The Norse settlements in Greenland
That Greenland was first explored (by Europeans) by Norsemen led by Eric the Red is relatively well known. Eric the Red’s father had been banished from Norway and settled in Iceland. Eric eventually married, built a farm, and killed a rival, for which he was banished from Iceland for manslaughter (the same crime as his father’s). During his banishment Eric the Red explored much of the coast of Greenland for suitable areas for settlement. Once his three year exile was complete Eric returned to Iceland, gathered additional settlers, and established settlements in Greenland, despite limited areas being available for raising crops.
Eric’s son Leif later explored the area of North America which he called Vinland and which is now believed to have been Newfoundland. After Eric’s death the colonies established on Greenland remained, with the settlers trading with the ancestors of the Inuit as well as with relatives of North America’s Algonquin peoples. Hunting of seals and fishing provided meat to be preserved year round, but the grains necessary to sustain life could not be produced in sufficient quantity. This necessitated trade to the west, as the winds and the behavior of the North Atlantic in winter made travel to Europe nearly impossible.
There is ample evidence of trade with North American tribes, both in the ruins of the Norse settlements in Greenland and in the runes and oral traditions found in various North American locations. But the Norse colonies vanished and left behind fewer clues as to the fate of their inhabitants than did the lost Colony of Roanoke. Recent evidence indicates that their fate and the failure of the Norse Colonies was largely due to the Little Ice Age and its impact on both farming and travel. The short growing season meant that not enough crops could be produced on available lands.
The lands suitable for farming were less than was needed, with glacial encroachment limiting the period of the year in which growing could be accomplished. The raising of cattle, as a matter of social prestige as much as for food, also took needed nutrition from grains away from the Norse. Trade, although it clearly took place, was insufficient to make up the difference, as weather conditions made travel difficult if not impossible. The Norse settlements were still operating as late as the early fifteenth century, according to radiocarbon dating.
In the 1720s an expedition was sent to Greenland to re-establish contact with the Norse settlements. They were gone. Exactly what happened to them is still a mystery, with some believing that they resettled in Newfoundland and other areas of North America. Had they settled there in the first place, rather than on remote Greenland in the middle of the Little Ice Age, they may have been more successful, and North America may have developed as Scandinavian colonies, rather than mostly British and French. That is just one more area of speculation on how the evolution of climate affects the evolution of civilization.