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Westviking : The Ancient Norse in Greenland and North America

01 Jan 1965-
About: The article was published on 1965-01-01 and is currently open access. It has received 13 citations till now.
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Book ChapterDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors investigate whether there can be visual arguments and what a visual argument would look like if we encountered one, and if they are possible in a non-metaphorical way, are there any visual arguments?
Abstract: The chapter investigates the extension of argument into the realm of visual expression. Although images can be influential in affecting attitudes and beliefs it does not follow that such images are arguments. So we should at the outset investigate whether there can be visual arguments. To do so, we need to know what a visual argument would look like if we encountered one. How, if at all, are visual and verbal arguments related? An account of a concept of visual argument serves to establish the possibility that they exist. If they are possible in a non-metaphorical way, are there any visual arguments? Examples show that they do exist: in paintings and sculpture, in print advertisements, in TV commercials and in political cartoons. But visual arguments are not distinct in essence from verbal arguments. The argument is always a propositional entity, merely expressed differently in the two cases. And the effectiveness in much visual persuasion is not due to any arguments conveyed.

179 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The importance of cooperative bird studies as an aid to monitoring climate change is discussed in this paper, where the authors draw together data on bird distribution changes thought to have been set in motion by the 'amelioration' which followed the 1890s, and postulates how some current trends in England and Scotland may have a basis in the subsequent expansion of the polar easterlies and the weakening circulation over the Atlantic Ocean.
Abstract: Climatic fluctuations must have influenced animals and plants, as they have done human history, since the earliest times; but it is only within the present century that such events have been documented. This survey draws together data on bird distribution changes thought to have been set in motion by the 'amelioration' which followed the 1890s, and postulates how some current trends in England and Scotland may have a basis in the subsequent expansion of the polar easterlies and the weakening circulation over the Atlantic Ocean. The importance of cooperative bird studies as an aid to monitoring climatic change is discussed.

45 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors examined two examples of colonisation using the landscape learning model, particularly the concept of limitational knowledge, showing clear time gaps between practical and archaeologically identifiable adjustments to local climatic conditions and updating of the wider social understanding of the regional environments.
Abstract: Colonists arriving in eastern North America at the start of the historical period faced not only new topographies and new plant and animal communities, but also new climatic regimes. The transition from the Medieval Warm Period to the Little Ice Age several centuries earlier presented Viking settlers in the North Atlantic region with the task of learning that their new environments were more fragile and changed more rapidly than the familiar forms of those environments suggested at the outset of colonization. North American colonists arriving from England expected different environments, but also expected them to vary consistently according to latitude. Examination of these two examples of colonization using the landscape learning model, particularly the concept of limitational knowledge, shows clear time gaps between practical and archaeologically identifiable adjustments to local climatic conditions and updating of the wider social understanding of the regional environments.

33 citations


Cites background from "Westviking : The Ancient Norse in G..."

  • ...For example, similar plant communities extend across the North Atlantic from Norway to southern Greenland....

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  • ...Unlike the Viking colonization of the North Atlantic, they did not look for the same environment known at home....

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  • ...For example, studies of Viking sagas indicate that crucial pieces of information—such as sailing times and topographic landmarks across the North Atlantic (Mowat 1965; Ingstad 1969)—can be remembered and remain accurate over a couple of hundred years, even while other aspects of the stories may change....

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  • ...Recent detailed research into the Viking colonization of the North Atlantic region (McGovern and Perdikaris 2000; Simpson et al. 2001; Dugmore et al. 2007; McGovern et al. 2007) provides an important case example on the time depth of climatic understandings and their temporal, geographic, and social factors....

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  • ...For example, using measurements of sodium (Na+) and chloride (Cl-) from the GISP2 ice core, Dugmore et al. (2007) developed a cumulative deviation plot of relative storminess in the North Atlantic (Figure 1)....

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Journal Article
TL;DR: One thousand years ago, the Old World and the New stood face to face in the Strait of Belle Isle as discussed by the authors, and the landing of the Norse on the shores of North America was not the result of a sudden journey but the endpoint of a step-by-step expansion stretching over two centuries.
Abstract: ONE THOUSAND YEARS AGO, the Old World and the New stood face to face in the Strait of Belle Isle. The landing of the Norse on the shores of North America was not the result of a sudden journey but the endpoint of a step-by-step expansion stretching over two centuries. This expansion began in southwestern Norway, where chieftains and minor kings jostled for power over a growing population. In such a competitive context, migration across the North Sea to the Scottish Isles and the Faeroes was an attractive alternative to staying home. The contemporary development of seaworthy ships, capable of safely crossing open oceans and transporting people, their worldly belongings and livestock, made emigration possible. Note that the term “Norse” refers to all inhabitants of Viking Age and medieval Scandinavia, not just those of Norway (Webster 1988). Danes and Swedes were part of the migrations of this period, aptly named the Viking Age (c. 750-1050). Although they drastically affected the map of Europe, their role in the Norse ventures to North America was minor, and is therefore not discussed here. The term “Norse” is preferred here to the more popular “Viking”, which really refers to pirates or raiders. Although many men of the Viking Period would have been vikings at some time in their lives, women and children were not. The existence of Iceland may have been known in England and Ireland, and the Norse probably learned about this land from tales of Irish hermits, who were supposed to have made their way there in the eighth century. The Norse colonization of Iceland began shortly after 870, according to the Book of Settlement. This date has recently been confirmed by the date AD 871 ±2 for volcanic ash (tephra) from the Landnam layer, also found in the Greenland ice cap. The new settlers came from Norway and Norse Scotland, where the Norse were mixed with Celts and Picts through intermarriage and slavery. The distinctive genetic makeup of Ice-

21 citations

01 Jan 2003
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that the Viking westward expansion followed migratory patterns observed elsewhere, and that L'Anse aux Meadows was the Straumfjorðr, 'Fjord of Currents' of the Vinland Sagas.
Abstract: he Vinland migration represents the ultimate stage of Viking expansion, an expansion that stretched from mainland Scandinavia to new worlds where no Europeans previously had set foot However, it was a settlement that left little trace except in literature Lasting only a few years, it was an experiment quickly abandoned L’Anse aux Meadows, the Norse site in northern Newfoundland, was part of this ultimate Viking expansion In this chapter I will argue 1) that the Viking westward expansion followed migratory patterns observed elsewhere, 2) that L’Anse aux Meadows was the Straumfjorðr, ‘Fjord of Currents’ of the Vinland Sagas, 3) that it was the base camp from which other localities, including the lands in and around the Gulf of St Lawrence, were explored, and 4) that the Vinland experiment never led to settlement but was abandoned as unprofitable after a few years David Anthony, in a 1990 article, complained that archaeologists generally deal with migration in a cavalier way because they have failed to understand the structure of migratory patterns (Anthony 1990) Anthony suggests that migration encompasses components that are applicable in all large movements of people He emphasizes that migration is a process, not an event

19 citations