the 4 ““vikings”” (they arrived in the 1000s, not really monk-reaving raiders) that took the last boat out when their crop stores ran out went to iceland in all likelihood
I’m not an expert but from what I understand there were Norse colonies on Greenland for a while, mostly for harvesting Walrus ivory, but they were pretty much just tiny outposts for collecting one rare commodity for export back to their home. Also I think they generally had pretty amicable relations with the Inuit.
they were permanent farming communities, not trade factories. their main/lucrative export was that ivory but they couldn’t trade it frequently with annual or less contact with the metropole. as the climate changed and agriculture got worse, they failed to adapt to hunting for more of their food and they all left or died. it’s unclear exactly when, but from the late 14th to the mid 15th century they were in stark decline.
A podcast I listen to, that is about the fall of civilizations, (aptly named “The fall of civilizations”) did an episode on the Greenland Vikings, if I remember correctly one hypothesis is also that some in the colonies did leave, but some may have just joined the natives and lived amongst them.
There’s some genetic evidence of them even spreading to North America but it’s pretty disputed because not many people in Canada are full blooded indigenous anymore in regions the Greenlanders could access.
Fucked that colonialism killed so many cultures, we could’ve learned so much about these regions
the 4 ““vikings”” (they arrived in the 1000s, not really monk-reaving raiders) that took the last boat out when their crop stores ran out went to iceland in all likelihood
I’m not an expert but from what I understand there were Norse colonies on Greenland for a while, mostly for harvesting Walrus ivory, but they were pretty much just tiny outposts for collecting one rare commodity for export back to their home. Also I think they generally had pretty amicable relations with the Inuit.
they were permanent farming communities, not trade factories. their main/lucrative export was that ivory but they couldn’t trade it frequently with annual or less contact with the metropole. as the climate changed and agriculture got worse, they failed to adapt to hunting for more of their food and they all left or died. it’s unclear exactly when, but from the late 14th to the mid 15th century they were in stark decline.
A podcast I listen to, that is about the fall of civilizations, (aptly named “The fall of civilizations”) did an episode on the Greenland Vikings, if I remember correctly one hypothesis is also that some in the colonies did leave, but some may have just joined the natives and lived amongst them.
https://open.spotify.com/episode/7j6Iix39liJLuVr5rsbyyr
Good podcast, but very lib host. His episode on ancient China is pretty much what you’d expect.
Oh absolutely agree on the lib part. I believe he started using AI for the video that rolls along the podcast on that platform?
I never did watch it and only saw a glimpse lately.
Oh really? Gross, I listened a few years ago, so I haven’t seen anything like that.
the olde roanoke shuffle
There’s some genetic evidence of them even spreading to North America but it’s pretty disputed because not many people in Canada are full blooded indigenous anymore in regions the Greenlanders could access.
Fucked that colonialism killed so many cultures, we could’ve learned so much about these regions