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Ancient Greenland Mystery Has A Simple Answer, It Seems
Christian Science Monitor ^ | 11-29-2007 | Colin Woodward

Posted on 11/29/2007 10:26:32 AM PST by blam

Ancient Greenland mystery has a simple answer, it seems

First: A reproduction of Tjodhilde's Church stands in Brattahlid, Greenland. It was the first Christian church in North America. Colin Woodard

Did the Norse colonists starve? Were they wiped out by the Inuit – or did they intermarry? No. Things got colder and they left.

By Colin Woodard | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
from the November 28, 2007 edition

Reporter Colin Woodard describes an ecumenical service at a Greenland church built by legendary Norseman "Erik the Red."QASSIARSUK, Greenland - A shipload of visitors arrived in the fjord overnight, so Ingibjorg Gisladottir dressed like a Viking and headed out to work in the ruins scattered along the northern edge of this tiny farming village.

Qassiarsuk is tiny (population: 56), remote, and short on amenities (no store, public restrooms, or roads to the outside world), but some 3,000 visitors come here each year to see the remains of Brattahlid, the medieval farming village founded here by Erik the Red around the year 985.

When they arrive, Ms. Gisladottir, an employee of the museum, is there to greet them in an authentic hooded smock and not-so-authentic rubber boots. "There were more visitors this year than last," she says. "People want to know what happened to the Norse."

The Greenland Norse colonized North America 500 years before Christopher Columbus "discovered" it, establishing farms in the sheltered fjords of southern Greenland, exploring Labrador and the Canadian Arctic, and setting up a short-lived outpost in Newfoundland.

But by 1450, they were gone, posing one of history's most intriguing mysteries: What happened to the Greenland Norse?

There are many theories: They were starved off by a cooling climate, wiped out by pirates or Inuit hunters, or perhaps

(Excerpt) Read more at csmonitor.com ...


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: colonists; godsgravesglyphs; greenland; norse; vikings
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1 posted on 11/29/2007 10:26:33 AM PST by blam
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To: SunkenCiv

GGG Ping.


2 posted on 11/29/2007 10:27:19 AM PST by blam (Secure the border and enforce the law)
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To: blam
Now scientists are pretty sure they have the answer: They simply up and left.

Wow, imagine that...........
3 posted on 11/29/2007 10:33:05 AM PST by PeterPrinciple ( Seeking the truth here folks.)
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To: PeterPrinciple

Evidence for them “up and leaving” came to light as the glaciers melted and uncovered their settlements. [/sarc]


4 posted on 11/29/2007 10:35:24 AM PST by ClearCase_guy (The broken wall, the burning roof and tower. And Agamemnon dead.)
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To: PeterPrinciple
Poor Norse. A millennium later and global warming would have saved them...
5 posted on 11/29/2007 10:36:02 AM PST by null and void (No more Bushes/No more Clintons)
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To: PeterPrinciple
They moved to Minnesota and started A Prairie Home Companion radio program...................
6 posted on 11/29/2007 10:36:48 AM PST by Red Badger ( We don't have science, but we do have consensus.......)
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To: null and void

If they would have just held out!!!!


7 posted on 11/29/2007 10:36:54 AM PST by Martins kid
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To: blam

You mean that Greenland really was green once and they didn’t merely name it that as a marketing gimick? :o


8 posted on 11/29/2007 10:37:24 AM PST by stefanbatory
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To: null and void

Wonder how they would have treated Algore?


9 posted on 11/29/2007 10:37:54 AM PST by ZULU (Non nobis, non nobis Domine, sed nomini tuo da gloriam. God, guts and guns made America great.)
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To: Red Badger

Ya sure yu betcha!


10 posted on 11/29/2007 10:37:58 AM PST by null and void (No more Bushes/No more Clintons)
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To: blam
Eric's son, Leif, explored the entire Eastern Seaboard - and had a winter camp on the south shore of Cape Cod.

The population of the Greenland community grew to about 30,000.

L lean towards the research that speculates that, in escaping the crushing cold of the approaching Little Ice Age, they took to the waterways in Canada and ended up intermarrying with North American Indian tribes along the Great Lakes - and most particularly, the Mandans.

Do some research on the Mandans...fascinating.

11 posted on 11/29/2007 10:38:23 AM PST by maine-iac7 (",,,but you can't fool all of the people all the time" LINCOLN)
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To: blam

What the climate got cooler? How can this be? I thought the earth will be the temp of molten lead in a year or two


12 posted on 11/29/2007 10:38:47 AM PST by Ouderkirk (Hillary = Senator Incitatus, Clintigula's whore...er, horse.)
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To: PeterPrinciple

There was a History show on awhile ago that blamed a cooling period AND their new-found Christianity to blame. The cooling was a fact and their crops failed, livestock died, etc.

The conjecture part (or maybe they had some old records/accounts) was that the Inuit survived by hunting seals, etc. (like they always had). They invited the Norse along, but because of their religious beliefs the Norse thought it would be wrong to go on the hunts as the start of the hunts always began with Inuit religous ceremonies.


13 posted on 11/29/2007 10:40:52 AM PST by geopyg (Don't wish for peace, pray for Victory.)
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To: blam

Climate change is always happening. Climate and weather are never constant. Greenland is great evidence of the most recent changes. Stories like this need to get more publicity because it explains that weather was much warmer 800 years ago and the world did not come to an end. I bet the environmentalists and the cruises they host to indocrinate people never stop by to see the Greenland Norse settlements that are just now emerging from the ice.


14 posted on 11/29/2007 10:42:03 AM PST by Martins kid
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To: PeterPrinciple
It was amazingly easy for them to leave, too. After all, they had boats. That's why they were living along fjords and inlets.

.

15 posted on 11/29/2007 10:45:07 AM PST by muawiyah
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To: blam

“Of course they ate fish,” she says. “One common way of preparing cod was to gut it, dry it, and then cook it in a pot for three or four hours and eat your porridge, bones and all.”

AHHHHH!!!! Not the LUTEFISK!!!!!!!

I wonder what Ingebjorg looks like without that hood?


16 posted on 11/29/2007 10:46:41 AM PST by ZULU (Non nobis, non nobis Domine, sed nomini tuo da gloriam. God, guts and guns made America great.)
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To: blam
I have printed this out and given it to College Professors, who believed that Greenland ever being green was a myth, that is until they read this!

Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History
17 posted on 11/29/2007 10:47:14 AM PST by Foolsgold (after all we got Daschel)
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To: geopyg
"The conjecture part (or maybe they had some old records/accounts) was that the Inuit survived by hunting seals, etc. (like they always had). They invited the Norse along, but because of their religious beliefs the Norse thought it would be wrong to go on the hunts as the start of the hunts always began with Inuit religous ceremonies."

I think it was said on that program that they refused to eat fish too.

18 posted on 11/29/2007 10:48:21 AM PST by blam (Secure the border and enforce the law)
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To: blam; StayAt HomeMother; Ernest_at_the_Beach; 1ofmanyfree; 24Karet; 3AngelaD; 49th; ...

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Thanks Blam. In before the spam jokes.

To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list.
GGG managers are Blam, StayAt HomeMother, and Ernest_at_the_Beach
 

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19 posted on 11/29/2007 10:48:35 AM PST by SunkenCiv (Profile updated Tuesday, November 27, 2007___________________https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/)
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To: blam
Oh, yeah, almost forgot, in the late 1300s and early 1400s the Black Death opened up immense social opportunities throughout Europe.

With the population dramatically reduced, folks could pull back from those fringe operations in Greenland and Northern Iceland and live like human beings.

In Northern Norway the Norse died off, or abandoned their farms and the Sa'ami moved South to take over the fishing, or to actually begin farming themselves.

The Sa'ami had a very low death rate due to Black Death (and a bunch of other diseases that kill less rodent adapted humans in the Sunny Southlands).

Norwegian Sa'ami who adopted Norse lifestyles were no longer identified as Sa'ami. In the good old days no one knew that there were major genetic differences between the Sa'ami (cold adapted) and the Norse.

20 posted on 11/29/2007 10:49:25 AM PST by muawiyah
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