From Vikings To Ivory Merchants: The Economy of Greenland's Lost Colonies

Upper jaw bone and tusks of a walrus used in the study. It can be dated to c.1200-1400 A.D. based on the characteristics of a runic inscription in Old Norse.(Credit: Musées du Mans)The disappearance of Norse colonists from Greenland is somewhat of a mystery. Norse settlers colonized Greenland during the Viking Age in the late 900s and lived there for several centuries before their colonies declined in the 1300s and 1400s A.D. Climate change could have driven the Greenland Norse to abandon their settlements. And there’s some evidence that changing economics — specifically, decreasing demand for walrus tusk ivory in Europe for artwork and luxury items — might have doomed the Greenland Norse as well. It’s unclear how important the walrus ivory trade was in the rise and fall of the Norse Greenland colonies, but researchers are taking concrete steps toward figuring it out. For the first time, scientists have traced the origin of medieval European ivory sources to specific populations of Atlantic walrus. Though these walruses live in a broad geographic range that includes northern Europe, the researchers found that the supply of walrus ivory in Europe from about 1100 to 1400 was dominated by long-distance imports from Greenland and Canada. It seems that the walrus-hunting Greenland Norse were monopolizing the European market for walrus ivory before their colonies disappeared. The results were published Tuesday in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.