Norse Settlers Adapted To Cold Conditions
Hvalsey Church (Danish: Hvalsø Kirke) was a church in the abandoned Greenlandic Norse settlement of Hvalsey (now modern-day Qaqortoq). The best preserved Norse ruins in Greenland, the Church was also the location of the last written record of the Greenlandic Norse, a wedding in September 1408.
A new comprehensive Danish research project has debunked the myth that Norse settlers were forced to abandon Greenland because of the adverse climate conditions. The research by Christian Koch Madsen, a PhD student at the National Museum of Denmark, showed that the Norsemen actually stayed on the island for as much as 200 years longer, despite living in a hostile environment that continued to get colder.
“The stories we’ve heard until now – about the Vikings leaving because the climate worsened – are simply not correct,”
Koch told the science website Videnskab.dk.
“They actually stayed there a long time and were far better at acclimatising that we previously believed.”
–Christian Wenande, The Copenhagen Post, 16 March 2015
h/t to The GWPF
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Climate radicals told me that the warmth on Greenland that allowed the Norse to settle and build farms and ranches for centuries wasn’t real. Then when I showed them the research, they changed tactics and claimed that the evidence of warmth there (and across Europe and Asia) during Medieval times were merely localized bubbles of warmth. They insisted that the regions around these warm bubbles were very cold. Madness.
I believe you, Mr. Fine. ANYTHING (even drunkenly staggering about in the costume of a fool — “bubbles of cold”!!!) to avoid admitting one was WRONG (shudder). Pride is a Giant with a terribly formidable fortress. To be locked up in its dungeons for too many years is, indeed, to go mad (I think some of our poor trolls on WUWT truly have, sad to say). Love is the strongest force in the world, but, even love cannot always break into that fortress. Somewhere, deep down inside Pride’s dank, dark, caverns, sits a weak, lonely, soul. If it has not yet succumbed to the madness that makes impossible hearing what opposes its fallacy with comprehension, enough love can, sometimes, give that soul enough courage to reach out for the key to the dungeon, unlock the door, and escape. Unfortunately for so many, they will not (will not! will not! will not!), and, alas, then, CAN-not (for their prideful refusal has made their clenched fist freeze up into permanent defiance of truth), take that key, for the key is to utter (at least silently) these three words: I — was — wrong.
Good for you to try to help them, Sir Fine (great name! — you should be a brave knight in a wonderful medieval romance).
Hope this little bit of science realist camaraderie was at least a little encouraging.
Janice
Probably Le Pas, Manitoba is still colder than the settleable part of Greenland got. School boys used to take off their parkas on a sunny day in February to show off how tough they were when it was still cold. Yeah, I can see the likes of the Norse hangin in there.
Greenland Vikings on the Mississippi at Memphis? http://worldnewsdailyreport.com/usa-viking-ship-discovered-near-mississipi-river/
Before you get too excited, this is likely a spoof. However it shows you the stuff you need to sift through, when you study the Vikings.
Proof of spoof? Well, the sword in Memphis looks suspiciously identical to this one from Scotland. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-15366336
they died in their beds. under furs of seals und deer.
starving – not freezing.
The nödfart was sent to easthaven and found no settlements on greenlands eastcoast: ‘they must have left!’
nevermore a vessel was sent to the greenlanders.
____
but easthaven was on the westcoast, in a bay more inland / EAST / then SOUTHHAVEN on the southend of greenland.
____
all myths base on missing information.
The danish historicans DO have informations!
Regards – Hans
nöt fart – Not Fahrt:
emergency exploration.
Hans
A Tribute
We ruminate over how such tenacious, enterprising, people could just …. die out…… . We shake our heads and have a half-serious laugh or two at their expense …. .
I just feel the need to pause for a moment and remember….
these Vikings we are discussing so coolly were people
with families they loved
and farms they had worked for a long time
and hopes for a brighter tomorrow, someday.
Most of them (as the evidence such as that which Johann Wundersamer points out above indicates) starved or died of illnesses brought on by malnutrition.
Some of them may have tried to sail to warmer climes and died at sea.
But, some of them almost certainly stayed, either to guard their village or because they or a loved one were too ill to go on such a horrendously difficult journey.
Finally, it would have come down to one. One person left. Perhaps, it was a young husband whose wife who sighed out her last breath as she lay beside him in their small house. Perhaps, he used the last of his strength to carry her body to the shore where a strong current ran, placed it gently inside a small boat abandoned there, built a pyre inside, waited until the tide was high, then, lit it, giving the boat a shove into the current where it was swiftly borne out to sea…. and he was alone.
Perhaps, as he lay on the beach, sinking rapidly into that deepest sleep of all, this song from his childhood (it is a very old song) may have echoed in his half-conscious mind… .
Tryggare kan ingen vara…
“Children of the heavenly Father,
safely in His great arms gather;
nestling bird nor star in heaven
such a refuge e’er was given.”
Requiescat in pacem
Rest in peace
Usually see Greenland off in the distance, but last week we flew over the tip.
Forgot the photo link:
WordPress is really frustrating. I am signed in for my own blog but when I try to post here wordpress makes me sign in again and the comment disappears. And then it make me sign in again.
Anyhow, I forgot the photo link, hope this works.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v620/mikesnow/P1100939_zpsmcti2fxq.jpg
Wordpress should have a delet button for one’s own posts. Geeks are too busy trying to foul other things up.
Congratulations, Michael Snow (perfect). Your perseverance nicely underscores the subject of this thread.
Yeah, I agree — wish we could at least edit for even 5 minutes (I mak tons of typpos).
#(:))