RE: Alt. Hist. request, Vikings make a go of the "New World"?
May 1, 2018 at 8:21 am
(This post was last modified: May 1, 2018 at 8:25 am by The Grand Nudger.)
I meant unlucky in the sense that they already had superior technology to anything in north america - but that this technology could not be productively employed in greenland.
Later USian colonists did something similar (but..somehow stranger, because MURRICA!). We had the tech and the environment (the tech probably came to us by way of vikings, no less)..but we left it and anybody who worked it at home. We tried pastoralism and later hunting...depending on regular imports. We also resisted any significant regional acculturation. It would take us centuries to apply what we already knew to situations that it was judiciously suited for.
In this regard, in contrast, their society never seemed to slouch. The whole point of colonization, to them, was access to productive farmland (and, yes..productive in the manner to which they had become accustomed.. in crops, tools, and procedure). They didn't find that in greenland. They would have anywhere along the us coast or inland on major tributaries. The great lakes would have been incredible. We know what happened when we finally got our act together, after centuries. That's the point they'd likely have begun at.
Later USian colonists did something similar (but..somehow stranger, because MURRICA!). We had the tech and the environment (the tech probably came to us by way of vikings, no less)..but we left it and anybody who worked it at home. We tried pastoralism and later hunting...depending on regular imports. We also resisted any significant regional acculturation. It would take us centuries to apply what we already knew to situations that it was judiciously suited for.
In this regard, in contrast, their society never seemed to slouch. The whole point of colonization, to them, was access to productive farmland (and, yes..productive in the manner to which they had become accustomed.. in crops, tools, and procedure). They didn't find that in greenland. They would have anywhere along the us coast or inland on major tributaries. The great lakes would have been incredible. We know what happened when we finally got our act together, after centuries. That's the point they'd likely have begun at.
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