Iceland review - 2012, Qupperneq 74

72 ICELAND REVIEW
sites in Europe or the United States. “It is
really an archaeologist’s dream because it is
a completely relict landscape,” Orri says of
the possibility for comprehensive investiga-
tion of the archaeological record left at the
Greenlandic sites.
Orri and his team also hope that the remains
will help them move closer to understanding
what happened to the colony—something
which archaeologists have debated at length
over the years. Popular theories generally
implicate environmental interactions, and the
economy and social structure of the settle-
ment.
“People are interested in trying to under-
stand how badly or well things were going
for them in the 13th and 14th centuries
before everything went wrong. And there are
growing indications that things were fine still
in the 14th century, that they were building
large churches and therefore there was obvi-
ously money to spare for structure investment.
We don’t find any signs in the archaeological
record of any economic or social crisis but
obviously you can interpret the data in differ-
ent ways… and people do,” Orri says.
By looking at the animal bones, Orri and his
team hope to gain insight into the economy of
the bishop’s seat, which was the largest estate
in the settlement. This may enable them to
put together the pieces from different sites and
help archaeologists paint a clearer picture of
the period.
CoMMoN tHeoRIeS
Climate has often been cited as a possible rea-
son for the disappearance of the settlement at
Garðar. Some blame increasingly cold weather
and the difficulties in sailing in ice-filled
waters, on which the settlers relied for external
trade and communication with Norway and
Iceland.
“Clearly there was a change that had a
significant impact at least from the 13th cen-
tury onwards. Whether it had a fatal impact is
another matter,” Orri says. “It possibly limited
their options so when they ran into trouble,
possibly for very different reasons, they had
fewer possibilities to respond. But I don’t think
you can say ‘it was cold and they all died,’
which a lot of people have been saying,” he
continues.
In his book, Collapse, Jared Diamond
suggests that the Norse damaged their envi-
ronment through deforestation, soil erosion
and the cutting of turf, ultimately leading
to the depletion of resources on which they
depended. Diamond also writes that their
failure to adapt to changing circumstances,
such as climate changes, and their over-
reliance on livestock that was ill-adapted
to Greenland’s climate, rather than marine
products for food, led to famine and the
colony’s ultimate demise.
However, Orri points out that the archae-
ological evidence suggests that the Norse
Greenlanders did in fact consume marine
products on an increasing scale, though,
unlike in Iceland, fish was not a large part
of the diet. Instead, they sourced most of
their calories from hunting, seals in particu-
lar, rather than through farming, and were
largely self-sufficient in terms of food.
Another common theory involves the
Thule Eskimos, the ancestors of the present
Inuit, who arrived in the area in the 12th
and 13th century. Some have speculated
that their arrival may have led to the demise
of the Norse colonies. “We don’t have any
unequivocal evidence that it was violent,
but we can postulate that it must have been
at times,” Orri says. The two populations
had different subsistence strategies and used
different hunting grounds. “They wouldn’t
have needed to clash over resources, but that
doesn’t mean that they didn’t,” he adds.
Social tension is also often cited as a pos-
sible reason for the eventual extinction of
the settlement. A large gap between the rich
and the poor is thought to have created ten-
sions. “When you are talking about maybe
only 2-, 3- or 4,000 people, not many
people have to leave for things to go wrong
very quickly.”
There is also another line of thought
which suggests that the settlers simply left
in search of a better life. “It could simply be
a loss of confidence at some point… that
sometime in the late 14th century people
suddenly realized that things weren’t going
as well as they used to. There were more
opportunities elsewhere,” Orri says, explain-
ing that it is thought that they may have
migrated to Iceland or Norway.
Over the years, the settlements had less
and less contact with the outside world.
“One thing that I think must have been
significant is that the king, who had his own
ship going to Greenland regularly, stopped
doing so after the middle of the 14th cen-
tury. When your king stops collecting your
taxes then surely that’s a message that you’re
no longer at the center of things,” Orri
explains, adding that the Icelandic bishops
who were appointed after 1378 AD never
traveled to Greenland.
INteRNAtIoNAl
CollAboRAtIoN
Since the 2008 banking collapse in Iceland,
state funding of archaeology projects has
been cut significantly. In the meantime,
Icelandic archaeologists are increasingly
collaborating on international projects, the
Garðar excavation being a prime exam-
ple. Experts from Iceland have joined
the National Museum and Archives of
Greenland, which is in charge of the proj-
ect, and become long-term partners with
the City University of New York. Orri and
his colleagues from Iceland are responsible
for managing the excavation and assisting
with the analysis of the artifacts.
Collaboration with other countries isn’t
new, though. Iceland has worked with
experts from the United States, the United
Kingdom and the other Nordic countries
for decades. The collaboration and fund-
ing from abroad—in this case from the
NSF (National Science Foundation) in the
United States—has been of great signifi-
cance to Icelandic archaeologists, Orri adds.
“It has been an enormous boost to the field,
and not that common in archaeology, as it
generally tends to be more geopolitically
charged,” he continues. As for the fund-
ing cuts, it’s been a tough few years, Orri
says. “Our main concern is not to lose
the expertise we have built here. We have
managed to attract quite a few fine young
people who have specialized in different
subfields of archaeology, and we are very
keen on hanging onto that expertise… but
if things don’t start to turn around soon, we
will be looking at a rather bleak future.” 
ARChAEOLOGY