Interdisciplinary investigations of the end of the Norse Western Settlement in Greenland

The loss of the Norse Western Settlement in Greenland around the mid-fourteenth century has long been taken as a prime example of the impact of changing climate on human populations. This study employs an interdisciplinary approach combining historical documents, detailed archaeological investigatio...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Holocene
Main Authors: Barlow, L.K., Sadler, J.P., Ogilvie, A.E.J., Buckland, P.C., Amorosi, T., Ingimundarson, J.H., Skidmore, P., Dugmore, A.J., McGovern, T.H.
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: SAGE Publications 1997
Subjects:
Paleontology
Earth-Surface Processes
Ecology
Archeology
Global and Planetary Change
Greenland
Greenland Ice Sheet Project
ice core
Ice Sheet
Iceland
inuit
North Atlantic
Online Access:http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/095968369700700411
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/095968369700700411
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Summary:The loss of the Norse Western Settlement in Greenland around the mid-fourteenth century has long been taken as a prime example of the impact of changing climate on human populations. This study employs an interdisciplinary approach combining historical documents, detailed archaeological investigations, and a high-resolution proxy climate record from the Greenland Ice Sheet Project 2 (GISP2) to investigate possible causes for the end of this settlement. Historical climate records, mainly from Iceland, contain evidence for lowered temperatures and severe weather in the north Atlantic region around the mid-fourteenth century. Archaeological, palaeoecological and historical data specifically concerning the Western Settlement suggest that Norse living conditions left little buffer for unseasonable climate, and provide evidence for a sudden and catastrophic end around the mid-fourteenth century. Isotopic data from the GISP2 ice core provide annual- and seasonal-scale proxy-temperature signals which suggest multiyear intervals of lowered temperatures in the early and mid-fourteenth century. The research synthesized here suggests that, while periods of unfavourable climatic fluctuations are likely to have played a role in the end of the Western Settlement, it was their cultural vulnerabilities to environmental change that left the Norse far more subject to disaster than their Inuit neigh bours.

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