Fate of lost Viking colony solved?
Clues to the mystery of why Viking colonies in Greenland thrived and disappeared have been found in the DNA of medieval walrus bones housed in more than a dozen European museums.
For almost 500 years, the Norse descendants of Erik the Red built churches and manor homes and expanded their settlements on the icy fringes of European civilisation. On Greenland, they had elaborate stone churches with bronze bells and stained glass, a monastery, and their own bishop.
Their colonies at one time supported more than 2000 people. And then they vanished.
Researchers who visited museums across western Europe to assemble a rare pile of artefacts reported in a study that the fate of these medieval outposts may have been tied to the demand for walrus ivory among rich Europeans. The study revealed that during the height of the Norse settlement – from about 1120 to 1400 – at least 80 per cent of the walrus samples were directly sourced from Greenland.
‘‘This result tells a very clear story,’’ said Bastiaan Star, a scientist at the University of Oslo and one of the study’s authors.
A dozen years ago, many historians believed the changing climate of medieval Europe was the main reason Norse settlements in Greenland expanded and went extinct.
But this new evidence suggests another possible factor: that the Vikings’ descendants thrived on a lucrative trade in walrus tusks, which were sold to Europe’s elite and carved into luxury items, such as ivory crucifixes, knife handles, and fancy dice and chess sets.
If walrus ivory was the key to Greenland’s medieval wealth, experts now suspect a collapsing market for the ivory may have helped doom the outposts. –AP