History of Greenland
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The history of Greenland is a history of life under extreme
While the Inuit survived in the icy world of the
During
Early Paleo-Inuit cultures
The
The earliest known cultures in Greenland are the Saqqaq culture (2500–800 BCE)[2] and the Independence I culture in northern Greenland (2400–1300 BCE). The practitioners of these two cultures are thought to have descended from separate groups that came to Greenland from North America, nearby Nunavut.[3] Around 800 BCE, the so-called Independence II culture arose in the region where the Independence I culture had previously existed.[4] It was originally thought that Independence II was succeeded by the early Dorset culture (700 BCE–CE 1), but some Independence II artifacts date from as recently as the 1st century BCE. Recent studies suggest that, in Greenland at least, the Dorset culture may be better understood as a continuation of Independence II culture; the two cultures have therefore been designated "Greenlandic Dorset".[5] Artefacts associated with early Dorset culture in Greenland have been found as far north as Inglefield Land on the west coast and the Dove Bay area on the east coast.[6]
After the Early Dorset culture disappeared by around CE 1, Greenland was apparently uninhabited until Late Dorset people settled on the Greenlandic side of the
Norse settlement
Europeans probably became aware of Greenland's existence in the late 9th century, after
According to the sagas, the Icelanders had exiled Erik the Red for three years for committing murder,[10] c. 982. He sailed to Greenland, where he explored the coastline and claimed certain regions as his own. He then returned to Iceland to persuade people to join him in establishing a settlement on Greenland. The Icelandic sagas say that 25 ships left Iceland with Erik the Red in 985, and that only 14 of them arrived safely in Greenland.[11] Radiocarbon dating of remains at the first settlement at Brattahlid (now Qassiarsuk) have approximately confirmed this timeline, yielding a date of about 1000. According to the sagas, in the year 1000 Erik's son, Leif Erikson, left the settlement to explore the regions around Vinland, which historians generally assume to have been located in present-day Newfoundland.
The Norse established settlements along Greenland's south-western fjords. It is possible that the bottom lands of the southern fjords at that time were covered by highgrown shrub and surrounded by hills covered with grass and brush (as the Qinngua Valley currently is), but this hasn't been determined yet.[12] If the presumption is true then the Norse probably cleared the landscape by felling trees to use as building material and fuel, and by allowing their sheep and goats to graze there in both summer and winter. Any resultant soil erosion could have become an important factor in the demise of the colonies, as the land was stripped of its natural cover.
The Norse settled in three separate locations in south-western Greenland: the larger Eastern Settlement, the smaller Western Settlement, and the still smaller Middle Settlement (often considered part of the Eastern one). Estimates put the combined population of the settlements at their height between 2,000 and 10,000, with recent estimates[13] trending toward the lower figure. Archeologists have identified the ruins of approximately 620 farms: 500 in the Eastern Settlement, 95 in the Western Settlement, and 20 in the Middle Settlement.[citation needed]
The economy of the Norse Greenlanders depended on a combination of pastoral farming with hunting and some fishing. Farmers kept cattle, sheep and goats - shipped into the island - for their milk, cheese and butter, while most of the consumed meat came from hunted caribou and seals. Both individual farmers and groups of farmers organised summer trips to the more northerly Disko Bay area, where they hunted walruses, narwhals and polar bears for their skins, hides and ivory. Besides their use in making garments and shoes, these resources also functioned as a form of currency, as well as providing the most important export commodities.[14]
The Greenland settlements carried on a trade with Europe in ivory from walrus tusks, as well as exporting rope, sheep, seals, wool and cattle hides (according to one 13th-century account).[15] The Greenlandic Norsemen depended on Icelandic and Norwegian Norsemen for iron tools, wood (especially for boat building, although they may also have obtained wood from coastal Labrador - Markland), supplemental foodstuffs, and religious and social contacts. For a time, trade ships from Iceland and Norway traveled to Greenland every year and would sometimes overwinter in Greenland. Beginning in the late-13th century, laws required all ships from Greenland to sail directly to Norway. The climate became increasingly colder in the 14th and 15th centuries, during the period of colder weather known as the Little Ice Age.
In 1126 the Roman Catholic Church founded a
A union between Norway and Sweden, including Greenland and Iceland existed between 1319 and 1355 through Magnus IV of Sweden (In Norway crowned Magnus VII after claims of birthright) and between 1362 and 1364 through Haakon VI, the son ”Håkan Magnusson”. During this period Greenland runs were made at intervals.
After initially thriving, the Norse settlements in Greenland declined in the 14th century. In 1355 Magnus IV of Sweden (In Norway Magnus VII) sent a ship (or ships) to Greenland to inspect its Western and Eastern Settlements. Sailors found settlements entirely Norse and Christian. The Greenland carrier (Groenlands Knorr) made the Greenland run at intervals till 1369, when she sank and was apparently not replaced.[16] The Western Settlement was probably abandoned before 1400.[17]
In 1378 there was no longer a
In 1380 the Norwegian kingdom entered into a personal union with the Kingdom of Denmark. From 1402–1404 the Black Death hit Iceland for the first time and killed approximately half the population there - but there is no evidence that it reached Greenland.[21] The last written record of the Norse Greenlanders documents a marriage in 1408 at Hvalsey Church, whose ruins are the best-preserved of the Norse buildings of that period.
After 1408 few written records mention the settlers. Correspondence between the Pope and the Biskop Bertold af Garde dates from the same year.[22] The Danish cartographer Claudius Clavus seems to have visited Greenland in 1420, according to documents written by Nicolas Germanus and Henricus Martellus, who had access to original cartographic notes and a map by Clavus. In the late 20th century the Danish scholars Bjönbo and Petersen found two mathematical manuscripts containing the second chart of the Claudius Clavus map from his journey to Greenland (where he himself mapped the area).[23]
In a letter dated 1448 from Rome, Pope Nicholas V instructed the bishops of Skálholt and Hólar (the two Icelandic episcopal sees) to provide the inhabitants of Greenland with priests and a bishop, the latter of which they had not had in the 30 years since a purported attack by "heathens" who destroyed most of the churches and took the population prisoner.[24] It is probable that the Eastern Settlement was defunct by the middle of the 15th century, although no exact date has been established. A European ship that landed in the former Eastern Settlement in the 1540s found the corpse of a Norse man there,[25] which may be the last mention of a Norse individual from the settlement.[26] The Icelandic seafarer Jon Greenlander, who visited Greenland around 1540, described the dead Norse Greenlander as a:
- "Dead man lying face downwards on the ground. On his head was a hood, well made, and otherwise good clothing of frieze cloth and sealskin. Near him was a sheath-knife, bent and much worn and eaten away".[27]
This was reportedly the last time any European saw any of the Norse Greenlanders dead or alive.[27]
Norse abandonment
There are many theories as to why the Norse settlements in Greenland collapsed after surviving for some 450–500 years (985 to 1450–1500). Among the factors that have been suggested as contributing to the demise of the Greenland colony are:[28][29]
- Cumulative environmental damage
- Gradual climate change
- Conflicts with Inuit
- Loss of contact and support from European Norsemen
- Cultural conservatism and failure to adapt to an increasingly harsh natural environment
- Opening of opportunities elsewhere after plaguehad left many farmsteads abandoned in Iceland and Norway
- Declining value of ivory in Europe (due to the influx of ivory from Russian walrus and African elephants), forcing hunters to overkill the walrus populations and endanger their own survival[30]
Numerous studies have tested these hypotheses and some have led to significant discoveries. In The Frozen Echo, Kirsten Seaver contests some of the more generally accepted theories about the demise of the Greenland colony, and asserts that the colony, towards the end, was healthier than some scholars previously claimed. Seaver believes that the Greenlanders cannot have starved to death, but rather may have been wiped out by Inuit or unrecorded European attacks, or they may have abandoned the colony for Iceland or Vinland. However, the physical evidence from archeological studies of the ancient farm sites does not show evidence of attack.[31] The paucity of personal belongings at these sites is typical of North Atlantic Norse sites that were abandoned in an orderly fashion, with any useful items being deliberately removed; but to others it suggests a gradual but devastating impoverishment. Middens at these sites do show an increasingly impoverished diet for humans and livestock. Else Roesdahl argues that declining ivory prices in Europe due to the influx of Russian and African ivory adversely affected the Norse settlements in Greenland, which depended largely on the export of walrus ivory to Europe.[32]
According to Danielle Kurin and other authors, there is no convincing evidence that violence by the Inuit or anyone any other group led to the migration of Norse settlers, and that Norse society in Greenland seems to have slowly declined as climatic conditions worsened and the value of walrus ivory was reduced by African elephant ivory. The violent conflict theory has since been marginalised in favor of ecological theories.[33][34][11][35] One scholar supporting the violent conflict theory is historian Arnved Nedkvitne, who concludes in his work: "the hypothesis of an ethnic confrontation is today significantly better verified than the alternative hypothesis of an ecological crisis".[36]
Greenland was always colder in winter than Iceland and Norway, and its terrain less hospitable to agriculture. Erosion of the soil was a danger from the beginning, one that the Greenland settlements may not have recognized until it was too late. For an extended time, nonetheless, the relatively warm West Greenland current flowing northwards along the southwestern coast of Greenland made it feasible for the Norse to farm much as their relatives did in Iceland or northern Norway.
To investigate the possibility of climatic cooling, scientists drilled into the Greenland ice cap to obtain
The
The Norse never learned the Inuit techniques of kayak navigation or ring seal hunting. Archaeological evidence plainly establishes that by 1300 or so the Inuit had successfully expanded their winter settlements as close to the Europeans as the outer fjords of the Western Settlement. By 1350, the Norse had completely deserted their Western Settlement.[43] But in 1355 union king Magnus IV of Sweden and Norway (In Norway crowned Magnus VII after claims of birthright) sent a ship (or ships) to Greenland to inspect its Western and Eastern Settlements. Sailors found settlements entirely Norse and Christian. The Greenland carrier (Groenlands Knorr) made the Greenland run at intervals till 1369, when she sank and was apparently not replaced.[16] Arneborg suggests that worsening climatic and economical circumstances, causing them to migrate to Iceland or Scandinavia.[44]
In mild weather conditions, a ship could make the 900-mile (1400 kilometers) trip from Iceland to Eastern Settlement within a couple of weeks. Greenlanders had to keep in contact with Iceland and Norway in order to trade. Little is known about any distinctive shipbuilding techniques among the Greenlanders. Greenland lacks a supply of lumber, so was completely dependent on Icelandic merchants or, possibly, logging expeditions to the Canadian coast.
The sagas mention Icelanders traveling to Greenland to trade.
It has been argued that the royal Norwegian monopoly on shipping contributed to the end of trade and contact. However, Christianity and European customs continued to hold sway among the Greenlanders for the greater part of the 14th and 15th centuries. In 1921, a Danish historian, Paul Norland, found human remains from the Eastern Settlement in the Herjolfsnes church courtyard. The bodies were dressed in 15th century medieval clothing with no indications of malnutrition or inbreeding. Most had crucifixes around their necks with their arms crossed as in a stance of prayer. Roman papal records report that the Greenlanders were excused from paying their tithes in 1345 because the colony was suffering from poverty.[48] The last reported ship to reach Greenland was a private ship that was "blown off course", reaching Greenland in 1406, and departing in 1410 with the last news of Greenland: the burning at the stake of a condemned male witch, the insanity and death of the woman this witch was accused of attempting to seduce through witchcraft, and the marriage of the ship's captain, Thorsteinn Ólafsson, to another Icelander, Sigríður Björnsdóttir.[49] However, there are some suggestions of much later unreported voyages from Europe to Greenland, possibly as late as the 1480s.[50] In the 1540s,[11] a ship drifted off-course to Greenland and discovered the body of a dead man lying face down who demonstrated cultural traits of both Norse and Inuit. An Icelandic crew member of the ship wrote: "He had a hood on his head, well sewn, and clothes from both homespun and sealskin. At his side lay a carving knife bent and worn down by whetting. This knife they took with them for display."[51]
According to a 2009 study, "there is no evidence for perceptible contact between Iceland and Greenland after the mid fifteenth century ... It is clear that neither Danish and Norwegian nor Icelandic public functionaries were aware that the Norse Greenland colony had ceased to exist. Around 1514, the Norwegian archbishop Erik Valkendorf (Danish by birth, and still loyal to Christian II) planned an expedition to Greenland, which he believed to be part of a continuous northern landmass leading to the New World with all its wealth, and which he fully expected still to have a Norse population, whose members could be pressed anew to the bosom of church and crown after an interval of well over a hundred years. Presumably, the archbishop had better archives at his disposal than most people, and yet he had not heard that the Greenlanders were gone."[32]
One intriguing fact is that very few fish remains are found among their middens. This has led to much speculation and argument. Most archaeologists reject any decisive judgment based on this one fact, however, as fish bones decompose more quickly than other remains, and may have been disposed of in a different manner. Isotope analysis of the bones of inhabitants shows that marine food sources supplied more and more of the diet of the Norse Greenlanders, making up between 50% and 80% of their diet by the 14th century.[52]
One Inuit story recorded in the 19th century tells that raiding expeditions by Inuit or European ships over the course of three years destroyed the settlements, however archeological evidence has repeatedly failed to support such stories.[11] This story is thus regarded as a myth that is not based on true events, because archeological excavations of the farm revealed no evidence of fire or human conflict.[53][54]
Genetic legacy
Genetic research has found that
Late Dorset and Thule cultures
The
Around CE 1300–1400, the Thule arrived from the west settling in the Northeast areas of Greenland.[58] These people, the ancestors of the modern Greenland Inuit,[57][59] were flexible and engaged in the hunting of almost all animals on land and in the ocean, including walrus, narwhal, and seal.[60][61] The Thule adapted well to the environment of Greenland, as archaeological evidence indicates that the Thule were not using all parts of hunting kills, unlike other arctic groups, meaning they were able to waste more resources due to either surplus or well adapted behaviors.[60]
The nature of the contacts between the Dorset and Norse cultures is not clear, but may have included trade elements. The level of contact is currently the subject of widespread debate, possibly including Norse trade with Thule or Dorsets in Canada.
Danish recolonization
Most of the old Norse records concerning Greenland were removed from
Meanwhile, following Sweden's
From 1711 to 1721,
As a result of the
Democratic elections for the district assemblies of Greenland were held for the first time in 1862–1863, although no assembly for the land as a whole was allowed. In 1888, a party of six led by
By 1911, the population was about 14,000, scattered along the southern shores. They were nearly all Christian, because of the missionary efforts of Moravians and especially Hans Egede (1686–1758), a Lutheran missionary called "the Apostle of Greenland". He founded Greenland's capital Godthåb, now known as Nuuk. His grandson Hans Egede Saabye (1746–1817) continued the missionary activities.[70]
Polar exploration
At the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century, American explorers, including Robert Peary, explored the northern sections of Greenland, which up to that time had been a mystery and were often shown on maps as extending over the North Pole. Peary discovered that Greenland's northern coast in fact stopped well short of the pole. These discoveries were considered to be the basis of an American territorial claim in the area. But after the United States purchased the Virgin Islands from Denmark in 1917, it agreed to relinquish all claims on Greenland.
Strategic importance
After Norway regained full independence in 1905, it argued that Danish claims to Greenland were invalid since the island had been a Norwegian possession prior to 1815. In 1931, Norwegian meteorologist Hallvard Devold occupied uninhabited eastern Greenland, on his own initiative. After the fact, the occupation was supported by the Norwegian government, who claimed the area as Erik the Red's Land. Two years later, the Permanent Court of International Justice ruled in favor of Denmark.
World War II
During
One Dane was killed in combat with Germans in Greenland.[71]
Cold War
During the
The United States upgraded the Ballistic Missile Early Warning System to a phased array radar.[77] Opponents argue that the system presents a threat to the local population, as it would be targeted in the event of nuclear war.
Home rule
The American presence in Greenland brought
A plantation of exotic arctic trees was created in 1954 near Narsarsuaq.[79]
Denmark also began a number of reforms aimed at urbanizing the Greenlanders, principally to replace their dependence on dwindling seal populations and provide workers for the then swelling cod fisheries, but also to provide improved social services such as health care, education, and transportation. These reforms led to a number of problems, particularly modern unemployment and the infamous Blok P housing project. The attempt to introduce European-style urban housing suffered from such inattention to local detail that Inuit could not fit through the doors in their winter clothing and fire escapes were constantly blocked by fishing gear too bulky to fit into the cramped apartments.[80] Television broadcasts began in 1982. The collapse of the cod fisheries and mines in the late 1980s and early 1990s greatly damaged the economy, which now principally depends on Danish aid and cold-water shrimp exports. Large sectors of the economy remain controlled by state-owned corporations, with Air Greenland and the Arctic Umiaq ferry heavily subsidized to provide access to remote settlements. The major airport remains the former US air base at Kangerlussuaq well north of Nuuk, with the capital unable to accept international flights on its own, owing to concerns about expense and noise pollution.
Greenland's minimal representation in the Folketing meant that despite 70.3% of Greenlanders rejecting entry into the European
International relations are now largely, but not entirely, also left to the discretion of the home rule government. As part of the treaty controlling Greenland's exit of the EEC, Greenland was declared a "special case" with access to the EEC market as a constituent country of Denmark, which remains a member.[81] Greenland is also a member of several small organizations[82] along with Iceland, the Faroes, and the Inuit populations of Canada and Russia.[83] It was one of the founders of the environmental Arctic Council in 1996. The US military bases on the island remain a major issue, with some politicians pushing for renegotiation of the 1951 US–Denmark treaty by the Home Rule government. The 1999–2003 Commission on Self-Governance even proposed that Greenland should aim at Thule base's removal from American authority and operation under the aegis of the United Nations.[84]
See also
- Danish colonization of the Americas
- History of America
- History of Denmark
- History of Iceland
- History of Norway
- Indigenous Amerindian genetics
- Inuit
- Inuit mythology
- Norse colonization of the Americas
- Christian IV's expeditions to Greenland
Notes
- ^ "Yanks Clear Greenland of Nazis,1944/12/27 (1944)". Retrieved 2 October 2010.
- ^ "Saqqaq culture chronology". Sila, the Greenland Research Centre at the National Museum of Denmark. Archived from the original on 19 April 2011. Retrieved 2 October 2010.
- ^ "Independence I" Archived 2009-01-13 at the Wayback Machine. From natmus.dk. Sila, the Greenland Research Centre at the National Museum of Denmark. Retrieved September 3, 2008.
- ^ "Independence II" Archived 2009-01-13 at the Wayback Machine From natmus.dk. Sila, the Greenland Research Centre at the National Museum of Denmark. Retrieved September 3, 2008.
- ^ .
- ^ "Early Dorset/Greenlandic Dorset" Archived 2011-08-12 at the Wayback Machine. From natmus.dk. Sila, the Greenland Research Centre at the National Museum of Denmark. Retrieved September 3, 2008.
- ^ "Late Dorset" Archived 2009-01-13 at the Wayback Machine. From natmus.dk. Sila, the Greenland Research Centre at the National Museum of Denmark. Retrieved September 3, 2008.
- ^ Grove, Jonath. "The place of Greenland in medieval Icelandic saga narrative" Archived 2012-04-11 at the Wayback Machine, in Norse Greenland: Selected Papers of the Hvalsey Conference 2008, Journal of the North Atlantic Special Volume 2 (2009), 30–51
- ^
"The Saga of Erik the Red". Icelandic Saga Database. Translated by Sephton, J. 1880. Retrieved 20 March 2021.
In the summer Eirik went to live in the land which he had discovered, and which he called Greenland, 'Because,' said he, 'men will desire much the more to go there if the land has a good name.'
- ^ "Timeline of the history of Norse Greenland". Archived from the original on 2017-08-04. Retrieved 2006-01-21.
- ^ a b c d The Fate of Greenland's Vikings
- ^ "The Forest Plantations in The Greenlandic Arboretum". 18 October 2013.
- ^ N. Lynnerup, in Fitzhugh & Ward 2000
- ^ Viking Age Greenland Ancient History Encyclopedia
- ^ Groeneveld, Emma (3 April 2018). "Viking Age Greenland". World History. World History Encyclopedia. Retrieved 26 October 2022.
- ^ a b Gwyn Jones, "The Vikings", Folio Society, London 1997, p.292.
- ^ Ledger, Paul M. "Norse Landnam and its impact on the vegetation of Vatnahverfi, Eastern Settlement, Greensland". Research Gate. Memorial University of Newfoundland. p. 52-54. Retrieved 24 August 2023.
- ^ Hansen & Medlgaard 1991, p. 18, "The last bishop on Greenland had died in 1378 and the following year a priest on Iceland noted in the Icelandic annals: 'The Skraelings raided the Greenlanders [Norsemen], killing 18 men and taking two boys as slaves'. The pope had been informed that the heathens had attacked and destroyed most of the churches and taken many inhabitants prisoner. The authenticity of the papal brief, however is doubted by some historians".
- ^ a b c d Diamond 2005, p. 217,222
- ^ Forbes 2010, p. 162 "Writers frequently quote a papal bull of 1448 indicating that some thirty years earlier the "heathen" attacked the settlers of Greenland, destroyed churches, and captured the inhabitants. Subsequently, some of the latter were able to return and rebuild. However, this story probably refers to a Karelian-Finnish-Russian attack on Norse settlers in northern Norway ("Greenland") rather than to American Greenland, according to Christian Keller. Archeology has failed to confirm Inuit violence against the settlers.64".
- ^ "Hvað er helst vitað um svartadauða á Íslandi?".
- ^ Transcription of the original letter (Latin): Diplomatarium Norvegicum XIII p.52 Date: 29 August 1408. Place: Svartland. ("Bertoldus eadem gracia episcopus Gardensis")
- ^ Originals in Hofbibliothek at Vienna. A Greenlander in Norway, on visit; it is also mentioned in a Norwegian diploma from 1426, Peder Grønlendiger. Transcription of the original letter: Diplomatarium Norvegicum XIII p.70 Date: 12 February 1426. Place: Nidaros.
- ^ Transcription of the original letter: Diplomatarium Norvegicum VI p.554 Date: 20 Septbr. 1448. Place: Rom.
Original DN summary: "Pave Nikolaus V paalægger Biskopperne af Skaalholt og Hole at sörge for at skaffe Indbyggerne i Grönland Prester og en Biskop, hvilken sidste de ikke have havt i de 30 Aar siden Hedningernes Indfald, da de fleste Kirker bleve ödelagte og Indbyggerne bortförte som Fanger."
("Pope Nicholas V prescribes the Bishops of Skálholt and Hólar to ensure to provide the inhabitants of Greenland priests and a bishop, which of the latter they haven't had in the 30 years since the coming of the heathens when most churches were destroyed and the inhabitants taken away as prisoners.) - ^
Mackenzie Brown, Dale (2000-02-28). "The Fate of Greenland's Vikings". Archaeology Archive. Archaeological Institute of America. Retrieved 2018-06-13.
One ... [man] was found lying face down on the beach of a fjord in the 1540s by a party of Icelandic seafarers, who like so many sailors before them had been blown off course on their passage to Iceland and wound up in Greenland. The only Norseman they would come across during their stay, he died where he had fallen, dressed in a hood, homespun woolens and seal skins. Nearby lay his knife, 'bent and much worn and eaten away.'
- ISBN 978-1-4976-0357-8.
- ^ a b Sines, R. (2019). Norse in the North Atlantic. USA: Hamilton Books. p. 76
- ^ a b "Why did Greenland's Vikings disappear?". Science | AAAS. 2016-11-07. Retrieved 2016-12-26.
- ^ Folger, Tim. "Why Did Greenland's Vikings Vanish?". Smithsonian. Retrieved 2017-02-26.
- ^ Kim, Allen. "Vikings disappeared from Greenland due to over-hunting walrus, study suggests". CNN. Retrieved 2020-01-08.
- ^ "New evidence for diverse secondary burial practices in Iron Age Britain: A histological case study".
- ^ S2CID 153720935.
- ISBN 978-1-000-47898-3.
- ^ Magnusson 2016, p. 230.
- ISBN 978-1-351-25958-3.
Hypotheses about ethnic conflicts based on written sources were now marginalised, but not abandoned.
- ISBN 978-0815366294.
- ^ McGovern, Thomas H. (2000). "The Demise of Norse Greenland". Fitzhugh & Ward 2000, pp. 327–339. p. 330.
- PMID 20212157.
- ISSN 0033-8222.
The detailed chronology ... reveals that the average diet of the Norse people changed from 20% marine to 80% marine during the approximately 500 years that the settlement lasted.
- ^ Arneborg, Jette; Seaver, Kirsten A. (2000). "From Vikings to Norseman". Fitzhugh & Ward 2000, pp. 281–294. p. 290.
- ISBN 978-0-19-886155-3.
Norse goods have been found at Thule sites, and Thule goods have been found at Norse sites
- ISBN 978-0-7509-8077-7.
- ^ Kendrick, Thomas Downing (1930). A History of the Vikings. New York: C. Scribner's Sons. p. 366.
- ^ Arneborg, Jette (2015). "Norse Greenland: Research into abandonment". Medieval Archaeology in Scandinavia and Beyond. pp. 257–271. "Ultimately, the Norse Greenlanders fell victim to both major environmental and global economic changes, and the most obvious answer to the declining years would have been to emigrate. From the middle of the fourteenth century both Iceland and Norway had suffered greatly from several diseases that had diminished the population substantially and left farms deserted (eg Orrman 1997). New inhabitants would have been welcomed."
- ^ Grove, 2009: p. 40
- ^ Arneborg, Jette (2000). "Greenland and Europe". Fitzhugh & Ward 2000, pp. 304–317. p. 307.
- ^ "The History of Orkney and Shetland".
- ^ Arneborg 2000, p. 315
- ^ Diamond 2005, p. 270
- ^ Seaver 1996, p. 205: a reference to sailors in Bergen in 1484 who had visited Greenland (Seaver speculates that they may have been English); p.229ff: archaeological evidence of contact with Europe towards the end of the 15th century
- ISBN 978-0-8166-3589-4.
- .
- ^ McAnany 2009, p. 81 "For example there is a story about how the Inuit overran the farm at Hvalsey and burned the Norse alive in their houses. When the farm was excavated in 1935, however, there was no carbonized layer or any other indication of a fierce fire, from which one must conclude that in this case the story or myth was not tied to actual events.".
- ^ Cole 2014, p. 422 "An oral tradition from the nineteenth century tells of the Inuit overrunning a farm at Hvalsey and burning the Norse alive in their houses. Archeological excavations at the site, however, turned up no evidence of fire, leading some historians to conclude, as does Berglund, that "in this case the story or myth was not tied to actual events"..
- ^ PMID 25635810.
Approximately 40% of the Y-HGs in the male Greenlandic population were found to be of European origin. Only considering the European Y-HGs (I-M170, R1a-M513 and R1b-M232) in Greenland, the relative frequencies of these Y-HGs in the Greenlanders resembled those observed in the male Danish population examined in this study and other male Scandinavian [24–26] and Icelandic populations [27]." "In strong contrast to the results of this study and previous studies [9,13], typing of the mtDNA in the Greenlandic population shows an almost complete fixation of Inuit maternal lineages [5]. The European gene flow detected in Greenlanders can therefore primarily be attributed to males.
- ISBN 978-0-19-976695-6.
- ^ PMID 21628586.
- S2CID 162882708.
- PMID 16353217.
- ^ JSTOR 40316508.
- S2CID 7773726.
- ^ a b c Keller, Christian. "The Eastern Settlement Reconsidered. Some analyses of Norse Medieval Greenland". Accessed 10 May 2012.
- ^ Inter alia, cf. Permanent Court of International Justice. "Legal Status of Eastern Greenland: Judgment Archived 2011-05-11 at the Wayback Machine". 5 Apr 1933. Accessed 10 May 2012.
- ^ a b Del, Anden. "Grønland som del af den bibelske fortælling – en 1700-tals studie Archived 2012-07-15 at the Wayback Machine" ["Greenland as Part of the Biblical Narrative – a Study of the 18th-Century"]. (in Danish)
- ^ a b Cranz, David & al. The History of Greenland: Including an Account of the Mission Carried On by the United Brethren in That Country. Longman, 1820.
- ^ Marquardt, Ole. "Change and Continuity in Denmark's Greenland Policy" in The Oldenburg Monarchy: An Underestimated Empire?. Verlag Ludwig (Kiel), 2006.
- ^ Mirsky, Jeannette. To the Arctic!: The Story of Northern Exploration from Earliest Times. Univ. of Chicago Press, 1998.
- ^ Nationalmuseet of Denmark. "Thule Archived 2007-03-13 at the Wayback Machine".
- ^ Farley Mowat, The Polar Passion: The Quest for the North Pole. McClelland and Stewart, 1967, pp. 199-222
- ^ Eve Garnett, To Greenland's Icy Mountains; the Story of Hans Egede, Explorer, Coloniser, Missionary (London: Heinemann. 1968)
- ^ a b c "The Sledge Patrol". The Arctic Journal. Archived from the original on 2017-03-08. Retrieved 2017-03-08.
- ^ "Deepfreeze Defense". Time. January 27, 1947. Archived from the original on 9 December 2008.
- ^ Miller, John J. (May 7, 2001). "Let's Buy Greenland! – A complete missile-defense plan". National Review.
- ISBN 978-0-19-829132-9.
- ISSN 0080-6757.
- ^ Gorvett, Zaria. "The lost nuclear bombs that no one can find". www.bbc.com.
- ^ Taagholt, Jørgen & Jens Claus Hansen (Trans. Daniel Lufkin) (2001). "Greenland: Security Perspectives" (PDF). Fairbanks, Alaska: Arctic Research Consortium of the United States. pp. 35–43. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2010-12-23.
- ^ Lockhart, Katie (2019-12-27). "How This Abandoned Mining Town in Greenland Helped Win World War II". Smithsonian. Retrieved 2019-12-28.
- ^ "Skovplantninger i Det Grønlandske Arboret". 2013-10-10.
- ^ Bode, Mike & al. "Nuuk". 2003. Accessed 15 May 2012.
- ^ a b Government of Greenland. "The Greenland Treaty of 1985". Accessed 2 October 2018.
- ^ "NATO MEMBER COUNTRIES".
- ^ "Comparison of Indigenous Peoples Rights along the Arctic Routes".
- ^ "International relations". Archived from the original on 2007-02-21. Retrieved 2007-04-06.
Bibliography
- ISBN 978-0-14-303655-5.
- Seaver, Kristen A. (1996). The Frozen Echo. ISBN 978-0-8047-3161-4.
- Grove, Jonathan (2009). "The place of Greenland in medieval Icelandic saga narrative". Journal of the North Atlantic. Special Volume 2: Norse Greenland: Selected Papers of the Hvalsey Conference 2008: 30–51. S2CID 163032041. Archived from the originalon 2012-04-11.
- ISBN 978-0-486-12342-4.
- Hreinsson, Viðar, ed. (1997). The Complete Sagas of Icelanders, Including 49 Tales. Reykjavík: Leifur Eiríksson. ISBN 978-9979929307.
- U.S. National Museum of Natural History (2000). Fitzhugh, William W.; Ward, Elisabeth I. (eds.). Vikings: The North Atlantic Saga. Smithsonian Institution Press. ISBN 978-1560989707.
- Gulløv, Hans Christian, ed. (2005). Grønlands forhistorie. Gyldendal: National Museum of Denmark. ISBN 978-87-02-01724-3.
- Greenland during the Cold War. Danish and American security policy 1945–1968. Copenhagen: Danish Institute of International Affairs (DUPI). 1997-01-17. LCCN 97161960.
- Hansen, Jens Peder Hart; Medlgaard, Jorgen (1991). Greenland Mummies. McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP. p. 18. ISBN 978-0-7735-6312-4.
- McAnany, Patricia A. (28 September 2009). Questioning Collapse: Human Resilience, Ecological Vulnerability, and the Aftermath of Empire. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-107-71732-9.
- Cole, Adrian (26 August 2014). The Thinking Past: Questions and Problems in World History to 1750. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-979462-1.
- Forbes, Jack (1 October 2010). The American Discovery of Europe. University of Illinois Press. ISBN 978-0-252-09125-4.
External links
- The cultural history of Greenland – Information about the various cultures, from the Greenland Research Centre and the National Museum of Denmark
- What Happened to the Greenland Norse? – With video sequences, from the US National Museum of Natural History
- The Fate of Greenland's Vikings – Another account, from the Archaeological Institute of America
- Broken Arrow – The B-52 Accident – Account of the 1968 cleanup process
- Star Wars and Thule – Bringing the Cold War Back to Greenland – 2001 Greenpeace report.
- Timeline of the history of Norse Greenland
- History of Medieval Greenland and associated places, like Iceland and Vinland.
- Magnússon, Finnur; Rafn, Carl Christian (1838). Grönlands historiske mindesmærker (in Danish). Trykt i det Brünnichske bogtr.
- Introduction of Greenland - Lessons from the far north