The Viking farm under the sand in Greenland

Express News ^ | 2004 | Teresa Brasen

[breakem]

Thanx

[Fedora]

Back in the days, when the Vikings played outdoors, the old Met stadium used to have steam pipes that ran down the hash lines. Bud Grant designed offensive plays inside the pipes to stay on the somewhat thawed turf and designed the defense to push the opposing offense to the outside, in the cold frozen slab of land outside the heat. Unfortunately the SuperBowl is played indoors, or in warm weather.

Ah, the good old days. . . :)

[Central Scrutiniser]

I highly recommend it, in mid summer, the sun sets for about 2.5 hours in Reykjavik and about 30 minutes up north in Akureryi. The air is perfectly clean, and the people are beautiful. Bring lots of money, you will need it, beer is $10 a glass!

[shhrubbery!]

Schweger recalls vividly the day the team uncovered GUS. Smells frozen in permafrost for 500 years exploded into the air. "It stunk to high heavens," said Schweger. "There was no question about this being a farm."

Mmmmm, yes. Suddenly unfrozen poop. Having grown up on a farm, I can well imagine this.

[danamco]

I have heard Iceland is a great place to visit. They offer long weekend package deal flights to Iceland from Boston that are a steal. I plan on going one day......


If you ever do, don't miss the "Blue Lagoon." My wife and I went swimming there in early March 1993 in freezing temperature and snow flurries. A wonderful experience we never will forget!

[Destro]

We went through a mini ice age in the middle ages. England was once warm enouh that it used to grow grapes.

[Destro]

Mant Irish cities were Viking trading posts in origin. Belfast being one of them if I remember correctly.

[marsh2]

Why would you drink beer? Natives drink aquavit (sp?) It tastes like licorice. You drink it with a giant picture of water and it is very potent.

There is an underground series of hot spring caverns at Myvatyn (Lake of the noseeums.) You bathe there in your birthday suit with candles to light the caverns.

Every little town has an outdoor swimming pool heated with hot springs. They have various pots of hot water you can sit in. The hot springs also heat greenhouses where they grow strawberries. Lamb hot dogs and strawberry ketchup - yummmm.

Thingvetlir (sp?) is considered the cradle of democracy. It was the original site of the allthing - a gathering of the clans where justice was rendered and decisions were made. I have found sooooo many elements of Viking law incorporated into English common law and American notions of tort.

Of course, I haven't been there since the 1970s.

[Burkeman1]

Northern Europe experienced a warming trend from about 1100 to 1300 that saw longer and wetter growing seasons that produced bumper crops. There was a population explosion due to this warm trend. By 1300 the population of England and Wales was 6 Million. But with the black death and the onset of the mini Ice age that lasted from about 1300 to 1800 the population dipped. It would not reach 6 million again until 1750. The Thames froze over every year during this time and even as late of 1822. The Norse settlements on Greenland disappeared by 1400 because of this mini Ice Age.

[Burkeman1]

Yes. Thanks for the refresher.

[Burkeman1]

Beer is $10 a glass? Sounds like Helsinki. I was there for one day 12 years ago on a stopover flight from Moscow. I had been in Russia for two weeks and found it hard to spend even two hundred dollars for the best meals and entertainment (this was at the time when you could hail a cab with a pack of Marlboro reds in the palm of your hand). One day in Helsinki and I spent 100 for a meal at Mcdonalds, two beers, a capaccino and croissant!

[alaskanfan]

Hey, this is the proof that global warming was more advanced when Greenland was still a green land.

Silly, it was because of those S.U.Vs that the Vikings drove, and their dependence on fossil fuels.

[Burkeman1]

I was under the impression that the Vikings were the first Humans in Greenland? Who were the Dorset?

[Consort]

[Varda]

The Dorset were a widespread North American arctic culture that lasted for a few thousand years (I'm including pre-Dorset too). They were certainly on Greenland by 2000 BC. They weren't anywhere near as advanced as the Norse and lived in small bands. There is some discussion about how much or whether the two groups had contact. The Dorset produced some beautiful little sculptures, often of an animal.

The Norse were not as adapted to arctic conditions as the Thule and so didn't survive the onset of the little ice age. Some suggest that the Thule and Norse had occasional armed conflicts interspersed with periods of trade. The Dorset on the other hand tended to avoid conflict and no one knows what exactly became of them.

[SunkenCiv]

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