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The sources on the settlement of Greenland are sparse. The main sources are the Íslendingabók by the scholar Ari Thorgilsson, the Landnámabók (the land seizure book) by an unknown author, but probably with Ari's involvement, [2] the anonymous Grænlendinga saga (Saga of the Greenlanders) and the also anonymous Saga of Erik the Red.
The history of Greenland is a history of life under extreme Arctic conditions: currently, an ice sheet covers about eighty percent of the island, restricting human activity largely to the coasts. The first humans are thought to have arrived in Greenland around 2500 BCE.
While the diet of the first settlers consisted of 80% agricultural products and 20% marine food, from the 14th century the Greenland Norsemen had 50–80% of their diet from the sea. [ 3 ] [ 4 ] In the Greenlandic Inuit oral tradition , there is a legend about why the Norse population of Hvalsey died out and why their houses and churches are in ...
1940: Denmark is occupied by Nazi Germany and Greenland is therefore cut off. The United States assumes custody over the island. 1945: Greenland is given back to Denmark but the US and NATO use the island as a base for operations. 1953: Greenland is now integrated with Denmark and has representation in Denmark's parliament.
Viking expansion was the historical movement which led Norse explorers, traders and warriors, the latter known in modern scholarship as Vikings, to sail most of the North Atlantic, reaching south as far as North Africa and east as far as Russia, and through the Mediterranean as far as Constantinople and the Middle East, acting as looters, traders, colonists and mercenaries.
c. 1000: Erik the Red and Leif Ericson, Viking navigators, discovered and settled Greenland, Helluland (possibly Baffin Island), Markland (now called Labrador), and Vinland (now called Newfoundland). The Greenland colony lasted until the 15th century. c. 1350: The Norse Western Settlement in Greenland was abandoned.
Free peasants (karlar). They owned farms, land and cattle, and engaged in chores like ploughing the fields, milking the cows, and building houses and wagons, but used thralls to make ends meet. Other names for karls were bonde or simply free men. Similar classes were churls and huskarls. [157] Aristocracy (jarlar). They were wealthy and owned ...
Brattahlíð still has some of the best farmland in Greenland, owing to its location at the inner end of Eriksfjord, which protects it from the cold foggy weather and arctic waters of the outer coast. It has a youth hostel and a small store. More extensive facilities exist in Narsarsuaq across the fjord.