Vulnerabilities and Failure of Building Resilience in Norse Greenland

Summary

The Norse colonies in SW Greenland were established in the late 900’s and depopulated in the middle of the second half of the 1400’s. The traditional Nordic Temperate Zone pastoralism clearly was at its limits in Sub Arctic SW Greenland. Still, adaptation to the new environment has been described as successful, and the depopulation in the late Middle Ages is considered a consequence of the specialization the successful adaptation leaving the Norse Greenlandic society less resilient and more vulnerable to cope with climate change and a changing world system (Dugmore et al. 2012). In my paper I will explore further the vulnerabilities of the Norse society and the failure of building resilience at a community level with particular reverence to the different groups of the society.

Dugmore, A.D., T.H. McGovern, O. Vésteinsson, J. Arneborg, R. Streeter and C. Keller: Cultural adaptation, compounding vulnerabilities and conjunctures in Norse Greenland. PNAS 109(10)3657-3663.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)   •
• Resilience, Sustainability and Collapse in the North Atlantic

Keywords

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