I'm half-remembering an article I read some years ago, an author who wished
to give primacy to a social cause for the decline of the Greenland colony.
This was also contemporaneous with the Little Ice Age, a great advance in
the Greenland ice cap, and concomitant restriction of arable land on the
thin strip of inhabitable Greenland coast, as well as changes in the
fisheries, seal hunts, and bird nesting areas.  This could have waxed their
colony, even if a boat was going to/arriving from Iceland once a week.  The
Greenlanders needed global warming almost as much as we need it in Syracuse.

D. Babson.



At 10:59 AM 2/17/00 +0000, you wrote:
>David Babson wrote:
>>
>> And, even the Vikings didn't keep it up indefinitely--my understanding is
>> that the Greenland "colony" died out in the 14th century, some years after
>> their connection to Iceland was broken, due to changing trade patterns and,
>> perhaps, the Black Death in Scandinavia.
>
>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.
>
>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>Alasdair Brooks
>Department of Archaeology
>University of York
>King's Manor
>York
>YO1 2EP
>England, UK
>phone: 01904 433931
>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>"The Buffalo tastes the same on both sides of the border"
>Sitting Bull
>