Reverse Colonization: How the Inuit Conquered Greenland and Vanquished the Vikings
Tia Lemberg
Sept 2021
Greenland, the world's largest island, is noted for its vast tundra and immense glaciers. Located in the Arctic Circle, it is perhaps one of the most difficult places to live in the world. With immense mountains and fjords, contrasting glaciers and meadowlands, combined with fickle weather, the landscape of Greenland presents numerous challenges to those who wish to survive. It has been colonized seven different times over 4,000 years by migrants from the west, and twice by migrants of the east. The most notable attempt at colonization has been by the Norse Vikings, who sought to establish a new Scandinavian colony in the North Atlantic. After Erik the Red led a voyage westward in 985–986 C.E. from Iceland to Greenland, the Vikings began to swiftly migrate into the island and assimilated into the land. They thrived for centuries, establishing Eastern and Western settlements with a total population of roughly 5,000 at their peak (McGovern 82). However, in the late 14th century, the Norse era of success was abruptly interrupted. Regular shipping between Norway and Greenland ceased after 1370 C.E., the last written record of contact occurred in 1408 C.E., and the last navigation between the two countries was about 1420 C.E. (Dugmore et al. 3662). The sudden disappearance of the once prosperous Vikings still baffles historians and archaeologists alike.
However, the Norse were not the only group to inhabit Greenland during this era. The Paleo-Eskimos came to north Greenland in several migrations over 5,000 years ago and continuously dispersed over Greenland’s vast land (Apollonio 25). About the same time that the Norse started their westward voyages from Scandinavia into the North Atlantic, another group of people began migrating southward along Greenland’s coast. The Thule people, direct ancestors of modern-day Inuit, inhabited the land concurrently to the Vikings. Yet while the Vikings waned and died off in the late 14th century, the Thule Inuit thrived. This presents a profound area of study as the standard narrative of North American deep history is reversed, in which an Indigenous group triumphed over Europeans rather than the other way around. This paper will examine why the Thule Inuit survived in Greenland while the Norse Vikings failed under the same ecological conditions. Environmental data shows that Greenland's climate worsened during the Norse colonization, specifically during the dawn of the Little Ice Age in 1100 which induced centuries of dramatic cooling (Apollonio 29). This paper will also analyze the extent to which the Little Ice Age contributed to the extinction of the Greenlandic Norse. Although Norse Vikings initially succeeded at merging their European lifestyle with Greenland’s harsh terrain, they failed to adopt key Inuit survival techniques when presented with severe climate change, and thus fell victim to nature while the Inuit prevailed.
The Norse were dependent on pastoralism for centuries and were physically tied to the weakest parts of the land, resulting in their inevitable decline in the region. Farming was central to Viking civilization in Europe, and they maintained this lifestyle for their 500 years of settlement in Greenland. Settlers imported domestic animals, including cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, horses, dogs, and cats (Dugmore et al. 3658). The vast majority of archaeological evidence reflects the same style of living in the Norse settlements; over 60 infrastructures were built per community, including dwellings, byres, stables, barns, storehouses, workshops, single-room churches, and enclosures, specifically found abundantly in Qassiarsuk which was later identified as Erik the Red’s farm and the largest settlement in Norse Greenland (Price and Arneborg 172). Investments in such structures were sustainable for hundreds of years; however, they permanently grounded the Norse to the landscape. As the climate worsened, the fruitful and green open plains diminished in resources and lacked the ability to promote growth for large populations. Unlike the Norse, the Thule Inuit rarely farmed and strategically located themselves to most effectively utilize Greenland’s natural resources. Inuit camps were concentrated in outer fjord coastal zones with abundant marine resources, whereas Norse farms were located in continental inner fjord areas rich in pasture (Golding et al. 370). This difference in settlement location proved key to the Inuit’s successful survival over the Norse. The Inuit responded to fluctuations in seal and caribou populations by maintaining a high degree of coastal mobility, shifting north or south as conditions changed. McGovern suggests that the Inuit, unlike the Norse, “had no immobile investments in cattle byres, fertilized infields or large stone churches to tie them to the most vulnerable of Greenlandic biomes” (94). While the Inuit remained nomadic, free to follow the marine resources as the climate cooled, the Norse were confined to the open plains in which they originally settled. The decline of the Viking settlements in Greenland was caused by the Norse’s reluctance to abandon farming considering the country’s inability to support long term pastoralism.
Although the Norse adapted to incorporate marine resources, their shift was minimal, and they did not harness these resources as effectively as the Inuit. The Thule Inuit indisputably developed superior arctic hunting technology, which encompassed whaling harpoon heads, ground slate blades, sled-shoeing, trace buckles, and baleen implements (Knuth 18). They also invented umiaks, which are traditional boats made of driftwood frames and sealskin coverings, usually were 6.7 – 7.3 meters long and 1.5 – 1.8 meters wide (Apollonio 52). The first Umiak recently uncovered appeared in Eigil Knuth's 1949 Archaeological Investigations in Peary Land. Through radio-carbon dating using the carbon-14 method, the boat was determined to be 476 years old (± 100 years), roughly during the same time the Inuit culture was flourishing while the Norse settlements were dwindling (Knuth 21). The boats were relatively light and could transport up to thirty people and several tons of goods. This design was excellent for hunting and navigating through the thick ice that surrounded Greenland’s coastal regions. The Norse had plenty of opportunities to adapt this technology, but archaeologists found no evidence at all in the Eastern or Western settlements of skin boats, harpoons, skin clothing, or any of the other highly evolved sea mammal hunting gadgetry of the Thule Inuit (McGovern 94). Furthermore, the Norse favored summer seasons and failed to hunt some of the Inuit’s most crucial sea mammals: the bearded and ringed seals. These particular species of seal use winter breathing holes that made them a crucial food source during the harsh winter months as they were easily visible to onlooking hunters. They are rare in Norse archaeofauna, but they are common in Inuit sites alongside artifacts associated with sea ice hunting technology (Dugmore et al. 3659–60). Thus, the Thule Inuit possessed superior ecological knowledge and effectively harnessed key marine resources while the Vikings lacked this direction during the deadly winter seasons.
It is important to note that even though the Norse communities were not equipped for Greenland’s marine terrain, they did make an effort to incorporate more of a marine diet as farming conditions worsened, as shown by carbon isotopes in bones found in archaeological sites in the Eastern and Western settlements (Dugmore et al. 3662). Adaptation is also clear by measuring strontium isotopes in teeth enamel, conducted in a study by Price and Arneborg. The authors determined the type of diets each individual consumed based on human remains from Norse burials. They recorded a very high 87Sr/86Sr value (0.7191) observed in a 6- to 7-year-old child born in Greenland. This 87Sr/86Sr value is in fact one of the two highest human values observed anywhere in the Eastern Settlement, suggesting that this child consumed a significant amount of seafood in their diet (Price and Arneborg 177). These results support the narrative that the Norse tried to incorporate more marine animals into their diet, like the Inuit. However, this shift in diet was unsustainable with a lack of superior marine mammal hunting technology. Therefore, the integration of marine life into their diet was minimal and insufficient to support the Norse population.
Moreover, as the climate worsened, the Norse were unable to sustain their established system of hunting and traveling. Norsemen traveled to northern hunting grounds on a seasonal basis, trekking far distances to acquire sufficient seal and walrus meat to bring back to the community (Golding et al. 317). This excursion would have required a lot of manpower to transport the goods back down to the Eastern and Western settlements, suggesting that as the climate became colder, more individuals were compromised and less were willing to make the futile trip further North in search of what limited resources were left. Historians and climatologists also agree that as the cold spell continued, ice would have clogged the seas farther south and for longer each year, disrupting voyages back to Europe (Kintisch). According to Dugmore et al., the increase in coastal ice would have affected navigation, population size of harbor seals, quality of pasture along shores, and the coordination of communal labor during vital summer months (Dugmore et al.). The decrease in trips back to Europe proposed another significant problem: there is no evidence of a stable trade network being established between the Norse and the Inuit, therefore Greenland’s economy was reliant on importing and exporting goods to and from Europe. With ice as an obstacle, the stability of Norse society dwindled.
The decline of the Norse economy was also a result of the fact that they made profit through a niche market that was eventually devalued. Greenland was a key source of walrus ivory, which was carved into luxury goods such as the famous 12th century Lewis chessmen from Scotland (Kintisch). The economy initially prospered as the Norse exported rare and prestigious commodities such as walrus tusk and hide, narwhal teeth, and live polar bears (Dugmore et al. 3660). The Eastern and Western settlements provided the Norwegian king and the Catholic Church with ivory and traded it with European merchants for supplies like iron, boat parts, and wood. In 1327 C.E. an 802-kilogram parcel of Greenland tusks was worth the equivalent of roughly 780 cows or 60 tons of dried fish, which was highly profitable (Kintisch). This funded the Norse’s religious projects in Greenland and aided in their survival. However, the economy collapsed in 1400 C.E. when the Norwegians ceded control over the North Atlantic trade to the Hansa. Dugmore et al. suggests that for these Germanic merchants, profits came from providing bulk quantities of fish and fish oil to grow European urban markets. The niche market of prestige items was devalued, thereby devaluing the most abundant Greenlandic exports. This change no doubt decreased demand for the annual northern walrus hunt, which had been a central Greenlandic social and economic organization (Dugmore et al. 3662). The last of the Norse in the Eastern Settlement diminished alongside the collapse of Greenland’s trade with Europe, suggesting a direct correspondence between social and economic deterioration.
Despite the given narrative, other scholars have presented evidence to refute the inevitable failure of the Norse settlements, suggesting instead that their demise was due to their own avoidable mistakes. For example, it is theorized that interaction between the Norse and Inuit was more influential than previously thought. This is due to two plausible reasons. First, there is evidence that demonstrates that the relationship between the two groups was hostile, and ultimately damaged Norse settlements. In Erik the Red’s Saga written in the 13th century, the word Skraeling is used for the Inuit, which translates to “wretched.” According to Thisted’s findings on oral and written records, they were described as small, ill-favored men with ugly hair on their heads, big eyes, and broad cheeks (272). This could be interpreted as blatantly racism were it not for the Inuit’s equally dismal recount of the Norse. An Indigenous tale entitled Oqaluttuaq Uunngortumik recounts the Southern Greenlandic encounter between the Thule Inuit and the Norsemen. It states that the Norsemen were attacked just as in the Nuuk story, which is another version of the Inuit-Norse tale. Uunngortoq fled to Igaliku — the Norse bishopric in the Eastern Settlement — when Qasapi, an Inuit, followed and later killed the Norse chief (Thisted 270). The northern Indigenous tale entitled Navarannaq also confirms this. Although the Indigenous tales differ in some regards, such as how exactly the two groups made contact, they all end in conflicts that eliminated the Norse populations. Second, even if Norse and Inuit stories were slightly exaggerated and the contact was not violent, this means that the Norse had plenty of opportunities to learn from Inuit technology and simply refused to adapt to their successful means of survival. If the Norse were willing, the Thule Inuit could have offered expanded mobility on both water and ice, winter survival gear, and access to the meat and fat of both ringed seal and bowhead whale. From recent work on the Danish colonial sites of the 1720s, it is clear that the later Scandinavian settlers used umiaks by choice and learned more about harpoons and ringed seals in three years of contact than the Norse did in 30 decades (McGovern 94). In either scenario, whether contact was violent or peaceful, Norse settlers rejected coexistence with the Inuit which led to their downfall.
Another narrative to support the self-induced demise of Norse settlements is connected to their religious priorities in Greenland. Norse Greenland is now theorized to have been a religious settlement above all else. Respect was paid to the Catholic Church in Europe with continuous shipments of walrus ivory (Kintisch). The establishment of a bishop at Gardar, Greenland in 1127 also changed the landscape of the Western and Eastern settlements. Determined by McGovern, the small turf churches were replaced by large stone ones, complete with imported stained glass, bronze church bells, and an extremely large consumption of prime building lumber in this timber deficit realm (81). Based on a single surviving episcopal steward's account, McGovern concludes that the cathedral of St. Nicholas at Gardar could hold a disproportionately larger number of people than the population of the settlement, and its bishop owned or controlled about two-thirds of the best land in Greenland by the mid-13th century (82). All of Greenland’s natural resources, money, and labor seemed to flow into the power of churches such as St. Nicholas. These pricey immobile investments took a toll on the Norse as they prioritized religious development over quality of life.
Prioritizing religion was one way Norse society developed a social hierarchy, which hurt their chances of survival during the Little Ice Age. Inuit oral stories, such as the Navaranaaq story, contribute to the idea of the Norsemen as their own ethnic group, distinguishing their most notable difference as their alien distribution of power (Thisted 282). The stories about the unlawful chiefs advise the audience to exterminate any such aspirations within the community or among their own secret ambitions. Thus, Inuit oral traditions stress the moral importance of communal living, using the established Norse society as an example of what not to do. Inuit societies succeeded because they were smaller in population size and focused on communal living, with emphasis on equal sharing of resources. Contrastingly, the Norse are well documented for their social structure surrounding medieval Catholic faith. Bishops were sent directly from Norway to Greenland, living in manor houses located near banquet halls (Price and Arneborg 165). There was a distinct hierarchy in which the upper members of society lived off the land and organized labor, while the lower members of society hunted, gathered resources, and implemented a stronger marine diet.
Thus, the collapse of the Norse in Greenland was ultimately caused by the fallacy that the Norse could sustain their European lifestyle in Greenland without further significant adaptation. Although the Norse made critical mistakes that were within their own control, they were also conquered by nature; as the cold progressed, the Norse remained stagnant. Greenland did not necessarily become uninhabitable during the Little Ice Age, it simply became more belligerent to the established Norse systems. Faults mostly derived from their tether to pastoralism, the collapse of Greenland’s niche prestige market in Europe, their inability to establish peaceful and educational relations with the Inuit, and their hierarchical religious social structure. The Thule Inuit survived because they concentrated themselves towards the inner fjords where marine resources were strongest, they were nomadic, existed in small communities, and created hunting technology best suited towards the hostile terrain. Despite occupying the Arctic territory for almost 500 years, the Norse were Europeans from the day they arrived in Greenland until the day they died. North American Indigenous groups strongly value their relationship to the land. The Norse’s inability to shift perspective and change their way of life to fit the landscape is what finally led to their downfall.
Works Cited
Apollonio, Spencer. Lands That Hold One Spellbound: A Story of East Greenland. University of Calgary Press. 2008.
Dugmore, Andrew J., et al. “Cultural adaptation, compounding vulnerabilities and conjunctures in Norse Greenland.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 109:10. 2012. 3658–3663.
Golding, Kirsty A., et al. “Norse-Inuit interaction and landscape change in southern Greenland? A Geochronological, Pedological, and Palynological investigation.” Geoarchaeology, 26:3. 2011. 315–345.
Kintisch, Eli. “Why did Greenland’s Vikings disappear?” Science. 10 Nov. 2016.
Knuth, Eigil. “An Outline of the Archaeology of Peary Land.” Arctic, 5:1. 1952. 17–33.
McGovern, Thomas H. “Climate, Correlation, and Causation in Norse Greenland.” Arctic Anthropology, 28:2. 1991. 77–100.
Price, T. Douglas, and Jette Arneborg. “The Peopling of the North Atlantic: Isotopic Results from Greenland.” Journal of the North Atlantic, 7. 2018. 164-185.
Thisted, Kirsten. “On Narrative Expectations: Greenlandic Oral Traditions about the Cultural Encounter between Inuit and Norsemen.” Scandinavian Studies, 73:3. 2001. 253-296.
Tia Lemberg is from Westfield, New Jersey and studies in the Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis.