How did it really end?

In a city as technologically advanced as Tokyo, you'd think it would be easier to find free wifi, nope - its virtually impossible. So just a quick post on the debate about whether the Norse actually failed in Greenland. Researchers can't seem to agree on how Norse society in Greenland actually ended. Jared Diamond (2005) puts forward the description that of a dramatic collapse of society with the remaining population freezing or starving to death, or alternatively dying in a final bloody battle with the Inuits. This rather powerful Hollywood image of the defeat of the strong warrior Vikings succumbing to defeat from the environment or the better-adapted Inuits. 

Putting a face to the name: Jared Diamond, unfortunately I couldn't find a picture of Berglund.

On the other hand, Joel Berglund (2010) argues that such theories of dramatic collapse are only mirror our contemporary fears about the end of our civilisation. He argues instead that the Norse declined slowly in Greenland with the population emigrating as conditions worsened. The Vikings were known for their tendency to migrate when conditions worsened. There is no archaeological evidence from the Norse remains that they starved or froze to death. In addition only a few of the bodies have markings associated with conflict. Even in the last decades of existence there is no evidence if panic. The clothing fashions of Europe were still being followed, there was an elaborate wedding and full Christian burials were still performed. Surely a society at the brink catastrophic collapse would not be worrying about staying on the fashion trend and putting on a (relatively) resource intense wedding. This leads to Berglund to conclude that the Norse didn't fail as Diamond suggests, but that they lived in Greenland as long as it could sustain them and when that time was over they migrated to other lands.

So the jury's still out on this one. Whilst there is little evidence found so far that supports Diamond's theory, you can't use the absence of evidence of any catastrophic events to support Berglund's theory, especially as there is no known record of the Norse leaving Greenland or better yet arriving at another Norse colony.