Vikings in the West Atlantic: A Model of Norse Greenlandic Medieval Society
15 May 2017-pp 25-46
About: The article was published on 2017-05-15. It has received 6 citations till now.
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Dissertation•
28 May 2020
TL;DR: In this article, the authors investigated the social and religious dynamic at play in processes of religious conversion within two cultures, the Sami and the Scandinavian (Norse), and examined some particular forces bearing upon this process, forces originating from within the cultures in question, working, it is argued, to dispute, disrupt and thereby counteract the pressures placed upon these indigenous communities by the missionary campaigns each was subjected to.
Abstract: This dissertation undertook to investigate the social and religious dynamic at play in processes of religious conversion within two cultures, the Sami and the Scandinavian (Norse). More specifically, it examined some particular forces bearing upon this process, forces originating from within the cultures in question, working, it is argued, to dispute, disrupt and thereby counteract the pressures placed upon these indigenous communities by the missionary campaigns each was subjected to. The two spheres of dispute or ambivalence towards the abandonment of indigenous religion and the adoption of the religion of the colonial institution (the Church) which were examined were: economic activity perceived as unsustainable without the 'safety net' of having recourse to appeal to supernatural powers to intervene when the economic affairs of the community suffered crisis; and the inheritance of ancestral tradition. Within the indigenous religious tradition of the Sami communities selected as comparanda for the purposes of the study, ancestral tradition was embodied, articulated and transmitted by particular supernatural entities, personal guardian spirits. Intervention in economic affairs fell within the remit of these spirits, along with others, which may be characterized as guardian spirits of localities, and guardian spirits of particular groups of game animals (such as wild reindeer, fish). These same roles and functions may have been assigned to guardian spirits within the religious conceptions of Scandinavian communities, and an attempt was made to demonstrate that this was at least partially the case. Personal guardian spirits were certainly heritable in both cultures; to accept and receive them as inheritance was an act and an event which expressed and demonstrated an individual's place within a family (either as blood relative or in-law, or sometimes friend) and the body of tradition which that family possessed and enacted. In both cultures these spirits were key constituents of the web of indigenous religious conceptions, and central cogs in the machine of relations with the supernatural sphere; as such they represented and embodied the primus motor of 'paganism' in the eyes of missionaries, and were accordingly demonized and targeted for some of the most vehement bile directed by the Church against the indigenous religion. Other themes, both broader and narrower, addressed or touched upon in the present study include: continuity and discontinuity of religious customs in the conversion and post-conversion eras; contextualization of religious and magical rituals within the immediate social, ecological and economic circumstances to which the community which had recourse to said rituals was subject; Christian attitudes to inherited cultural traditions, encompassing revisionism, rehabilitation of 'pagan' ancestors, the concept of the 'noble heathen', the de-sacralizing of 'pagan' cosmology and its preservation for posterity; indigenous religious discourse, and specifically that placed into the mouths of (or articulated by) personal guardian spirits, as an expression and externalization of the experience of conversion and the behaviour, tone and rhetoric of missionaries and missionary kings; folk religiosity as social and political dissidence contra the alliance of state and orthodox religion; and more generally the humanspirit contract and partnership and the dynamic pertaining within it.
13 citations
Cites background from "Vikings in the West Atlantic: A Mod..."
...This is particularly interesting in light of the dominant influence which some scholars assume the representatives of the Church in Greenland had on the overarching economic strategy of the settlements there (on which see e.g. Keller 1991:135)....
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...…obtained in the Greenland settlements, as does the topographical situation, in that 'eal þæt hís man aþer oððe ettan oððe erian mæg þæt lið wið ða sæ; & þæt is þæh on sumum stowum swyðe cludig' (‘All the land that can be grazed or ploughed lies by 249 Keller 1991:132, 139; McGovern 1992:195....
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TL;DR: In this paper, documentary records and archaeological site evidence of medieval Norse marine-resource use in Greenland on local to regional scales are reviewed and the existence of at least four types of seasonally occupied, specialized satellite sites related to marine resource use is inferred.
Abstract: The Norse that settled Greenland between ca. AD 985 and 1450 were sedentary agropastoralists that combined farming with hunting and organized after a North Atlantic socioeconomic model. Research of the last 40 years has emphasized the great and increasing importance of marine resources for both the Greenland Norse local subsistence economy and long-distance trade. However, the archaeological sites and features associated with the marine economy have not been systematically investigated. This study reviews documentary records and archaeological site evidence of medieval Norse marine-resource use in Greenland on local to regional scales. Contextualizing this evidence within a locally adjusted, Arctic version of a general North Atlantic settlement and land-use model, and applying a formalized interpretational framework, the study implies the existence of at least four types of seasonally occupied, specialized satellite sites related to marine-resource use—sites that tentatively may be labeled “marine shielings.” Marine shielings likely served to improve the expediency and safety of Norse marine-resource use on both Greenland’s west and east coasts, where marine hunting appears to have been a frequent, specialized, and cooperative activity.
11 citations
Additional excerpts
...(Keller 1990)....
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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors assess the potential impact of climate change on consumer welfare in Greenland, an arctic economy that has been historically affected by climate variation and show that the annual mass change anomaly of the ice cap is a statistically and economically significant determinant of consumption of non-durable goods.
6 citations
Dissertation•
04 Dec 2015TL;DR: In this article, an approche retrospective has been realized on trois sequences of lacustres retracant l’histoire paleo-environnementale of the Groenland region.
Abstract: Dans le cadre du changement climatique global, mieux comprendre les interactions Hommes/Environnement/Climat au sud-ouest du Groenland est aujourd’hui un enjeu majeur pour developper des strategies d’adaptation tout en preservant au mieux les ecosystemes. Pour cela, une approche retrospective a ete realisee sur trois sequences lacustres retracant l’histoire paleo-environnementale sur les 5000 derniers millenaires. Le lac d’Igaliku (N61°00’22’’, O45°26’28’’), situe a 2 km de la capitale episcopale medievale au cœur de la region agricole groenlandaise, a une sedimentation principalement influencee par les activites anthropiques. Un inventaire moleculaire complet a ete realise sur cette sequence pour caracteriser les dynamiques agropastorales passees et leurs impacts sur les ecosystemes. Les biomarqueurs fecaux identifie ont notamment permis de mettre en evidence deux phases agropastorales majeures (la periode d’occupation viking et la periode recente) separees par le Petit Âge Glaciaire (PAG), pratiquant un elevage predominant d’ovins. Les biomarqueurs moleculaires de vegetation (n-alcanes, acetates de triterpenyles) couplees a des donnees palynologiques montrent une reduction du couvert arbustif au cours de ces deux phases. Par ailleurs, les biomarqueurs d’erosion des sols (TTHCs) couplees aux donnees sedimentaires indiquent une erosion drastique qu’autour des annees 1980 lors de la creation de parcelles de fourrage par labour mecanise. De meme, ce n’est que sur le dernier siecle qu’une alteration de l’etat trophique du lac d’Igaliku associee a des pratiques de fertilisation des parcelles de fourrage est observee avec une augmentation des chaines courtes d’n-alcanes et plus particulierement des diatomees mesotrophes. Les lacs de Qallimiut (N60°43’27’’, O45°23’12’’) et de Little Kangerluluup (N60°38’32’’, O45°38’11’’), situes en contexte faiblement anthropise, sont alimentes par des tributaires a forte variabilite hydrologique. Ils correspondent a des systemes sedimentaires domines par des apports clastiques sous controle climatique dominant. Afin d’ameliorer la resolution spatiale et temporelle des changements climatiques holocenes dans cette region, une etude sedimentaire multi-parametre a ete realisee sur ces deux sites. Des analyses petrophysiques, granulometriques, mineralogiques et geochimiques ont mis en evidence des niveaux de crues frequents au cours des episodes froids et humides comme la transition Milieu/Fin de l’Holocene (ca. 2500 BC), la transition Sub-boreal/Sub-atlantique (ca. 700 BC) et le PAG (entre ca. 1300 AD et ca. 1900 AD), synchrones a des periodes de minimas solaires. Ces episodes de deteriorations climatiques ont particulierement influence les societes humaines successives installees des ca. 2500 BC au Groenland. Un maximum de frequence de crues et une baisse drastique des temperatures sont notamment enregistres pendant le PAG, indiquant qu’il s’agit de l’episode le plus froid enregistre au sud du Groenland au cours de la seconde moitie de l’Holocene, responsable en grande partie de l’abandon de ces terres par les agriculteurs vikings au milieu du XVeme siecle.
4 citations
Cites background from "Vikings in the West Atlantic: A Mod..."
...Les fermes situées sur les meilleures terres donc possédant les troupeaux les plus importants, redistribuaient probablement la viande, le lait et la laine pour les autres fermes plus petites qui leur fournissaient en retour des produits de la chasse et de la pêche (Keller, 1990)....
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10 Jun 2021
TL;DR: This new situation presents Scandinavian rcsearchers with many practical, ethical and political challenges, but if they take them seriously and take their work seriously, they may often be rewarded.
Abstract: During the past two decades Scandinavian archaeologists have increasingly participated in projects abroad. Only a few of the projects are based on past cultural-historical links, while the majority are based on comparative and collaborative perspectives, often on other continents. The reason for this development is partly the theoretical development within the discipline, and partly also changes in funding policies. This new situation presents Scandinavian rcsearchers with many practical, ethical and political challenges, but if we take them seriously we may often be rewarded.
2 citations