SC - Viking and early Irish foods

[Crystal A. Isaac]

I suspect the same settlement was written up in "Science" within the
past year. Very interesting article, and perhaps more find-able than the
PBS show. If I can find the magazine, I'll forward more information.

Crystal

Joseph M. Lane wrote:
> On Thu, 19 Mar 1998, Par Leijonhuvud wrote:
snip
> I saw an interesting show on PBS detailing the Viking settlement in
> Greenland and it's subsequent demise a few hundred years later.  the
> The Geologists documented a slowly cooling climate with a shorter growing
> season. Slightly moister too (ergot on the rye). Archaeologists documented
> an increase in cattle bones in the middens (trash piles) indicating that
> they were eating their breeding stock.  toward the end of the
> Vikings' settlement period, dog bones appeared in the food midden.  The
> Eskimo settlements on the islands indicated abundant seafood (seals,
> whales, fish) for the same time period.  The Archaeologists concluded that
> the Greenland Vikings were too dietary ethnocentric -- too ingrained in
> their own culturally dictated menus to try the native foods.  This refusal
> to switch to seafoods meant their extinction.  A very sad story.
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