Why did the Viking colony in Greenland die? Previously, climate change (cooling) was blamed for this. New evidence suggests a host of other factors. The sheep ate the vegetation of the island, the Vikings continued the destruction of pastures by the widespread use of turf in everyday life. The priests ruled the community - they used the export proceeds for overconsumption and decoration of churches, and not on scarce wood and iron. Finally, the Vikings, due to conservatism, did not use the survival skills of the autochthonous - Inuit: they did not catch fish and whales, they did not make kayaks.
The Vikings arrived in Greenland in the 980s. At the peak, the number of their colony was 4-5 thousand people. The last settler died in the 1470s and 80s.
Pulitzer Prize winner Jared Diamond tells about the main reasons for the death of the Viking colony in Greenland in the book "Collapse" (the book is devoted to ecological disasters over the past twenty centuries; publishing house AST, 2010).
Sheep ate grass, Vikings destroyed forests
The study of lake bottom sediments provides the following picture of the vegetation history of Greenland. No signs of deforestation or soil erosion were observed until the arrival of the Vikings. The trace of this event is a layer of coal in the bottom sediments, a consequence of the burning of forests by the Vikings for pastures for livestock. The amount of willow and birch pollen decreased, while sedges and other grasses, including weeds and plants specially introduced by the Vikings to feed livestock, increased accordingly. Finally, when entire valleys were completely devoid of vegetation, and after it the sod, the sand that had originally been lying under the topsoil began to wash out.
No trees meant no firewood. Unlike the Inuit, who learned to use blubber (the gut fat of marine mammals) for heating and lighting, Greenland Scandinavian foci excavations showed that they continued to use willow and alder for firewood.
Viking conquest map. Green - temporary, orange - long-term conquest.
Promotional video:
Another - in addition to heating - the reason for the need for firewood, which we, modern city dwellers, would never have thought of, is related to the procurement of dairy products. Milk is a perishable, potentially hazardous to health product: it is so nutritious - not only for humans, but also for bacteria - that, if left raw, without pasteurization and refrigerator (which we take for granted, but without which people are so or otherwise dispensed with for almost all of history) deteriorates very quickly. Therefore, vessels for dairy products often had to be rinsed with boiled water, and for milk - even twice a day. We know that in both Norway and Iceland, summer farms had to be relocated when firewood ran out in the vicinity, and it was probably the same in Greenland. As with the scarce construction timber,Greenlanders did this: in the absence of firewood, they used all kinds of substitutes - animal bones, dried manure and sod. But these decisions had their downsides: the burnt bones and dung could be used to fertilize the fields to make more hay, and the cutting of the sod is nothing more than the destruction of pastures.
Iron deficiency
Another unfortunate consequence of deforestation, besides the lack of construction timber and firewood, was the lack of iron. Scandinavians are accustomed to mining iron from swamps - extracting metal from swamp deposits with an extremely low iron content. Swamp iron is found here and there in Greenland, as well as in Iceland and Scandinavia.
The difficulty was not in finding such a swamp, but in extracting iron from its depths - this required a huge amount of firewood, from which charcoal was made, since only in this way it was possible to achieve the high temperature necessary for smelting iron. Even taking into account the fact that the Greenlanders could skip this stage by importing iron in ingots from Europe, they still needed coal for blacksmithing - making products from ingots and subsequent repair, sharpening or alteration, the need for which was very high.
We know that the Greenlanders used metal products and knew how to work with iron. Among the ruins of many large Greenlandic farms, remains of forges and heaps of iron scale have been found, although we cannot draw conclusions as to whether these forges were mining iron from ore or only processing finished metal. During archaeological excavations in Greenland, all the same iron products that are typical for any European medieval settlement were found: axes, scythes, knives, sheep shears, ship rivets, carpentry planes, piercing awls and gimbals for drilling holes.
How the temperature has changed in Greenland.
But these same excavations also show that the Greenlanders were desperate for iron, even by the standards of medieval Scandinavia, where iron was also not enough. For example, in the excavations of Viking settlements in the British and Shetland Islands, in Iceland, more nails and other iron objects have been found than in Greenland. In Greenland, iron deficiency was probably at its highest. In the lower layers of the cultural layer, a number of discarded iron nails were found, but in the following layers there are no such finds anymore, since iron has become too expensive material to throw out items from it. In Greenland, not a single sword, helmet, or even a fragment of similar objects was found, just a couple of chain mail fragments - probably the same. Iron tools were used until they were completely grinded. For example,in the settlement of Korlortok, a knife was found, the appearance of which could cause tears: the blade is sharpened almost to the very handle, which next to it looks disproportionately huge - and at the same time this knife was clearly valuable enough to continue sharpening it.
Primitivization of the economy
Iron deficiency in Greenland has resulted in reduced efficiency of the main economic processes. With a shortage of iron braids, knives and scissors, if necessary, replace them with analogues made of other materials - stone or bone - all the work for which these tools are needed (mowing, cutting animal carcasses and shearing sheep) take more time. But even more serious and urgent was the fact that in the absence of iron, the Greenlanders lost their military advantage over the Inuit.
In all other corners of the globe, the European colonialists had a huge advantage in countless battles with the native population - iron swords and chain mail. For example, during the Spanish conquest of the Inca empire in 1532-1533, five battles took place, in which, respectively, 169, 80, 30, 110 and 40 Spaniards were able to kill the Inca armies, numbering from one to several tens of thousands of people, and not a single Spaniard was killed and only a few were injured. The reason was that the swords of the Spaniards easily pierced the defenses of the Incas, and iron chain mail protected the invaders from the blows of the wooden and stone tools of the Indians.
But no finds that would indicate that the Greenlanders, after several decades of life in the colony, still preserved weapons or tools made of iron, were not found, with the exception of the already mentioned fragments of chain mail, which, moreover, could more likely belong to the one who sailed on the ship European than Greenland. So the Greenlanders had to use the same weapons that their Inuit opponents had: bows, arrows and spears. Likewise, there is no evidence that the Greenlanders used their horses to form cavalry units, which again became a big advantage in the battles of the Spanish conquistadors with the Incas and Aztecs. It is known for certain that the Greenlanders had no cavalry. In addition, the Greenlanders lacked professional military training. In other words,they soon lost any military superiority over the Inuit
Predatory turf extraction
Another reason, besides soil erosion, that Greenlanders have inadvertently degraded the condition of their land is the use of turf for construction and heating in the absence of sufficient timber. Nearly all buildings in Greenland are built primarily of turf, which had to be cut from the fields; at best, there was a stone foundation and a few wooden beams to support the roof. Even the Cathedral of Saint Nicholas at Gardar is only partly made of stone: a six-foot-high stone base continued with turf-lined walls, the roof was supported by wooden beams, and the façade was clad in wood paneling.
Khvalsey Church is unique in that its walls are completely stone, right up to the top, and was crowned with a turf roof. In Greenland, the turf walls had to be made quite thick (up to six feet thick, about 1.8 m) to provide protection from the cold.
The construction of a large residential building in Greenland required approximately 4 hectares of turf. Moreover, this amount was required more than once: over time, the sod crumbled, and every several decades the walls had to be refurbished. The Greenlanders called the process of cutting sod for construction "skinning from distant fields." The image is very successful - it accurately characterizes the harm that was done to the earth, which could, in a more favorable scenario, remain a pasture. The slow recovery of sod in Greenland meant the damage was massive and long lasting.
Relationship with Inuit
Inuit played a critical role in the history of the extinction of the Greenland Viking colony. Their presence determined the most important difference between the history of the Greenlandic and Icelandic Vikings: although the advantages of Iceland, in comparison with Greenland, include a less harsh climate and a lesser distance from Norway, the Icelanders' greatest luck was that they did not have to fear the undesirables on their island. neighbors.
The Inuit symbolized a missed opportunity for the Greenlanders: their chances of survival would be increased if they took over the skills of the Inuit, or at least got involved in the barter trade. Why did the Vikings lose where the Inuit were victorious?
(Today we think of the Inuit as the original inhabitants of Greenland and the Canadian Arctic. In fact, they were the last of a series of peoples to try to settle these lands)
Unlike the Vikings, the Inuit represented the pinnacle of the development of the civilization of the peoples of the Arctic, who for thousands of years improved their skills of survival in the Far North. Are there not enough trees in Greenland to build, heat and light homes in the long arctic winter? For the Inuit, this was not a problem - in the winter they lived in an igloo of snow, and they used melted whale or seal oil for lighting and heating their homes. Not enough wood to build boats? The Inuit found a great way out - they pulled seal skins over the carcasses and thus built kayaks and larger umyak boats, big enough to go out to sea for whales.
What was the relationship between the Inuit and the Vikings? Incredibly, although these two peoples lived side by side in Greenland for several hundred years, there are only two or three brief mentions of Inuit in the Scandinavian chronicles that have come down to us.
Reconstruction of a medieval house in Greenland.
The attitude of the Vikings towards the Skreling was unfriendly, which led to further hostility and tension in the relationship of the Vikings with their neighbors on the island. Skrelingi, an Old Norse word used by the ancient Norwegians to refer to all three groups of indigenous people in the New World, which they met in Vinland (the northeastern coast of America) and Greenland (Inuit, Dorset and North American Indians), translates as “wretched people”.
Let us also recall that in Vinland the Vikings began to build relations with the local population by the fact that, having met a group of Indians, they killed eight out of nine people. This nature of the first contacts largely explains why the Vikings were unable to establish friendly relations with the Inuit.
One reason is the cultural barrier that prevented cross-marriage and even communication between Wikbooks and Inuit. An Inuit woman could not become a good wife for a Viking: she did not know how to spin and weave, graze and milk cows and sheep, make cheese and whip butter - all these Scandinavian girls learned from childhood. And if he wanted to ask the Inuit to make him a kayak, or, moreover, to marry her daughter, first it would be necessary to establish friendly relations. But we have seen that the Vikings initially had a prejudice against skreling, and against the North American Indians in Vinland, and against the Inuit in Greenland: the very first skreling they encountered were killed. As Christians, the Vikings shared a contempt for pagans that was widespread in Europe in the Middle Ages.
Another reason for the negative attitude could be that the Vikings considered themselves the real native inhabitants of Greenland and looked at the Inuit as "come in large numbers" of strangers. The Vikings established a Greenlandic colony and hunted in Northset long before the first Inuit arrived. In addition to the time of the arrival of the Inuit, the Vikings experienced an acute shortage of iron, the most valuable commodity they could offer the Inuit.
Termination of contacts with Norway
Norway, Sweden and Denmark united in 1397 under the rule of one king, who paid the least attention to Norway as the poorest of its three lands. The demand for walrus tusks - Greenland's main export commodity and popular with European carvers - faded after the Crusaders re-opened access to ivory for Europeans from Africa and Asia. All these developments reduced both the ability and the motivation for Norway to send ships to Greenland.
Another reconstruction of a medieval Greenlandic house.
As for the destruction of the Eastern Settlement, the last voyage of a merchant ship, which, according to the royal promise, was to regularly call in Greenland, dates back to 1368; this ship sank the following year. After that, the ships entered Greenland only four times: in 1381, 1382, 1385 and 1406, and these were private ships, the captains of which reported that in fact they were going to go to Iceland and got to Greenland unintentionally, just because from -the strong wind lost their course.
If you remember that the trade with Greenland was a monopoly of the Norwegian royal court and no private ships were allowed to visit the distant northern colony, such a four-time "unintentional hit" looks too surprising an accident. It is much more likely that the captains' statements that they were caught in a thick fog and therefore, to their deep regret, were forced to dock on the shores of Greenland, are just an alibi designed to hide their true intentions. The captains undoubtedly knew that royal ships had not gone to Greenland for a long time, which means that the Greenlanders are in desperate need of goods from the continent and, therefore, a deal with them promises to be very profitable. Thorstein Olavsson, captain of the last ship to visit Greenland,hardly particularly regretted his navigational error - he spent nearly four years in Greenland, from 1406 to 1410, before returning to Norway.
Captain Olavsson brought some fresh news from Greenland with him. For example, a man named Colgrim was burned at the stake in 1407 for using witchcraft to seduce a woman named Steinun, daughter of a local ruler named Ravn, and wife of Thorgrim Selvasson.
Church power
Finally, power in the Greenland colony was concentrated in the hands of a small elite - a few leaders and churchmen. They owned most of the land (including all the best farms) and boats; they also controlled trade with Europe. They ordered from Norway those goods that increased their prestige in society: luxury goods, vestments and jewelry for priests, bells and colored glass for churches.
Today, due to warming in Greenland, it has become possible to grow potatoes.
The few boats at their disposal were used to equip hunting expeditions to Northset. The trophies brought from there - walrus tusks and live polar bears - were valuable export commodities that could be exchanged for church bells and luxurious vestments that Greenland needed so much. The chiefs had two motives for keeping large herds that trample pastures and lead to soil erosion: wool was another important item on the list of Greenlandic exports that paid for imports; and independent farmers on trampled pastures could be deprived of independence and turned into tenants, thereby replenishing the ranks of their supporters in case of conflict with another leader.
There were many ways to improve the well-being of the Greenland colony - for example, importing more iron and less luxury goods, sending more expeditions to Markland for timber and iron, learning hunting tricks from the Inuit, and copying (or inventing your own) kayaks and umiak. But all these innovations could threaten the power, prestige and personal interests of the leaders. In a tightly controlled Greenland colony, whose inhabitants were highly dependent on each other, the leaders had the opportunity to thwart any attempts to introduce such innovations.
The structure of society in the Greenland colony caused a conflict between the short-term interests of those in power and the long-term interests of society as a whole. In the end, the leaders realized that they no longer had followers. The final privilege they have secured for themselves is the privilege of being the last to starve."
