The Little Ice Age: How Climate Made History 1300-1850 by Brian Fagan Page A
Authors: Brian Fagan
Ads: Link
among them 1308 to 1318, the
time of Europe's massive rains and the Great Famine; 1324 to 1329, another period of unsettled weather; and especially 1343 to 1362, when
stormy conditions in the North Sea culminated in the "Great Drowning"
and the Norse Western Settlement struggled through its exceptionally
cold winters.
Sometime between 1341 and 1363 (the date is uncertain), Norwegian
church official Ivar Bardarson sailed northward with a party of Norse
along the western Greenland coast from the Eastern to the Western Settlement, charged by local lawmen to drive away hostile skraelings who
were rumored to be attacking the farms. He found the Western Settlement deserted, a large church standing empty and no traces of any colonists. "They found nobody, either Christians or heathens, only some
wild cattle and sheep, and they slaughtered the wild cattle and sheep for
food, as much as the ships would carry."4 While Bardarson blamed elusive Inuit, whom he never encountered, his account is puzzling, for one
would assume that the marauding hunters would have killed the livestock. Bardarson seems to have visited a ghost town abandoned without
apparent reason. But modern archaeological excavations reveal a settlement that was dying on its feet from the cold.
Ever since Eirik the Red's time, the Greenlanders had lived off a medieval dairying economy just like those in their homelands. Even in good
years with warm summers and a good hay crop, they lived close to the
edge. Their survival depended on storing enough hay, dried sea mammal
flesh, and fish to tide humans and beasts over the winter months. The
Norse could usually survive one bad summer by using up the last of their
surplus the following winter. But two successive poor hay crops placed
both the animals and their owners at high risk, especially if lingering ice
restricted summer hunting and fishing. The ice-core analyses for 1343 to
1362 reveal two decades of much colder summers than usual. Such a
stretch, year after year, spelled disaster.5
The main house block of a small manor farm called Nipaatsoq tells a
grim story of the final months of its occupation. Animals and people
lived in separate rooms linked by interconnecting passages. Each spring,
the owners swept out the reeds and grass that covered the floors and emptied dung from the byres, yet the archaeologists found the debris of the
very last winter's occupation intact. No one had been left to clean up in
the spring.
Five dairy cows once occupied the manor's byre. The hooves of these
five beasts, the only part of a cow that has no food value whatsoever, were
scattered among other food remains across the lower layer of one room.
The owners had butchered the dead animals so completely that only the
hooves remained. They did this in direct violation of ancient Norse law,
which for obvious reasons prohibited the slaughter of dairy cows. In desperation, they put themselves out of the dairy business by eating their
breeding stock.
The house's main hall, with its benches and hearths, yielded numerous
arctic hare feet and ptarmigan claws, animals often hunted in winter. The
larder contained the semi-articulated bones of a lamb and a newborn calf, and the skull of a large hunting dog resembling an elkhound. The limb
bones of the same animal lay in the passageway between the hall and
sleeping chamber. All the dog bones at the manor farm came from the final occupation layer and displayed the butchery marks of carcasses cut up
for human consumption. Having first eaten their cows and then as much
small game as they could take, the Nipaatsoq families finally consumed
their prized hunting dogs.
The houseflies tell a similar tale. Centuries before, the Norse accidentally introduced a fly, Telomerina flavipes, which flourishes in dark, warm
conditions where feces are present. Telomerina could only have survived
in the warmth of the fouled floors of the main hall and sleeping quarters,
where
time of Europe's massive rains and the Great Famine; 1324 to 1329, another period of unsettled weather; and especially 1343 to 1362, when
stormy conditions in the North Sea culminated in the "Great Drowning"
and the Norse Western Settlement struggled through its exceptionally
cold winters.
Sometime between 1341 and 1363 (the date is uncertain), Norwegian
church official Ivar Bardarson sailed northward with a party of Norse
along the western Greenland coast from the Eastern to the Western Settlement, charged by local lawmen to drive away hostile skraelings who
were rumored to be attacking the farms. He found the Western Settlement deserted, a large church standing empty and no traces of any colonists. "They found nobody, either Christians or heathens, only some
wild cattle and sheep, and they slaughtered the wild cattle and sheep for
food, as much as the ships would carry."4 While Bardarson blamed elusive Inuit, whom he never encountered, his account is puzzling, for one
would assume that the marauding hunters would have killed the livestock. Bardarson seems to have visited a ghost town abandoned without
apparent reason. But modern archaeological excavations reveal a settlement that was dying on its feet from the cold.
Ever since Eirik the Red's time, the Greenlanders had lived off a medieval dairying economy just like those in their homelands. Even in good
years with warm summers and a good hay crop, they lived close to the
edge. Their survival depended on storing enough hay, dried sea mammal
flesh, and fish to tide humans and beasts over the winter months. The
Norse could usually survive one bad summer by using up the last of their
surplus the following winter. But two successive poor hay crops placed
both the animals and their owners at high risk, especially if lingering ice
restricted summer hunting and fishing. The ice-core analyses for 1343 to
1362 reveal two decades of much colder summers than usual. Such a
stretch, year after year, spelled disaster.5
The main house block of a small manor farm called Nipaatsoq tells a
grim story of the final months of its occupation. Animals and people
lived in separate rooms linked by interconnecting passages. Each spring,
the owners swept out the reeds and grass that covered the floors and emptied dung from the byres, yet the archaeologists found the debris of the
very last winter's occupation intact. No one had been left to clean up in
the spring.
Five dairy cows once occupied the manor's byre. The hooves of these
five beasts, the only part of a cow that has no food value whatsoever, were
scattered among other food remains across the lower layer of one room.
The owners had butchered the dead animals so completely that only the
hooves remained. They did this in direct violation of ancient Norse law,
which for obvious reasons prohibited the slaughter of dairy cows. In desperation, they put themselves out of the dairy business by eating their
breeding stock.
The house's main hall, with its benches and hearths, yielded numerous
arctic hare feet and ptarmigan claws, animals often hunted in winter. The
larder contained the semi-articulated bones of a lamb and a newborn calf, and the skull of a large hunting dog resembling an elkhound. The limb
bones of the same animal lay in the passageway between the hall and
sleeping chamber. All the dog bones at the manor farm came from the final occupation layer and displayed the butchery marks of carcasses cut up
for human consumption. Having first eaten their cows and then as much
small game as they could take, the Nipaatsoq families finally consumed
their prized hunting dogs.
The houseflies tell a similar tale. Centuries before, the Norse accidentally introduced a fly, Telomerina flavipes, which flourishes in dark, warm
conditions where feces are present. Telomerina could only have survived
in the warmth of the fouled floors of the main hall and sleeping quarters,
where
Similar Books
