Árbók Hins íslenzka fornleifafélags - 01.01.2011, Page 228

NUUSSUAQ – NORRÆN VEIÐISTÖÐ Á VESTUR-GRÆNLANDI? 227
Summary
During their nearly five hundred years of existence from approximately AD
985-1450, the Norse Greenland colonies supplied Europe with luxury items
such as walrus tusks, fox and polar bear skins as well as walrus hides. The wal-
rus tusks were raw material for production of both ecclesiastical and secular
art such as crosses and chessmen. The walrus hides were not luxury items, but
still highly valued due to their strength and therefore in demand as ship ropes.
Bergen, Norway, controlled the trade of these Greenland West coast trade items
which came from the area now known as Disko Bay - the hunting grounds of
the Norsemen. The medieval written sources refer to this area as Nordsetur and
they tell about the sailing distances to the hunting grounds as being 25 days, as
well as how the hunters had their shelters (bodir) up there. Important farmers
in the Greenland settlements organized the hunting expeditions. The valuable
products extracted from the Nordsetur trips could have been one important
reason why the settlements existed.
In the summer of 2008, Knut Espen Solberg, Hans Martin Halvorsen, Anne
Brunborg and Inge Knudsen sailed the 43 foot sailing vessel “Jotun Arctic“
up to the Disko Bay area. The aim of the journey was to survey some of the
many prehistoric and historic sites along the coastline of Disko Island and
the Nuussuaq peninsula, north of Vaigat Sound. Six Paleo-Eskimo and Neo-
Eskimo sites were surveyed on the western side of Disko Island. The major-
ity of the trip was spent at Nuussuaq, as this was the location of the Norse
Medieval stone storehouse Bjørnefelden (Bear trap) named by the first Danish
archaeologists visiting Nuussuaq. In the vicinity of the Bjørnefelden, there are
several different turf structures. Some are of recent origin, probably Inuit win-
ter houses as well as older Thule dwellings. Near the storehouse two square
turf structures are barely visible. The square shape differs from the typical round
Eskimo and Inuit houses which are usually found along the Greenland Coast.
Both the shape and size of the two are very much the same as structures found
at Medieval (and later) Icelandic fishing stations. In this article I discuss how
Nuussuaq could have been a possible Norse hunting station in Medieval times
– a location where the Norse hunters stayed while hunting walrus. The fact
that groups of Thule Eskimos lived in the region from around 1200 makes it
possible that Thule Eskimos and Norse hunters met near or at Nuussuaq and
exchanged products such as iron and walrus tusks. Evidence of cultural interac-
tion is found in the archaeological remains on both sides of the Davis Strait.