed, livestock died, etc.
The conjecture part (or maybe they had some old records/accounts) was that the Inuit survived by hunting seals, etc. (like they always had). They invited the Norse along, but because of their religious beliefs the Norse thought it would be wrong to go on the hunts as the start of the hunts always began with Inuit religous ceremonies.
Climate change is always happening. Climate and weather are never constant. Greenland is great evidence of the most recent changes. Stories like this need to get more publicity because it explains that weather was much warmer 800 years ago and the world did not come to an end. I bet the environmentalists and the cruises they host to indocrinate people never stop by to see the Greenland Norse settlements that are just now emerging from the ice.
.
“Of course they ate fish,” she says. “One common way of preparing cod was to gut it, dry it, and then cook it in a pot for three or four hours and eat your porridge, bones and all.”
AHHHHH!!!! Not the LUTEFISK!!!!!!!
I wonder what Ingebjorg looks like without that hood?
I think it was said on that program that they refused to eat fish too.
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With the population dramatically reduced, folks could pull back from those fringe operations in Greenland and Northern Iceland and live like human beings.
In Northern Norway the Norse died off, or abandoned their farms and the Sa'ami moved South to take over the fishing, or to actually begin farming themselves.
The Sa'ami had a very low death rate due to Black Death (and a bunch of other diseases that kill less rodent adapted humans in the Sunny Southlands).
Norwegian Sa'ami who adopted Norse lifestyles were no longer identified as Sa'ami. In the good old days no one knew that there were major genetic differences between the Sa'ami (cold adapted) and the Norse.
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