Ruins may be Viking hunting outpost in Greenland

[Primus Pilus]

Ruins recently discovered on Greenland may mark the Vikings' most northerly year-round hunting outpost on the icy island, a researcher said on Monday. Knut Espen Solberg, leader of 'The Melting Arctic' project mapping changes in the north, said the remains uncovered in past weeks in west Greenland may also be new evidence that the climate was less chilly about 1,000 years ago than it is today...

 

San Diego Union Tribune

[ASCLEPIADES]

Ruins recently discovered on Greenland may mark the Vikings' most northerly year-round hunting outpost on the icy island, a researcher said on Monday. Knut Espen Solberg, leader of 'The Melting Arctic' project mapping changes in the north, said the remains uncovered in past weeks in west Greenland may also be new evidence that the climate was less chilly about 1,000 years ago than it is today...

 

San Diego Union Tribune

And before anyone quotes this one as evidence of the unavoidable non-human related climate change, read it thoroughly:

 

"(SIC) He (Kunt Solberg) also said that modern climate change, blamed mainly on human emissions of greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels, was bringing erosion to archaeological sites on Greenland.

 

Warmer summers mean fewer days with ice on the sea, increasing a battering of waves on the shore, while permafrost is also thawing".

[caldrail]

This period equates to the build up toward the Medieval Warm Period, which although produced hotter summers than today, allowed crop bonuses and aided agricultural recovery from the dark ages.

[Northern Neil]

The extinction of the Greenland Vikings is a sad story, told in great depth by the American writer Jared Diamond in his book 'Collapse'. It was an extinction which would have been avoided if they had adopted some of the ways of the neighbouring Inuit. They refused to do this, and steadfastly stook to a european way of life even though the place could not eventually susutain it. Also, the two ships a year which came from Norway were full of fine clothes and luxuries for the nobility, and non essentials like church bells and religious regalia. More imports of weapons, metals and spun wool would have been better used.

 

There is a typo in the newspaper report: The Greenland Eastern Settlement survived until about 1430, not the fourteenth century.

[ASCLEPIADES]

There is a typo in the newspaper report: The Greenland Eastern Settlement survived until about 1430, not the fourteenth century.

What really amazes me is that such a colony, established by a culture based on regular looting, lasted for so many centuries; hardly a failure in my book.

[Faustus]

This period equates to the build up toward the Medieval Warm Period, which although produced hotter summers than today, allowed crop bonuses and aided agricultural recovery from the dark ages.

here is a <CHART> graphically showing solar activity during warm and cool climactic conditions of the past 7,500 years. The period discussed here, related to what Caldrail said, has a name; it is called the Medieval Maximum in the terms used by solar astronomers and is (4) on the chart which was somewhat warmer than the Roman Maximum (6). By 1400 the solar activity was falling off precipitously into two side by side very cool periods (3) and (2), respectively the Sporer and Maunder (solar) Minimums.

 

As can be seen on the chart the Medieval warm period was bracketed by cool climactic extremes, less so before and more so after.

 

Would it be accurate to suggest that civilization "flourished" during these warm periods and tended to decline or pale during colder climactic periods?

 

<HERE> is a legend to the whole chart.

[ASCLEPIADES]

Would it be accurate to suggest that civilization "flourished" during these warm periods and tended to decline or pale during colder climactic periods?

Salve, F.

 

At least regarding East Greenland and any other Northern latitude, that asseveration is more an actual description of facts than a mere suggestion.

[caldrail]

The vikings established colonies in Greenland on the basis of simply that, colonisation, not raiding. One of the major reasons for expansion by the vikings was exactly the same as other warrior cultures - a unified, combative society with means to travel. Their members wanted new lands, to expand their own interests. Without this, they could only turn on themselves in the quest for personal ambition.

 

The decline in warm temperatures certainly killed off the viking colonies in greenland. However, there were other factors present in the difficulties experienced in europe, such as disease. The Black Death reduced populations to something like 25% of its former size if I remember right. However, agriculture had been advancing during the Warm Period and this wasn't lost.