| Summary: | The article deals with the issue of cultural change in terms of the limits of adaptation that every human society experiences. These limits of cultural adaptation are illustrated based on the example of the history of a medieval Norwegian settlement in Greenland. It was calculated from the year 982 and it lasted for about 500 years. The economy of the Greenland Islanders comprised mainly a combination of pastoralism and animal husbandry and of hunting wild animals. Both of the areas of Norwegian settlement in Greenland referred to were finally abandoned, however, at the end of the 15th Century. The reason for this collapse was probably climate change. Standing in the way of the successful adaptation of Northerners, however, was an additional obstacle: their own culture. The civilised society is dominated by prejudices of its own superiority, which determine its manner of behaviour to Inuits “the other”. It is therefore possible that the demise of the Norwegian settlements in Greenland was caused by the inability of the descendants of the former Vikings to go beyond the borders of their traditional habitat.
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