The Collapse of the Greenland

Norse

How and why the Greenland Norse

failed to succeed

By: AJ, Lewis, Taylor, &Ha

 Greenland
•Biggest island in the world

•Whole island is 2,175,600 km

•Only 383,600 km is ice free

 Climate

• Temperatures constantly changing

• The warmest it gets is around 50

Degrees Fahrenheit and that’s
only in certain places during the
summer months

• Lots of ice
 The Damage to the Environment
• Destroyed natural vegetation
• Deforested the area
• Destroyed the usefulness of the
land by cutting turf for housing
• Overgrazing prevented regeneration
of trees
 Inuit
• Expanded eastward across Canada and entered NW
Greenland over the course of nearly 4,000 years
before the Norse arrived.

• There predecessors were a culture called the Dorset

People Which were very similar except for there
hunting techniques
 Climate change
• While they were destroying the natural resources,
the climate began to change
• 1300’s to 1400’s began what is known as “little ice
age”
• This worsened the problems that the Norse were
already encountering
• This also froze up trade routes by sea
Hunting
• Big difference that set apart the
Inuit and the Dorset and Norse
people is the way they hunted.
• The Inuit used more advanced
methods including Using
Dogsleds and bows and arrows(
Dorset didn’t have bows and
Arrows.)
• They also hunted whales which
neither the Norse or the Dorset
attempted.
• Hunting whales provided food for
the large settlements the Inuit
lived in.
 Inuit
• Rather than having the Inuit as trading
partners they were at war with them
• The Inuit are known to have staged attacks on
the settlement, which undoubtedly did not
help things