Book contents
- The Cambridge History of the Polar Regions
- The Cambridge History of the Polar Regions
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Additional material
- 1 Introduction: The Problems of Polar History
- 2 ‘I Watch to See How the Land Is Changing’: An Inuit Perspective on Changing Environments and Cultural Resilience in the Western Canadian Arctic
- 3 Evolution of the Antarctic Continent and Its Ice Sheet
- 4 The Initial Peopling of the Circumpolar North
- 5 Archaeology, Politics, and Sámi Heritage
- 6 The Norse Settlement of Greenland
- 7 Russia, the First Arctic Empire, 1000–1917
- 8 The Discovery of Antarctica from Ptolemy to Shackleton
- 9 Sir John Franklin and the Northwest Passage in Myth and Memory
- 10 The Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration, 1890 to the Present
- 11 Representing the Polar Regions through Historical Fiction
- 12 Geography, Anthropology, and Arctic Knowledge-Making
- 13 Britain’s Polar Empire, 1769–1982
- 14 Canada and the High Arctic Islands, 1880–1950
- 15 The Genesis of the Spitsbergen/Svalbard Treaty, 1871–1920
- 16 Industrial Whaling in the Arctic and Antarctic
- 17 A Historical Archaeology of the First Antarctic Labourers (Nineteenth Century)
- 18 Mining and Colonialism in the Circumpolar North
- 19 Creating the Soviet Arctic, 1917–1991
- 20 Greenland: From Colony to Self-government, 1721–2021
- 21 Cold War Environmental Knowledge in the Polar Regions
- 22 The International Geophysical Year and the Antarctic Treaty System
- 23 The First Century of US Militarization in Alaska, 1867–1967
- 24 Petroleum Development and the State in Arctic North America, 1919–1977
- 25 The Rise of Circumpolar Political Movements
- 26 The History of Polar Environmental Governance
- 27 The Antarctic Extension of Latin America
- 28 Moving Muskoxen as an Arctic Resource in the Twentieth Century
- 29 Boundaries of Place and Time at the Edge of the Polar Oceans
- 30 Re-storying from Within: Renewing Relationships Beyond the Shadows of Polar History
- 31 Conclusion: Time, and the Future of Polar History
- Index
- References
6 - The Norse Settlement of Greenland
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 March 2023
Book contents
- The Cambridge History of the Polar Regions
- The Cambridge History of the Polar Regions
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Additional material
- 1 Introduction: The Problems of Polar History
- 2 ‘I Watch to See How the Land Is Changing’: An Inuit Perspective on Changing Environments and Cultural Resilience in the Western Canadian Arctic
- 3 Evolution of the Antarctic Continent and Its Ice Sheet
- 4 The Initial Peopling of the Circumpolar North
- 5 Archaeology, Politics, and Sámi Heritage
- 6 The Norse Settlement of Greenland
- 7 Russia, the First Arctic Empire, 1000–1917
- 8 The Discovery of Antarctica from Ptolemy to Shackleton
- 9 Sir John Franklin and the Northwest Passage in Myth and Memory
- 10 The Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration, 1890 to the Present
- 11 Representing the Polar Regions through Historical Fiction
- 12 Geography, Anthropology, and Arctic Knowledge-Making
- 13 Britain’s Polar Empire, 1769–1982
- 14 Canada and the High Arctic Islands, 1880–1950
- 15 The Genesis of the Spitsbergen/Svalbard Treaty, 1871–1920
- 16 Industrial Whaling in the Arctic and Antarctic
- 17 A Historical Archaeology of the First Antarctic Labourers (Nineteenth Century)
- 18 Mining and Colonialism in the Circumpolar North
- 19 Creating the Soviet Arctic, 1917–1991
- 20 Greenland: From Colony to Self-government, 1721–2021
- 21 Cold War Environmental Knowledge in the Polar Regions
- 22 The International Geophysical Year and the Antarctic Treaty System
- 23 The First Century of US Militarization in Alaska, 1867–1967
- 24 Petroleum Development and the State in Arctic North America, 1919–1977
- 25 The Rise of Circumpolar Political Movements
- 26 The History of Polar Environmental Governance
- 27 The Antarctic Extension of Latin America
- 28 Moving Muskoxen as an Arctic Resource in the Twentieth Century
- 29 Boundaries of Place and Time at the Edge of the Polar Oceans
- 30 Re-storying from Within: Renewing Relationships Beyond the Shadows of Polar History
- 31 Conclusion: Time, and the Future of Polar History
- Index
- References
Summary
Greenland has been peopled from the west by several different groups and only once – in the late tenth century ad – from the east, this time by Norse farmers from northern Europe. Unlike the mobile Arctic hunters, the Norse settlers were sedentary, and the society they established in southwest Greenland was based on the natural vegetation, hunting, and trade with their homelands. For almost 500 years the Norse population in Greenland thrived, and then it vanished for reasons not yet fully understood. Several explanations have been put forward: that the small Norse society failed because of inflexible social and economic strategies,1 or fell victim to a combination of unfortunate circumstances,2 or (as recently argued) suffered from organized and systematic violence by invading Inuit.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge History of the Polar Regions , pp. 129 - 152Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2023
References
Albrethsen, Svend Erik, and Keller, Christian, “The Use of Saeter in Medieval Norse Farming in Greenland”, Arctic Anthropology 23 (1986): 91–107.Google Scholar
Arneborg, Jette, “The Roman Church in Norse Greenland”, Acta Archaeologica 61 (1991): 142–150.Google Scholar
Arneborg, Jette, Lynnerup, Niels, and Heinemeier, Jan, “Human Diet and Subsistence Patterns in Norse Greenland ad c.980 – ad c.1450: Archaeological Interpretations”, Journal of the North Atlantic Special Volume 3 (2012): 119–133.Google Scholar
Bertelsen, Thomas, and Schnohr, Josephine, “Muslingemørtel og megalitter”, Skalk 3 (2019): 6–9.Google Scholar
Diamond, Jared, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed (New York: Penguin, 2005).Google Scholar
Dugmore, Andrew J., McGovern, Thomas H., Vésteinsson, Orri, Arneborg, Jette, and Streeter, Richard, “Cultural Adaptation, Compounding Vulnerabilities and Conjunctures in Norse Greenland”, Proceedings of the National Academies of Science 109 (2012): 3658–3663.www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1115292109Google Scholar
Enghoff, Inge Bødker, Hunting, Fishing and Animal Husbandry at the Farms Beneath the Sand, Western Greenland. Meddelelser om Grønland/Monographs on Greenland, Man and Society 28 (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum, 2003).Google Scholar
Fentz, Mytte, “Dragter”, in Roesdahl, Else, ed., Dagligliv i Danmarks middelalder (Copenhagen, 1999), pp. 151–171.Google Scholar
Frei, Karin M., Coutu, Ashley N., Smiarowski, Konrad, et al., “Was It for Walrus? Viking Age Settlement and Medieval Walrus Ivory Trade in Iceland and Greenland”, World Archaeology (2015): 1–28, https://doi.org/10.1080/00438243.2015.1025912.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fyllingsnes, Frode, Undergongen til dei norrøne bygdene på Grønland i seinmellomalderen. Skrifter 2 (Oslo: Middelalderforum, 1990).Google Scholar
GHM (Grønlands Historiske Mindesmærker), Vols. I–III (Kjøbenhavn: Det kongelige nordiske Oldskrift-Selskab, 1845).Google Scholar
Gulløv, Hans Christian, “Booths from Early Norse Greenland”, in Paulsen, Caroline and Michelsen, Helgi D., eds., Símunarbók (Tórshavn: Fróðskapur, 2008), pp. 90–105.Google Scholar
Gulløv, Hans Christian, “Inuit-European Interactions in Greenland”, in Friesen, Max and Mason, Owen, eds., The Oxford Handbook of the Prehistoric Arctic (Oxford Handbooks Online, 2016), p. 898, https://doi.org/1093/9780199766956.013.44.Google Scholar
Imer, Lisbeth, Peasants and Prayers: The Inscriptions of Norse Greenland. Studies in Archaeology & History 25 (Copenhagen: Publications from the National Museum, 2017).Google Scholar
Imsen, Steinar, “Introduction”, in Imsen, Steinar, ed., Rex Insularum: The King of Norway and His ‘Skattlands’ as a Political System c. 1250–c. 1450 (Bergen: Fagbokforlaget, 2014), pp. 13–31.Google Scholar
Jensen, Einar Lund, Raahauge, Kristine, and Gulløv, Hans Christian, Cultural Encounters at Cape Farewell. Monographs on Greenland 348 (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum, 2011).Google Scholar
Jochens, Jenny, Women in Old Norse Society (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1995).Google Scholar
Jónsson, Finnur, Det gamle Grønlands Beskrivelse af Ívar Bárðarson udgiven efter Håndskrifterne (København: Levin & Munksgaard, 1930).Google Scholar
Keighley, Xenia, Pálsson, Snæbjörn, Einarsson, Bjarni F., et al., “Disappearance of Icelandic Walruses Coincided with Norse Settlement”, Molecular Biology and Evolution 36 (2019): 2656–2667, https://doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msz196.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lynnerup, Niels, “Endperiod Demographics of the Greenland Norse”, Viking Settlers of the North Atlantic: An Isotopic Approach. Journal of the North Atlantic Special Volume 7 (2014): 18–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Madsen, Christian Koch, “Pastoral Settlement, Farming, and Hierarchy in Norse Vatnahverfi, South Greenland”, PhD diss. (University of Copenhagen, 2014), www.nabohome.org/postgraduates/theses/ckm/.Google Scholar
Magnusson, Magnus, and Pálsson, Hermann, The Vinland Sagas: The Norse Discovery of America (Baltimore: Penguin, 1965).Google Scholar
Margaryan, Ashot, Lawson, Daniel J., Sikora, Martin, et al., “Population Genomics of the Viking World”, Nature 585 (2020): 390–396.Google Scholar
McCullough, Karen M., The Ruin Islanders: Thule Culture Pioneers in the Eastern High Arctic. National Museum of Man Mercury Series 141 (Quebec: Canadian Museum of Civilization, 1989).Google Scholar
McGovern, Thomas H., “Contributions to the Paleoeconomy of Norse Greenland”, Acta Archaeologica 54 (1985): 73–122.Google Scholar
McGovern, Thomas H., and Palsdóttir, A., Preliminary Report of a Medieval Norse Archaeofauna from Brattahlið North Farm (KNK 2629), Qassiarsuk, Greenland. NORSEC Zooarchaeology Laboratory Report no. 34 (New York: CUNY Northern Science and Education Center, 2006), www.nabohome.org/publications/labreports/Norsec34BrattahlidGreenland05.pdf.Google Scholar
McGovern, Thomas H., Amorosi, Thomas, Perdikatis, Sophia, and Woollett, James, “Vertebrate Zooarchaeology of Sandnes V51: Economic Change at a Chieftain’s Farm in West Greenland”, Arctic Anthropology 33 (1996): 92–121.Google Scholar
McGovern, Thomas H., Bigelow, Gerald F., Amorosi, Thomas, Woollett, James, and Perdikaris, Sophia, “The Zooarchaeology of Ø17a”, in Vebæk, Christen L., ed., Narsaq: A Norse landnáma Farm. Meddelelser om Grønland/Monographs on Greenland, Man and Society 18 (1993), pp. 58–72.Google Scholar
Mikkelsen, Naja, Kuijpers, Antoon, and Arneborg, Jette”, The Norse in Greenland and Late Holocene Sea-Level Change”, Polar Record 44 (2008): 45–50, https://doi.org/10.1017/S0032247407006948Google Scholar
Nedkvitne, Arnved, Norse Greenland: Viking Peasants in the Arctic (London/New York: Routledge, 2019).Google Scholar
Nørlund, Poul, Buried Norsemen at Herjolfsnes. Meddelelser om Grønland/Monographs on Greenland, Man and Society 67 (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum 1924).Google Scholar
Nyegaard, Georg, “Dairy Farmers and Seal Hunters: Subsistence on a Norse Farm in the Eastern Settlement, Greenland”, Journal of the North Atlantic 37 (2018): 1–80.Google Scholar
Ólafsson, Guðmundur, “New Evidence for Dating of Iceland’s landnam: Viking Age Finds in Cave Víðgelmir”, in Current Issues in Nordic Archaeology: Proceedings of the 21st Conference of Nordic Archaeologists, 6–9 September 2001, Akureyri, Iceland (Reykjavik: Society of Icelandic Archaeologists, 2003), pp. 1–4.Google Scholar
Øye, Ingvild, “Farming Systems and Rural Societies ca. 800–1350”, in Almås, Reidar, ed., Norwegian Agricultural History (Trondheim: Tapir Academic Press, 2004), pp. 80–140.Google Scholar
Price, T. Douglas, and Arneborg, Jette, “The Peopling of the North Atlantic: Isotopic Results from Greenland”, Viking Settlers of the North Atlantic: An Isotopic Approach”, Journal of the North Atlantic Special Volume 7 (2018): 164–185.Google Scholar
Roesdahl, Else, “Walrus Ivory: Demand, Supply, Workshops, and Greenland”, in Mortensen, Andras and Arge, Simun V., eds., Viking and Norse in the North Atlantic: Select Papers from the Proceedings of the Fourteenth Viking Congress, Tórshavn, 19–30 July 2001 (Tórshavn: Annales Societatis Scientiarum Færoensis Supplementum XLIV, 2005), pp. 182–191.Google Scholar
Roussell, Aage, Farms and Churches in the Mediaeval Norse Settlements of Greenland. Meddelelser om Grønland/Monographs on Greenland, Man and Society 89 (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum, 1941).Google Scholar
Sanmark, Alexandra, “The Case of the Greenlandic Assembly Sites”, Journal of the North Atlantic Special Volume 2 (2010): 178–192.Google Scholar
Schweger, Charles, “Geoarchaeology of the GUS Site: A Preliminary Framework”, in Arneborg, Jette and Gulløv, Hans Christian, eds., Man, Culture and Environment in Ancient Greenland (Copenhagen: Danish National Museum and Danish Polar Center, 1998).Google Scholar
Smiarowski, Konrad, Harrison, Ramona, Brewington, Seth, et al., “Zooarchaeology of the Scandinavian Settlements in Iceland and Greenland: Diverging Pathways”, in Albarella, Umberto et al., eds., The Oxford Handbook of Zooarchaeology (Oxford Handbooks Online, 2017), https://doi.org/10.1093/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199686476.013.9.Google Scholar
Star, Bastian, Barrett, James H., Gondek, Agata T, and Boessenkool, Sanne, “Ancient DNA Reveals the Chronology of Walrus Ivory Trade from Norse Greenland”, Proceedings of the Royal Society B 285 (2018): 20180978, https://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2018.0978.Google Scholar
Vésteinsson, Orri, “What Is a Booth? Material Symbolism at Icelandic Assembly Sites”, Journal of the North Atlantic Special Volume 5 (2013): 111–124.Google Scholar
Vésteinsson, Orri, Hegmon, Michelle, Arneborg, Jette, Rice, Glen, and Russell, Will G., “Dimensions of Inequality: Comparing the North Atlantic and the US Southwest”, Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 54 (2019): 172–191.Google Scholar
- 2
- Cited by