Norse settlement may help us adapt to global changes

Climate scientists have been examining the past environments and archaeological remains of Norse Greenland, Iceland and North Atlantic Islands for several years. They have been particularly interested in the end period of the settlements in the early part of the Little Ice Age (1300-1870 CE) and have been able to analyse how well the Norse responded to changes in economy, trade, politics and technology, against a backdrop of changing climate.

They found that Norse societies fared best by keeping their options open when managing their long-term sustainability, adapting their trade links, turning their backs on some economic options and acquiring food from a variety of wild and farmed sources. Researchers say their findings could help inform decisions on how modern society responds to global challenges but also warns of inherent instabilities that do not directly link to climate.
In the middle ages, people in Iceland embraced economic changes sweeping Europe, developed trading in fish and wool and endured hard times to build a flourishing sustainable society. In Greenland, however, medieval communities maintained traditional Viking trade in prestige goods such as walrus ivory.

Although adapting to severe weather, the Norse in Greenland became increasingly specialised, and in the 15th century changes in trade links and cultural contact with the Inuit, in conjunction with climate change led to the society’s downfall. It is clear from the Íslendingabók (the Book of the Icelanders) that the purpose of Erik the Red’s initial colonisation was farmland and settlement, however the emphasis rapidly shifts to a hunting economy, based on, for example, walrus ivory, only supported by a subsistence economy. This subsistence economy, becomes vulnerable, not as much to the climate, but to external pressures.
“

The land which is called Greenland was discovered
and settled from Iceland. Eirik the Red was
the name of a Breidafjord man who went out there
from here and took land in settlement at the place
which has ever since been called Eiriksfjord. He
gave the land a name, and called it Greenland,
arguing that men would go there if the land had a
good name. . . .
Studies of past environments offer valuable insights into the relationships between people and climate change, and offer instructive examples of previous outcomes.



Thresholds of catastrophe can actually be crossed even in the presence of “sustainable” and responsive management strategies where changes are unpredictable and environmental impacts are not immediately apparent. Climate change may affect one part of the complex interconnecting system – such as the trade from Greenland through Iceland and into Europe – and have cascading effects outside the areas actually affected by the changing weather itself.

Commercial changes in Europe could have been key in creating sensitivities to climate change in Norse Greenland where the market shifted away from walrus ivory from Norse Greenland to Mediterranean trade routes and the re-introduction of elephant ivory on the European market.

The Norse Greenland settlements did not fail due to a lack of adaptation to harsher climatic conditions, but because of other external stresses, thus unfavourable economic changes and falling populations might actually have been the key factors in increasing the vulnerability to extinction. Adapting to climate change should not be seen as a specific and isolated issue, as the studies show, the need is to look at global changes as a whole and how each action may affect the wider world.

Professor Andrew Dugmore, of the University of Edinburgh, is presenting the findings as part of a symposium on ‘Climate Change and the long-term sustainability of societies’ at the annual conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Vancouver, Canada. He concludes “Our future will in part be shaped by climate change, and to prepare for it we can learn valuable lessons from how societies of the past have adapted and even flourished amid a backdrop of difficult conditions. Most importantly we can understand how a combination of climate and non-climate events can lead to a ‘perfect storm’ and trigger unexpected and dramatic social change.”
http://www.pasthorizonspr.com/index.php/archives/02/2012/norse-settlement-may-help-us-adapt-to-global-changes