ARRIVAL OF THE NORSEMEN IN GREENLAND

4.2.1. ARRIVAL OF THE NORSEMEN IN GREENLAND

The fi rst European inhabitants of Green-land were the Norsemen. In 982, an Ice-lander called Erik the Red was outlawed for three years for killing a man, which meant that anyone could kill him without punish-ment during those three years. This caused him to leave Iceland and sail west to inves-tigate Greenland in 982-985. In spring 985 he returned home to Iceland and gathered people for a Landnám, or initial coloniza-tion, of Greenland, and so it was that in 986 the Norse settlers arrived (Armstrong et al.

1978: 170; Petersen 1991a: 16).

The Landnám in Greenland took place in the period 985-1000 (Dugmore et al. 2005b:

28), when the Norsemen established their main two villages for the following 100 years in the fjords near Qaqortoq in South

Green-land (a site called Østerbygden or the East-ern Settlement) and in the fjords of Nuuk (a settlement called Vesterbygden or the West-ern Settlement) (Bro 1993: 13-14). At most about 3,000 inhabitants lived in the two set-tlements (Gad 1954a: 36), where about 280 farms were created (Figure 4.4).

The establishment of the Norse colo-nies in Greenland was evidently motivated by several “push factors”. The climate was milder during the colonization because of the prevailing Medieval Warm Period (Dug-more et al. 2005a: 6). Cultivable land was sparse in Iceland and pressure was being exerted on the land by uncontrolled sheep farming, which caused deforestation and a lack of grazing land (Rasmussen 2000a:

123). It is also possible that, in addition to knowledge of the new settlement opportu-nities, Erik the Red brought “talk of ways to make money” with him to Iceland, i.e. he may have promoted the new settlements by promising opportunities to trade in walrus ivory and furs (Dugmore et al. 2005a: 6).

The decision as to where to settle may be regarded as the fi rst adaptive decision that the Norsemen of Greenland made, as was the case with the fi rst settlers on the Faroe Islands. The natural environment of South-West Greenland was characterized by cool summers and moderate winters, high pre-cipitation and sparse vegetation. Neverthe-less, continental pockets close to the inland ice cap with a local climate there had quite the opposite characteristics. Here the sum-mers were warm, the winters were cold, pre-cipitation was relatively low and the vegeta-tion was rich. Such locavegeta-tions were favoured by the settlers because they had the best grazing lands and distances from high qual-ity grazing lands were shortest (McGovern 1980: 249). The settlers seem to have been

on the lookout for fresh water and shelter, providing locations where it was possible to found a society which based its economic activities on cattle breeding and sheep rear-ing, as in their former homeland of Iceland

(Bro 1993: 13-14).

After some time the Norsemen estab-lished the Western Settlement. According to McGovern (1980: 249), it seems likely that they occupied the inner fjord area

al-Figure 4.4 The Western and Eastern Settlements (modifi ed from Bro 1993: 14).

DEPARTMENT OF GEOSCIENCES AND GEOGRAPHY A

most completely. The Western Settlement was smaller of the two, with about 800-1,000 inhabitants (Orlove 2005: 593), and its distribution pattern was characterized by a series of linear chains of farms 2-3 kilo-metres apart along the fjords. In the Eastern Settlement, which was located further south and was larger, the distribution pattern was similar, with the exception of a dense clus-ter of farms that developed. It is possible that there was only one large household at Garðar, the main farmstead, rather than several holdings (Vésteinsson et al. 2002:

11-12).

The Norse society was led by a small number of chiefs, while the other mem-bers of the society were independent small-holders, tenant farmers and slaves. Slavery was abolished in Greenland during the fi rst couple of centuries, as on the Faroe Islands, but the number of independent farmers al-so started to decrease as they were forced to become tenants of the chiefs (Diamond 2005: 239). Collective decisions were made by the Althing, on which the wealthiest men in the community held seats. The Catholic Church started to gain in importance. Fol-lowing the Christianization of the Greenland Norsemen around 1000, and an independ-ent bishopric was established in 1124 was and made subordinate to the Archbishop of Trondheim (Nidaros) in Norway. The seat of the bishop was established at Garðar in the Eastern Settlement, which became relatively wealthy during the Middle Ages. The Bishop of Greenland also gained great political and economic power and was represented in the Althing (Bro 1993: 15).

The Norsemen of Greenland did not have ships for crossing the sea like the Faroese did. Their boats were small and enabled them to travel only along the West

Green-land coast. This made them dependent on their trade partners (Orlove 2005: 594). The Norsemen could conduct long journeys to the outer fjord regions, however, for which purpose base camps had to be established (McGovern 1980: 254-255).

The Norsemen were dependent on trade because cereals could not be cultivated and had to be imported along with other neces-sities such as wood, iron and equipment.

As a consequence of this dependence, com-merce developed with the merchants of Ber-gen. The Norsemen of Greenland paid for their imports from Europe with skins and narwhale teeth (Gad 1954a: 36; Bro 1993:

15).

The most valuable export item was wal-rus ivory, which was caught on hunting jour-neys to the Disko Bay region, the Norðsetur, or northern hunting grounds (Dugmore et al. 2007b: 17). Walrus tusks were highly val-ued in Scandinavia and Western Europe in the fi rst 250 years of the Norse settlement in Greenland, but later markets gradually changed because elephant ivory became available in Europe and walrus ivory de-clined in value (Roesdahl 2005: 189).

Greenland became a part of the Kingdom of Norway in 1261, which meant that the Norsemen had to pay more taxes in addition to the tithes that they paid earlier. Wealth gradually concentrated at Garðar, the bish-op’s estate (Fredskild 1988: 387), and power concentrated increasingly in the hands of a small elite (Dugmore et al. 2005b: 16). The reason for the decision to join the kingdom was most probably related to the fact that the Norsemen were dependent on Norwe-gian shipping (Helle 2005: 12). In fact, the Greenlandic trade became a Norwegian mo-nopoly. The Norwegians promised to send a ship every year, a similar agreement to that

made with the Norsemen of the Faroes, but they were not always able to fulfi l that prom-ise (Orlove 2005: 594). There is no infor-mation about legal conditions in the Norse colonies after their submission to the Nor-wegian crown, but it can be presumed that Norwegian law was adopted in some form (Helle 2005: 15).

Although the Norse society in Greenland was subordinated to the Norwegian state, the Crown did not have the same pow-er to organize the community as it did on the Faroe Islands. It did not own farms on Greenland and it was only represented by a bailiff, whose task was to collect the taxes and duties which farmers paid to the state as a guarantee for maintaining the ship con-nection with Norway (Bro 1996: 15).

4.2.2. SUBSISTENCE ACTIVITIES AND