>Alasdair wrote:
>
>>  A colleague of mine here at York did her doctoral dissertation on the
>>  palaeoecology of the Norse settlements of Greenland.  I was under the
>>  impression that climate change was also a strong factor in the decline
>>  of the settlements, but it's hardly my area of specialisation.  If
>>  anyone's interested in the topic, e-mail me off-list and I'll pass on
>>  contact details.
>
>Years ago I did a paper on the skeletal remains of the Greenland Vikings for a
>University course.  As I remember it, climate change did have a lot to do with
>the end of the colony.  At one point they were raising cattle and
>grain crops in
>southern Greenland.  With the coming of the little ice age that became
>impossible.
>
>JH Brothers IV

Wasn't there an ideological dimension involved as well. Even though
they had the indigenous people coping all around them they persisted
with their own way of life until, eventually the community died out.