Monday, March 26, 2007
The Collapse of Norse Greenland
Were the Greenland Norse doomed from the outset, trying to practice a lifestyle that could not possibly succeed, so that it was only a matter of time before they would starve to death, asks Jared Diamond in Collapse? Norse decision-making was no more suicidal than is ours today, Diamond says. The Norse arrived in Greenland at a period when its climate was relatively mild. Not having lived there for the previous thousand years, they had not experienced the series of cold and warm cycles that characterized the place. Indeed, modern Greenland under the Danes is not self-sufficient but depends heavily on Danish foreign aid and EU fishing licenses.
The Norse did not arrive with open minds. Like all colonizing peoples, they arrived with their own cultural values and preferred lifestyle, based on centuries of experience in Norway and Iceland. They thought of themselves as dairy farmers, Christian and European. Their Norwegian forebears had successfully practiced dairy farming for 3,000 years. Their shared language, religion and culture bound them to Norway, just as those shared attributes bound Americans and Australians to Britain.
All of Greenland’s bishops were Norwegians sent out to Greenland, rather than Norse who had grown up in Greenland. Without those shared Norwegian values, the Norse could not have cooperated to survive in Greenland. In that light their investments in the whale hunt, cows and churches are understandable, and quite similar to investments in statues on Easter Island, even though on purely economic grounds those may not have been the best use of Norse energy.
The Norse were undone by the same social glue that had enabled them to master Greenland’s difficulties. The values to which people cling most stubbornly under inappropriate conditions are those values that were previously the source of their greatest triumphs.
The Norse did not arrive with open minds. Like all colonizing peoples, they arrived with their own cultural values and preferred lifestyle, based on centuries of experience in Norway and Iceland. They thought of themselves as dairy farmers, Christian and European. Their Norwegian forebears had successfully practiced dairy farming for 3,000 years. Their shared language, religion and culture bound them to Norway, just as those shared attributes bound Americans and Australians to Britain.
All of Greenland’s bishops were Norwegians sent out to Greenland, rather than Norse who had grown up in Greenland. Without those shared Norwegian values, the Norse could not have cooperated to survive in Greenland. In that light their investments in the whale hunt, cows and churches are understandable, and quite similar to investments in statues on Easter Island, even though on purely economic grounds those may not have been the best use of Norse energy.
The Norse were undone by the same social glue that had enabled them to master Greenland’s difficulties. The values to which people cling most stubbornly under inappropriate conditions are those values that were previously the source of their greatest triumphs.
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Following Diamond’s wisdom may be ignoring the real evidence and going down the wrong path.
Diamond did not "dig" very deep to find a society that would match his already formed conclusions. When I first started reading about Greenland, six years ago, I swiftly learned most of the themes that Diamond wrote about in his book Collapse.
Now, after six years of research I have just read the TRUE history left by the Norse in Greenland, entitled the "Maalan Aarum" (Walam Olum) meaning "Engraved years." [Google to Frozen Trail to Merica and click on decipherment.]
The Norse felt the hunger caused by over grazing their pasture lands. Many of them left to "the other side" (of Davis Strait--America).
Those who stayed lived mostly on food from the sea. When the Little Ice age closed the options of those remaining, they too walked on the ice to "the other side."
The Norse in Greenland faced two great ecological challenges. In both cases they decided, as a group. and left while they still had options. As a society they were successful, as Algonquin speaking tribes in North America and not as Norse in Greenland.
Where in the world of the 1300s, dominated by Popes, Kings, Khans, and other dictators, were there groups of people who could decide their own reaction to changing ecological conditions? Probably only in Iceland and Greenland, where the democratic “Althing” was the governing body.
The Vikings (Old Norse) succeeded against over whelming odds. They occupied 1/3 of North America when their cousins the English and the French landed on their shores. Diamond wrote in his previous book how germs, guns, and steel could destroy civilizations. He was perceptive in that book, but in Collapse he apparently rushed to print without doing his homework.
One of the rare civilizations in the 1300s with democratic government overcame two major ecological disasters by taking the best option available—moving. That survival of a democratic group under great stress is the story Diamond should have written about. That story offers a glimmer of hope for democratic societies.
Myron
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Diamond did not "dig" very deep to find a society that would match his already formed conclusions. When I first started reading about Greenland, six years ago, I swiftly learned most of the themes that Diamond wrote about in his book Collapse.
Now, after six years of research I have just read the TRUE history left by the Norse in Greenland, entitled the "Maalan Aarum" (Walam Olum) meaning "Engraved years." [Google to Frozen Trail to Merica and click on decipherment.]
The Norse felt the hunger caused by over grazing their pasture lands. Many of them left to "the other side" (of Davis Strait--America).
Those who stayed lived mostly on food from the sea. When the Little Ice age closed the options of those remaining, they too walked on the ice to "the other side."
The Norse in Greenland faced two great ecological challenges. In both cases they decided, as a group. and left while they still had options. As a society they were successful, as Algonquin speaking tribes in North America and not as Norse in Greenland.
Where in the world of the 1300s, dominated by Popes, Kings, Khans, and other dictators, were there groups of people who could decide their own reaction to changing ecological conditions? Probably only in Iceland and Greenland, where the democratic “Althing” was the governing body.
The Vikings (Old Norse) succeeded against over whelming odds. They occupied 1/3 of North America when their cousins the English and the French landed on their shores. Diamond wrote in his previous book how germs, guns, and steel could destroy civilizations. He was perceptive in that book, but in Collapse he apparently rushed to print without doing his homework.
One of the rare civilizations in the 1300s with democratic government overcame two major ecological disasters by taking the best option available—moving. That survival of a democratic group under great stress is the story Diamond should have written about. That story offers a glimmer of hope for democratic societies.
Myron
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