Ancient Greenland Mystery Has A Simple Answer, It Seems

Christian Science Monitor ^ | 11-29-2007 | Colin Woodward

[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

[MrB]

They probably felt guilty for living in Greenland, which appears disproportionately bigger on the mercatur projection map.

You know, this is racist, because lighter skinned people tend to live in the northern latitudes, and this map makes those lands seem more important by making them seem bigger than those in southern latitudes, more often populated with darker skinned people.

(Has anyone else seen this line of leftist bllsht?)

[MrB]

Wait a minute, I thought global warming was causing shorter growing seasons in Alaska... at least, that’s what that little sobbing girl giving Congressional testimony said...

[Young Werther]

Sounds fishy to me! The were lefsa lone and went off in search of seals!!!

[VeniVidiVici]

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

Yeah, I love how some professors consider Greenland to be a bit of Erik the Red marketing.

[stefanbatory]

I recently learned that Senator Ben Nelson (D) FL was visiting Greenland on a fact-finding mission with MS Stretch and other various (D) members of the House and Senate. I called his office requestuing that while there he ask why it is named Greenland. The staffers’ “consensus” was that it was a marketing gimick...He never did call me back with the answer...:(

[Ghengis]

I wonder what Ingebjorg looks like without that hood?

[pabianice]

It's well established that Greenland was settled during the Middle Ages Warm period (800-1350 AD). When things cooled-down again, crops in Greenland failed and they starved.

[ZULU]

Is that REALLY her?

[Ghengis]

Is that REALLY her?

No. Actress, Frances McDormand. But I see a resemblance.

[sappy]

I wonder what kind of credits Al Gore will sell if we experience global cooling all of a suddden?

[-=SoylentSquirrel=-]

I’m not into old chicks but gosh she has nice hair.

[Wuli]

“With the onset of the Little Ice Age (from 1300 to 1850), conditions deteriorated across the Norse lands, particularly for people living on marginal farmland in Iceland, northern Norway, and Greenland.”......”Today, Greenland is warming up,.....”

And ever since 1850, things have continued warming back up - gee, imagine that!?!?!?!?!, as if the earth even needed your SUV to warm back to where it had been when the Norse thrived in Greenland.

Funny thing too, when that great warming occurred

(about an average 3 degrees centigrade warmer than today, at its height - which is where the alarmists say we will be in 200 years),

beginning around the tenth century and lasting to the early 14th, there are no geologic or social records of massive world coastal inundations from massively rising seas. Apparently nature deals with actual climate change, actual “warming” far differently than do the alarmists’ mathematical models. So much for climate GIGO (garbage in, garbage out).

[fortunecookie]

Not the LUTEFISK!!!!!!!

I think you've hit upon it! The real reason they disappeared - tired of the Lutefisk! No global cooling, no famine, no anti-Christianity, nope, just tired of the fish stew. ;-)

[ozzymandus]

I always wondered why the consensus was that the Greenlanders starved or were wiped out by the natives. They came by boat, so why couldn’t they just leave by boat?

[Unassuaged]

“disproportionately bigger on the mercatur projection map”

I have a proportional flat map on my wall, Peterson?

The border says that the old style map was evil, blah, blah and all peoples could be represented now.

Of course the shapes are all wrong but the land proportion is correct.

Geez, I thought, have they never seena GLOBE?!?

[MrB]

Lots of info about the racist Mercatur Projection:

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGLJ,GGLJ:2006-46,GGLJ:en&q=mercator+projection+map+racist

[ZULU]

She still looks hot!

[colorado tanker]

Money quote from the article: “I imagine this old Norse man standing in his sodden, graying field with a couple of scrawny cattle and saying to his son, ‘One day, this will all be yours,’ “ he says. “And the son gets on the next ship to Reykjavik.” :-))

[Unassuaged]

Thanks for the link!

I like to have both types of maps available.

[ZULU]

Wasn’t she in “Rob Roy?”