RE: Alt. Hist. request, Vikings make a go of the "New World"?
May 1, 2018 at 4:57 pm
(This post was last modified: May 1, 2018 at 5:02 pm by Anomalocaris.)
(May 1, 2018 at 4:38 pm)Khemikal Wrote: The norse on greenland appear to have been hunters first, farmers second. Not only did they experience a shift in climate, they had to deal with trade in elephant ivory. It's useful to point out that walrus hunting (as an example) always conflicted with agriculture. The seasons are concurrent. The issue is labor, not tech. During the last century of the settlement interest had entirely died out in greenland either as an agricultural settlement -or- a hunting outpost...and they had decreasing access to technologies they'd brought with them centuries beforehand...but the manner in which the inuit subsisted wasn't exactly unknown to them...they'd been doing it the entire time, themselves. In addition, yes, they intensively cultivated and manged pastures. They did that far better than the inuit all the way to the end..and possessed superior tools, knowledge, and cultivars for that task. Honestly....norse agriculture on greenland was remarkable, given the circumstances. In the end, their main employment had been outsourced and there was little reason to work the soil of greenland when they could go elsewhere and produce more for far..far less.
For much of last Century of the Norse colony, there was no hunting. Midden piles had no fish bones in it. It was purely an agriculture settlement. During that same century, perhaps 2 danish ships visited Greenland. There was effectively no trade with the outside.
What is the point of pointing out that the Norse conducted agriculture better than Inuit? Agriculture as the Norse did it was hopeless, Inuit way of life meant survival. In the context, Inuit technology and way of life was infinitely superior. Yet the Norse leaned nothing and died out.