Mystery Of The Vanished Settlers Of Greenland - What Happened To The Lost Viking Colonists?

[Judi Lynn]

July 22, 2023

Jan Bartek - AncientPages.com - In 985, Viking explorer Erik the Red led a group of Icelandic farmers to Greenland, where they established a settlement on the west coast. The Norse settlers strove through winter cold, food shortages, and, in the end, a shifting climate. The remnants these people left behind show they were determined to survive at the foot of this vast, icy, and challenging wilderness. Nevertheless, finally, seemingly suddenly, they vanished, and their mysterious disappearance in the fifteenth century has posed a riddle to scholars ever since.

Archaeological evidence suggests that the settlement existed for over 400 years, but the impact of the settlement lasted much longer. It is little recognized today that the hope of finding the descendants of the settlers dominated European and American perspectives on Greenland for centuries

In his new book The Vanished Settlers of Greenland: In Search of a Legend and Its Legacy, Associate Professor Robert Rix argues that the lost Norse settlement played a decisive role in Denmark’s efforts to colonise Greenland during the 18th century.

The Danish colonization of Greenland in the 18th century was partly driven by the desire to re-establish contact with early Norse settlers that vanished from the island during the 15th century. Legends about the Norsemen – and their wealth – circulated in Western culture and led to a race towards Greenland to find them, argues Robert Rix.

More:
https://www.ancientpages.com/2023/07/22/mystery-of-the-vanished-settlers-of-greenland/

[Warpy]

1. Young people decamped when the dlimate turned sour

their main export of walrus ivory collapsed in favor of African ivory, and Europe was devastated by the Black Death, meaning there were far fewer supply ships bringing food they could no longer grow. It was a perfect storm of climatic, mercantile and historical events that made the colony unlivable.

It was only a mystery because there were no records of mass evacuations from the colony. There wouldn't have been, it seems it was an old pattern, younger people leaving for better economic prospects, old people not willing to move and staying behind, the last few dying alone to be found hundreds of years later in the ruins of their homes.

What they didn't do was deplete the soil or overfish/overhunt local food stocks. The colony seems to have fizzled out slowly, the last documented event a wedding in 1408, after which the couple left, and burials up to 1450. After that, silence, no one left to bury the last few who died of starvation or cold.

People ask why the more northern colony on Iceland continued to thrive. Well, for one thing, it's warmer, warmed by the top of the Gulf Stream, which also keeps summer sea ice to a minimum. Greenland is kept frozen by the Labrador Current, which also keeps sea ice present (and dangerous) year round. Sheep grow well in Iceland, while it was a struggle to keep them alive in Greenland. Those are the main reasons.

[wnylib]

2. I didn't know that bodies were found in Greenland homes.

I read once that part of the puzzle was not finding bodies.

Is there a record of young people from Greenland arriving in Norway, Iceland, or elsewhere?

[Warpy]

3. Not many

and the saddest was one found with the bones of his hunting dog, the dog showing signs of having been slaughtered and butchered. Once the dog was gone, there is no way the man could have continued to hunt.

You might be thinking of the western colony, which had disappeared completely with no bodies present. The bodies they found in their homes were in the eastern settlement, on farmsteads.

A lot of theories have been put forth about the western colony joining the Inuit (although there are no DNA traces( or traveling down the coast of N. America until they found a tribe willing to tolerate them. The most likely scenario, I'm afraid, is the colony loading themselves into boats, trying to make it to the eastern colony or even to Iceland, but the sea ice was too bad and they didn't make it.