Alt. Hist. request, Vikings make a go of the "New World"?

[Pat Mustard]

[The Grand Nudger]

Vikings got unlucky with greenland.  They'd have done fantastically well on the southern shores of the great lakes or up and down the miss by way of the ohio and illinois.

[Minimalist]

The Vikings began their raids on Southern Europe and the British Isles in the mid 8th century so they had plenty of time to gain exposure to diseases before the Vinland escapade.  If they had contact with Native Americans they would have passed along their microbes.  Two things would have happened.  A lot of native-americans would have died ( we have no evidence for that) and the survivors would have passed their immunity along to their children and grandchildren and we have no evidence of that either.

So it makes more sense that L'Anse Aux Meadows was more of a temporary camp.  It certainly was not well fortified against any sort of attack.  Some replicas show a palisade but the question is where did the trees come from because the region looks pretty treeless.



Not much of the way of trees!

[Anomalocaris]

Vikings got unlucky with greenland.  They'd have done fantastically well on the southern shores of the great lakes or up and down the miss by way of the ohio and illinois.

They didn’t get unlucky.  Presence of the Inuits Should have been a major stroke of luck as the little ice age set in in Greenland, and it should have enabled them to settle in and adapt.  But instead they proved not only did they not make their own luck,  they refused to take advantage of the luck handed to them, not for a year or a decade, but three centuries, until they died out.

I think the Viking outlook was rooted much more in adherence to the familiar in Ireland and scandavania than is commonly perceived.

[Amarok]

[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.

[Anomalocaris]

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.

My point is the Viking failed to adapt when conditions change, not that they did not have technologies that could have been suitable at first.

The Viking were able to use familar technology successfully at Greenland when they first arrived during a warm period when natural harbors were ice free all year and growing season was productive. They farmed, cattle ranched, exported fish and became the major source of walrus ivory for Europe. But they failed to adapt when the little ice age began to set in, even though the Inuits are right there demonstrating how that can be done. They rigidly adhered to increasingly untenable, but familiar, social organization and food productions. Never did they think of trading with the Inuits to exploit superior Inuit technology for the new environment.

[The Grand Nudger]

The greenland settlement became a marine hunting colony (in truth, that may have been the initial impetus for a greenland outpost).  I'm not sure what you're referring to when you say that they didn't adapt their food production to the climate.

There was only so much they could do...and only so much interest in greenland. What superior inuit technology?

[Minimalist]

I find this the most compelling argument in that whole thing, Tiz.

There were no natives living near L’Anse aux Meadows in the year 1000 AD.

What resources would have drawn Native-Americans to that spot?  More likely that the Norse would have picked it exactly because it was uninhabited and sailing along the coast they would certainly have had their choice.  I submit that any sort of fence that the Norse may have built was more for keeping their own animals in rather than any attackers out.

[Amarok]