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John Wills




Location: Northamptonshire UK
Joined: 20 Jun 2012

Posts: 10

PostPosted: Sun 16 Mar, 2014 6:19 pm    Post subject: Norse Weapons in Greenland         Reply with quote

Question: Has there been any weapons found in Greenland dating from the time of the early settlers, in particular axes and spearheads? If there is where can I get information or see photos?

I have been able to find plenty of information about turf built houses, deforestation of what few trees there were, global cooling preventing the growing of barley but almost no photos or descriptions of finds and particularly not weapon finds. I can't believe they lived there for around 400 years without a spear or a wood axe.

grim guðplega, ær we gofol syllon!
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Sam Barris




Location: San Diego, California
Joined: 29 Apr 2004
Likes: 4 pages

Posts: 630

PostPosted: Sun 16 Mar, 2014 10:15 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

I don't know of any pictures, but from what I've read the few artifacts that survived had been worn and sharpened down to nubbins. They lost the ability to smelt iron and could not trade for it, therefore they ceased to be an Iron Age society.

If you're interested, Jared Diamond's Collapse contains an excellent overview of the colony's decline, and gives special attention to how the technological aspects of their culture unraveled.

Pax,
Sam Barris

"Any nation that draws too great a distinction between its scholars and its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards, and its fighting done by fools." —Thucydides


Last edited by Sam Barris on Mon 17 Mar, 2014 8:25 am; edited 1 time in total
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Peter Lyon
Industry Professional



Location: New Zealand
Joined: 20 Nov 2006
Reading list: 39 books

Posts: 249

PostPosted: Sun 16 Mar, 2014 11:04 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

What Sam said.

Greenland was in a warm phase when the settlers landed and got worse afterwards, eventually causing more sea ice so that ships had a hard time getting there, and eventually stopped visiting. Greenland had few things worth the effort, one being Narwhal tusks, but in the 14th century tastes changed, and there were fewer reasons to visit apart from checking they were doing OK.

The point being, they were cut off. No major trees, mostly scrub, so they couldn't build any sort of boat, let alone ships, and not enough fuel to smelt iron ore (I'm not sure if there is any coal in Greenland, but it wasn't being used in that period anyway, or even if there is any iron ore, maybe bog iron would be it). So the iron they had became incredibly precious, so was used and reused until it was barely there. As a result I would be surprised if any finds were made apart from tiny scraps of "things" that might not even be recognisable any more.

Still hammering away
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Shahril Dzulkifli




Location: Malaysia
Joined: 13 Dec 2007
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Posts: 1,265

PostPosted: Mon 24 Mar, 2014 4:59 pm    Post subject: Norse Weapons in Greenland         Reply with quote

The strange thing is not even a single Viking sword, axe, spear and mace can be found in Greenland today due to lack of evidence there and so too their settlements. Sad
“You have power over your mind - not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength”

- Marcus Aurelius
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