Eldorado Posted March 23, 2022 #1 Share Posted March 23, 2022 One of the great mysteries of late medieval history is why did the Norse, who had established successful settlements in southern Greenland in 985, abandon them in the early 15th century? The consensus view has long been that colder temperatures, associated with the Little Ice Age, helped make the colonies unsustainable. However, new research, led by the University of Massachusetts Amherst and published recently in Science Advances, upends that old theory. It wasn’t dropping temperatures that helped drive the Norse from Greenland, but drought. https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/947227 Prolonged drying trend coincident with the demise of Norse settlement in southern Greenland. Science 8 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jethrofloyd Posted March 23, 2022 #2 Share Posted March 23, 2022 A drought is the most common reason of a 'disappearance' and departure of the people and civilizations. For. ex the Mayans were destroyed by the drought and thirst, not by the Spaniards and Inquisition as it's most commonly considered. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/why-did-the-mayan-civilization-collapse-a-new-study-points-to-deforestation-and-climate-change-30863026/ As a result, the rapid deforestation exacerbated an already severe drought—in the simulation, deforestation reduced precipitation by five to 15 percent and was responsible for 60 percent of the total drying that occurred over the course of a century as the Mayan civilization collapsed. 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tatetopa Posted March 23, 2022 #3 Share Posted March 23, 2022 Jared Diamond had quite a bit to say about Greenland in his book Collapse. I didn't know that Greenland once housed one of the largest dairies in the medieval world for example. 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kenemet Posted March 23, 2022 #4 Share Posted March 23, 2022 52 minutes ago, Tatetopa said: Jared Diamond had quite a bit to say about Greenland in his book Collapse. I didn't know that Greenland once housed one of the largest dairies in the medieval world for example. He's written some thought-provoking books. I know he's got his critics, but I find his take on things to be fairly plausible. 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
atalante Posted March 23, 2022 #5 Share Posted March 23, 2022 Recent research claims that a collapse of walrus ivory sources was the final blow that drove the Vikings out of Greenland. https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/why-did-greenlands-norse-colonies-mysteriously-vanish-walrus-bones-hold-the 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hanslune Posted March 23, 2022 #6 Share Posted March 23, 2022 (edited) Why the Greenland colony collapse was probably due to a variety of reasons which particular one was the most damaging is unknown but I would guess it was the climate variation that caused the most concern and collapse of agricultural aspects of the site. https://sites.google.com/a/carleton.edu/civilization-collapse/introduction-to-inuit/history/contact-with-vikings All the factors probably finally did them in. https://sites.google.com/a/carleton.edu/civilization-collapse/introduction-to-inuit/why-did-they-survive Edited March 23, 2022 by Hanslune 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Earl.Of.Trumps Posted March 23, 2022 #7 Share Posted March 23, 2022 beddy interestink 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Piney Posted March 23, 2022 Popular Post #8 Share Posted March 23, 2022 3 minutes ago, Earl.Of.Trumps said: beddy interestink Betty Interestink left Greenland too. She lives somewhere in Ft. Lauderdale. 2 1 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+and-then Posted March 24, 2022 #9 Share Posted March 24, 2022 I always assumed they spread out so they could rape and pillage My wife's family is from Norway and when we were first getting acquainted, I asked her who her ancestors were and she never missed a beat: "They're the ones who raped and pillaged YOURS". 1 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jmccr8 Posted March 24, 2022 #10 Share Posted March 24, 2022 Hmm,.. so it had nothing to do with moving from in front of the Pillars of Hercules then. 1 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hanslune Posted March 24, 2022 #11 Share Posted March 24, 2022 49 minutes ago, jmccr8 said: Hmm,.. so it had nothing to do with moving from in front of the Pillars of Hercules then. This is well after the roller skates were removed and Greenland was anchored in place. 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jethrofloyd Posted March 24, 2022 #12 Share Posted March 24, 2022 They left because of they had nothing to plunder in that icy wasteland. 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trelane Posted March 25, 2022 #13 Share Posted March 25, 2022 19 hours ago, Hanslune said: This is well after the roller skates were removed and Greenland was anchored in place. Ok, soooooo after "the Great Mincing"? 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Piney Posted March 25, 2022 #14 Share Posted March 25, 2022 8 hours ago, Trelane said: Ok, soooooo after "the Great Mincing"? Singlefoot!!! 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DieChecker Posted March 31, 2022 #15 Share Posted March 31, 2022 Maybe they just ran out of beer and mead. Dought. How far was it to the nearest glacial ice? Bringing enough for the animals and roast probably would have been a full time job by itself though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Piney Posted March 31, 2022 #16 Share Posted March 31, 2022 4 hours ago, DieChecker said: Maybe they just ran out of beer and mead. Dought. How far was it to the nearest glacial ice? Bringing enough for the animals and roast probably would have been a full time job by itself though. When the air is cold, it's dry and grasses won't grow on frozen ground. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kenemet Posted April 1, 2022 #17 Share Posted April 1, 2022 19 hours ago, DieChecker said: Maybe they just ran out of beer and mead. Dought. How far was it to the nearest glacial ice? Bringing enough for the animals and roast probably would have been a full time job by itself though. They couldn't find a good veggie burger anywhere. That's the real reason. And it's...THIS far to the nearest glacier. In summer. (uphill, both ways) 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bavarian Raven Posted April 1, 2022 #18 Share Posted April 1, 2022 Money. It wasn't profitable anymore - the northern ivory trade. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skirnum Posted April 3, 2022 #19 Share Posted April 3, 2022 (edited) Edit. Edited April 3, 2022 by Skirnum Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Golden Duck Posted April 11, 2022 #20 Share Posted April 11, 2022 (edited) On 4/1/2022 at 11:00 AM, Bavarian Raven said: Money. It wasn't profitable anymore - the northern ivory trade. Would that be Flokilokinihilipilification? Edited April 11, 2022 by Golden Duck 1 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CuCulaine Posted April 22, 2022 #21 Share Posted April 22, 2022 I don't believe that theory with all the ice they could melt into fresh water. I think it was starvation & disease. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hyperionxvii Posted April 22, 2022 #22 Share Posted April 22, 2022 It's quite cold there. So if they went there during a relatively mild period in the climate and it turned colder, they probably saw the writing on the wall and headed out of there before they turned into human popsicles. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hyperionxvii Posted April 23, 2022 #23 Share Posted April 23, 2022 2 hours ago, CuCulaine said: I don't believe that theory with all the ice they could melt into fresh water. I think it was starvation & disease. If the ground is frozen all year, that pretty much rules out plant based nutrition. I guess you can eat some lichens. Maybe seaweed. Sounds tough for sure. You might just get tired of that after a while when you know there are greener pastures if you head back south. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coil Posted May 4, 2022 #24 Share Posted May 4, 2022 Greenland was turned into a quarry by the past technical civilization, traces of which are left in the form of semicircular jagged workings. What happens if you cut down the forest at the equator? There will be a desert. And what happens if you remove a completely fertile layer of soil? There will be numerous American canyons. And if you cut down a forest several kilometers high in the northern latitudes, then mountains will remain. But even in them you can recognize former but already petrified trees if you look closely. But this is all an alternative history of technical civilization and few people will believe in it, but traces of it are found even there. All catastrophes on earth occurred initially through the fault of creatures, therefore, because of them, the ice age, the extinction of dinosaurs, the change of poles, meteorites falling on the planet, the sinking of continents, deserts and canyons, waterfalls happened. Spoiler 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
badeskov Posted May 6, 2022 #25 Share Posted May 6, 2022 On 4/22/2022 at 2:32 PM, CuCulaine said: I don't believe that theory with all the ice they could melt into fresh water. I think it was starvation & disease. Yet, the indigenous people survived and still live there based on on old traditions. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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