Re:Evidence for European presence in the Americas in AD 1021
by BurningFrog on Thursday October 21, 2021 @09:37AM
(#28944151)
The Greenland settlements had 2000+ people between 1000-1350. Last written record is from 1408.
Ten generations is completely sustainable by my standards.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Greenland#Norse_set...
Re:Evidence for European presence in the Americas in AD 1021
by runarberg on Thursday October 21, 2021 @12:30PM
(#28946949)
Stories of Norse Greenlanders visiting Iceland mention their poverty. They would come to Iceland and taste beer and bread for the first time in their lives. They lived, yes, but they definitely did not thrive over there. Perhaps they were sustainable, but they were on the very edge of being so, and when conditions worsened (worse climate, lost trade routes, competition, etc.), they weren’t any more and these settlements were abandoned.
The settlements in Greenland never really reached that point. The leading hypothesis at this point for why Greenland collapsed was that the Arctic trade routes dropped far-off Greenland from their destinations--and without that trade, the settlements couldn't sustain themselves and collapsed. Newfoundland may be a more hospitable place than Greenland, but from a trade situation, it's even worse: it's not offering any trade goods to Europeans that Greenland or Iceland could be providing (at much shorter journeys), but it's still probably not able to tap into the North American trade network--I think you have to make it to Nova Scotia or New Brunswick to do that.