60 Journal of the North Atlantic Volume 2
Seals and Sea Ice in Medieval Greenland
Astrid E.J. Ogilvie1,*, James M. Woollett2, Konrad Smiarowski3, Jette Arneborg4, Simon Troelstra5, Antoon
Kuijpers6, Albina Pálsdóttir3, and Thomas H. McGovern3
Abstract - Multidisciplinary approaches are used to examine possible changes in North Atlantic sea-ice cover, in the context
of seal hunting, during the period of the Norse occupation of Greenland (ca. 985–1500). Information from Iceland is also
used in order to amplify and illuminate the situation in Greenland. Data are drawn mainly from zooarchaeological analyses,
but written records of climate and sea-ice variations, as well as paleoclimatic data sets are also discussed. Although it should
be noted that any use of seal bones from excavated archaeofauna (animal bone collections from archaeological sites) must
recognize the fi ltering effects of past human economic organization, technology, and seal-hunting strategies, it is suggested
that differing biological requirements of the six seal species most commonly found in Arctic/North Atlantic regions may
provide a potential proxy for past climate, in particular sea-ice conditions. It is concluded that an increase in the taking of
harp seals, as opposed to common seals, in the Norse Greenland “Eastern Settlement” in the late-fourteenth century, may
refl ect an increase in summer drift-ice.
1INSTAAR, University of Colorado, Campus Box 450, Boulder, CO, 80309-0450, USA. 2Université Laval, Québec, Canada
G1K 7P4G. 3Hunter College, CUNY, 695 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10065, USA. 4 National Museum of Denmark, Danish
Middle Ages and Renaissance, Frederiksholms Kanal 12, DK-1220 København K, Denmark. 5Department of Paleoclimatology
and Geomorphology, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam De Boelelaan 1085, 1081HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
6De Nationale Geologiske Undersøgelser for Danmark og Grønland, Øster Voldgade 10, DK-1350 København K, Denmark.
*Corresponding author - Astrid.Ogilvie@Colorado.edu.
Introduction: Transitions and Thresholds
It is claimed that there are all sorts of seals, too, in
those seas, and that they have a habit of following
the ice, as if abundant food would never be wanting
there. (Larsen trans. 1917, The King’s Mirror-
Speculum Regale-Konungs Skuggsjá:139.)
Both humans and marine mammals have an intricate
and complex relationship with sea ice. For people
living in the Arctic and Subarctic, the presence of the
ice can appear as a friend (e.g., facilitating hunting or
transport) or as an enemy (e.g., disrupting fi sheries
and navigation) (e.g., Meldgaard 1995, Ogilvie 2008,
Ogilvie and Jónsdóttir 2000). For certain marine
mammals, the ice is a vital component of their life cycle
and habitat. With the current rapidly diminishing
Arctic sea-ice cover, a number of studies are underway
to consider the impacts of this major change on
Arctic peoples and animals in the present and future
(e.g., Gearheard et al. 2006, Huntington and Moore
2008 and papers therein, Ogilvie et al. 2009). With a
view to placing such developments in the context of
changes in the past, the focus of this paper is an interdisciplinary
study of the interaction of different seal
species in Arctic/North Atlantic regions with sea ice,
and, more specifi cally, the implications for the Norse
settlements in Greenland in medieval times. Although
it was not until the 1970s, with the development of
satellite imagery, that truly accurate sea-ice monitoring
became possible, the existence of a number of
data sets documenting past sea-ice variations in the
North Atlantic region make it feasible to consider past
impacts on both humans and seals.
One hypothesis that will be considered here is
that variations in climate played a part in changes and
shifts in the seal-hunting patterns of the Norse Greenlanders.
Certainly, a transition from less to more ice
would be a major threshold shift with serious implications
for both marine biology and human society.
The reasons for the presence of more or less ice must
also taken be into account. Studies of the incidence
of sea ice reaching the coasts of Iceland have established
a close correlation with temperatures on land
(Bergthórsson 1969; Ogilvie 1984, 1991, 1992, 1998,
2005, 2008), but the reasons for the presence of sea
ice are complex. A large quantity of ice in a certain location
could mean colder sea temperatures, and hence
a colder climate, or it could also indicate calving icebergs
from glaciers during a warmer climatic phase.
Data Sources: Interdisciplinary Evidence
Although the major focus of this paper draws on
archaeological data concerning Norse Greenland,
it is possible to use evidence, both archaeological
and documentary, from Iceland, in order to cast
light on conditions in Greenland. The history of the
two countries became intertwined when settlers left
Iceland around ca. AD 985 (Benediktsson 1968) to
form two colonies. One, the larger, was known as
the “Eastern Settlement” and was located in the area
now occupied by the new municipality of Kujalleq
(comprising the former municipalities of Nanortalik,
Narsaq, and Qaqortoq) in the far southwest. (Qaqortog
was previously known as Julianehåb.) The other,
much smaller “Western Settlement” was located
close to the area of what is now Greenland’s capital,
Nuuk (formerly Godthåb), a little further to the
north on the west coast (Fig. 1).While it is diffi cult
2009 Journal of the North Atlantic Volume 2:60–80
2009 A.E.J. Ogilvie, J.M. Woollett, K. Smiarowski, J. Arneborg, S. Troelstra, A. Kuijpers, A. Pálsdóttir, and T.H. McGovern 61
to estimate the exact population of the Greenland
Norse, it has been suggested that at the height of
the settlements there may have been around 4000
to 5000 inhabitants in the Eastern Settlement and
1000 to 1500 in the Western Settlement (McGovern
1981). However, more recent calculations suggest a
smaller peak population of about 1000 to 1200 in the
Eastern Settlement, and 500 to 800 in the Western
Settlement, with a cumulative population over the
whole settlement period of around 25,000 individuals
(Lynnerup 1996.)
A rich archaeological record is available for both
Greenland and Iceland; however, the historical documentary
evidence for Norse Greenland is relatively
sparse (Halldórsson 1978, Ogilvie 1998), and most
of what exists was written in Iceland or Norway. Nevertheless,
this latter evidence may help to cast light
on conditions in Greenland in the past. Of particular
interest is the historical evidence concerning sea-ice
variations off the coasts of Iceland (Fig. 2; Bergthórsson
1969; Ogilvie 1991, 2005; Ogilvie and Jónsson
2001). Proxy climate records (e.g., Andrews et al.
2009, Dietrich et al. 2004, 2005, Jennings and Weiner
1996, Jensen et al. 2004, Kristjánsdóttir 2005, Moros
et al. 2006, Roncaglia and Kuijpers 2004) also give
valuable information regarding past variations in
climatic conditions and sea-ice cover. Although lack
of space precludes any detailed methodological discussion
regarding the use of the data presented here, it
may be noted that all climate proxy data sets, whether
from natural archives or in the form of written documentary
records, must be analyzed in the manner appropriate
to them. For further information, see, e.g.,
Bell and Ogilvie (1978) and Ogilvie (1984, 1991,
1998) regarding documentary evidence, and the references
cited above regarding proxy climate data from
natural archives. It should also be noted that any use
of seal bones from excavated archaeofauna (animal
bone collections from archaeological sites) must recognize
the fi ltering effects of past human economic
organization, technology, and seal-hunting strategies
(e.g., Woollett 2007).
Sea Ice
Ice on the sea, “sea ice,” essentially has two
possible origins: i) from frozen seawater which
forms directly on the surface of the ocean; and ii)
from icebergs which have broken off from calving
glaciers (Fig. 3). It is one of the most important and
variable components of the planetary surface and is
thus the key to understanding many basic questions
concerning the energy balance of the Earth. The icecovered
seas represent the cold end of the vast heat
engine that enables the Earth to have temperatures
suitable for human life over most of its surface.
Sea ice also helps drive the oceanic thermohaline
circulation through salt rejected by ice formation in
critical regions, and directly affects climate through
its high albedo, which causes sea ice retreat to have
Figure 1. This map of the North Atlantic regions shows the location of the Norse Eastern and Western Settlements as well
as the Northern Hunting Grounds (Norðursetur) around the Disko Bay area. Map drawn by Kerry-Anne Mairs.
62 Journal of the North Atlantic Volume 2
a positive effect on global warming (e.g., Wadhams
2000). The causes of the drift of sea ice is not simply
a question of colder climate; it is, among other
things, a complex amalgam of variations in ocean
currents and surface winds. The most interesting feature
of Arctic sea ice at present is the rate at which
it is melting, and the projection by models that there
is likely to be an even more rapid reduction in the
extent and seasonal duration of sea ice in the future
(Stroeve et al. 2007, 2008). The implications of
these changes are a major cause for concern, for both
humans and marine fauna and fl ora.
The sea-ice record from Iceland based on historical
data (Fig. 2) does not become continuous until
AD 1600, but fascinating descriptions of sea ice
in the North Atlantic also exist for earlier periods
(Ogilvie 1991, 1992). The earliest detailed account
of sea ice is found in the Konungs Skuggsjá or The
Kings’ Mirror (Larsen 1917, Jónsson 1920), an instructional
handbook on behavior for all classes of
society, but especially kings, composed in Norway
most probably around AD 1250 (Holtsmark 1956–
1978; Ogilvie 1991, 2005). This remarkable work
also gives illuminating information on a variety of
subjects encompassing human societies and also the
natural world. The description is clear and detailed,
unlike many other medieval writings. The unknown
author clearly had first-hand information from
someone familiar with Norse Greenland and the surrounding
seas. The account of known seal species is
of particular interest (see below). Some 100 years
later, in ca. 1350, a geographical description given
in the Icelandic Guðmundur saga biskups Arasonar
(The Saga of Bishop Guðmundur Arason) by Abbot
Arngrímur Brandsson contains a description of
Iceland which notes the presence of much sea ice
off the coasts. Although historical sources need to
be subjected to careful analysis, this account of the
ice is judged to be reliable, as are the accounts referring
to sea ice and seal species in The King’s Mirror
(Ogilvie 1991, 1997). The same may not be said of a
more problematic account, possibly originating from
ca. 1360. This document is termed in modern Icelandic
Grænlandslýing Ívar Bárðarsonar, or, translated
Figure 2. Although the diagram above shows the incidence of sea ice off the coasts of Iceland during a later period than that under
consideration here, it illustrates the great variability of the ice from year to year and decade to decade. See Ogilvie (1992, 2005).
Figure 3. An iceberg in Eiríksfjord, near Brattahlið. Photograph
© A.E.J. Ogilvie, 2008.
2009 A.E.J. Ogilvie, J.M. Woollett, K. Smiarowski, J. Arneborg, S. Troelstra, A. Kuijpers, A. Pálsdóttir, and T.H. McGovern 63
into English, The Description of Greenland according
to Ívar Bárðarson (Halldórsson 1978, Jonsson
1930). It was fi rst written in the language of “middle
Norwegian” and the original form of its title is likely
to have been Iffver Bardsen Grönlænder (C. Keller,
IKOS, Oslo, Norway, pers. comm.). This work poses
interpretative difficulties primarily because the
original text is no longer extant. Furthermore, the
transmission of the existing version is complex. It is
likely that it is a compilation of several manuscripts
which were probably fi rst collected and copied in
Bergen in the early 1500s (C. Keller., pers. comm.;
Ogilvie 1991, 1997; Ogilvie and Jónsson 2001). Included
in its brief account are sailing directions from
Iceland to Greenland, and the information that the
old route has become diffi cult due to the presence of
sea ice. Although it is possible that the greater part
of the work may be reliable, the mention of sea ice
is almost certainly not part of the original account,
but a later interpolation. This interesting description
is tantalizing because is not known precisely when
the insert on sea ice was written or, indeed, if it is
accurate (Ogilvie 1991, Ogilvie and Jónsson 2001).
Two remarkable examples of reliable early geographical
treatises were written in Iceland in the late
1500s. These are the Brevis Commentarius de Islandia
(A Brief Commentary on Iceland) by Arngrímur
Jónsson (1568–1648) who was nicknamed “the
learned” (published by Benediktsson [1950], and in
Hakluyt’s voyages [1928]). This work was compiled
in an attempt to refute erroneous accounts of Iceland,
which suggested that hell itself was to be found
in Mount Hekla or on the sea ice (Ogilvie 2005). The
Qualiscunque Descriptio Islandiæ (A Draft Description
of Iceland) was fi rst published in an Icelandic
translation in 1971. In the introduction to his edition
of this latter work, Benediktsson argues convincingly
that the author was Oddur Einarsson, Bishop
of Skálholt (1559–1630). However, for a different
viewpoint, see also Sigmarsson (2003). Written in
Latin in the early 1590s, these two works are the
earliest Icelandic accounts which give accurate and
detailed descriptions of sea ice (Ogilvie 2005). After
around AD 1600, there are numerous sources which
describe sea ice (Ogilvie 1984 et seq.). Both early
and later sources refer to the hunting of seals on sea
ice, as well as to the taking of seals and other marine
mammals, such as whales, when trapped in ice close
to the shore (Ogilvie 2008).
North Atlantic Seal Biogeography and Behaviour
Six species of seals are found in the modern
North Atlantic (King 1983, Ridgway and Harrison
1981, Riedman 1990). For their distribution,
see Marine Mammals of the World available online
at http://nlbif.eti.uva.nl/bis/marine_mammals.
php?menuentry=atlas. The most widespread is the
common (also called harbor) seal, Phoca vitulina,
which is found in both Atlantic and Pacifi c waters
(Bigg 1981). These terms, “common” and “harbor,”
seal are used interchangeably here. In eastern and
western Atlantic waters, the common seal is found
in two sub-specifi c groups (eastern: P. v. vitulina,
western: P. v. concolor) with a range extending from
warm temperate waters into Arctic regions such as
Baffi n Bay. In Arctic/Atlantic regions, these seals do
not generally haul out on the ice. Pupping takes place
later in the year than for harp, ringed, and bearded
seals, in areas with open water. The seals form small
concentrations at favored hauling-out spots on sandy
beaches, sandbars, and skerries, where pups are born
and raised in early spring. These regularly used pupping
and hauling-out points make this species vulnerable
to on-shore human hunters, and common seal
populations are particularly subject to local extinction
or dispersal by over-hunting. While adult common
seals are at home in ice-fi lled waters, their pups are
much more vulnerable, and common seal populations
do not thrive in areas with substantial summer drift ice
(Woollett 1999, 2003, 2007; Woollett et al. 2000).
The grey seal, Halichoerus grypus, is far less
common, and is a much larger and more aggressive
seal, found in three distinct populations in Canada,
the Eastern North Atlantic (Iceland, Faroes, British
Isles, Norway, North Sea coasts), and the Baltic.
While capable of breeding on ice fl oes, the grey seal
is mainly north temperate in distribution, and is not
regularly found in Greenland. Grey seals also form
annual breeding and pupping concentrations, generally
in smaller groups on offshore rocks less accessible
from land than the common seal haul-outs, and
are thus somewhat less immediately vulnerable to human
predation. Highly visible in coastal areas, common
and grey seals have been taken by human hunters
in the eastern North Atlantic since the Mesolithic era,
and are still regularly killed by fi shermen seeking to
limit competition. Neither common seals nor grey
seals are migratory, and thus local groups of both species
are subject to overexploitation or extirpation.
Ringed seals, Pusa hispida, are true arctic seals,
capable of making and maintaining breathing holes
in fast ice. They have an early breeding season, pup
on fast ice, and regularly maintain ice dens in which
pups are born. Ringed seals have a wide circumpolar
distribution, and are also found in the northern
Baltic, with related species occurring in the Caspian
Sea and Lake Baikal. This seal is non-migratory
and does not form substantial seasonal concentrations,
but is common within its distribution area,
forming a major food source for both polar bears
and human hunters across both low and high arctic
regions. It has been hunted since prehistoric times
(Murray 2005).
64 Journal of the North Atlantic Volume 2
Bearded seals, Erignathus barbatus, are very
large seals with a circumpolar distribution that also
are capable of maintaining breathing holes and surviving
in high-arctic conditions. Like the ringed
seals, they are not migratory, and neither species is
regularly encountered in southern Norway, the British
Isles, the Faroes, or Iceland. Complex, speciesdiverse
patches of populations exist in areas with
heterogeneous environments in close contact with
outside “core” populations which are sources for recruitment
to other populations. While there is some
overlap between the ranges of the north temperate
non-migratory seals (common and grey seals) and the
arctic non-migratory seals (ringed and bearded seals),
year-round ice conditions strongly favor the arcticadapted
species in range-margin competition (as in
Labrador; Woollett 1999, 2003; Woollett et al. 2000).
In addition to these pairs of non-migratory north
temperate and arctic seals, the North Atlantic is also
home to two species of ice-riding migratory seals.
The harp seal, Phoca groenlandica, has three distinct
populations: one northwest Atlantic population
breeding on the early spring ice in the Gulf of St.
Lawrence and off Newfoundland and southern Labrador,
and then migrating up the coast of Greenland;
another East Greenland sea population breeding near
Jan Mayen Island in the northeast Atlantic; and a
third population breeding in the Barents Sea/White
Sea area. In spite of human predation, harp seals are
probably the most numerous seals on earth, with current
population estimates for the northwest Atlantic
group ranging between 4–6 million. Individual
seals are occasionally encountered as far south as
New York harbor, but most harp seals are normally
closely associated with movements of drift ice in the
North Atlantic. The migratory pattern of the northwest
Atlantic population brings them to the southwest
coast of Greenland regularly each spring in
immense numbers, and they travel northwards along
the west coast to north of Disko Bay before returning
to the Canadian coast. The northwest Atlantic harp
seal population thus represents a major resource for
human hunters on both sides of Davis Strait.
The other migratory ice-riding seal species is
the hooded or bladder-nosed seal, Cystophora cristata,
a larger animal with a smaller population size
(northwest Atlantic modern population estimated at
around 400,000). Four distinct hooded seal populations
(their range often overlapping with harp seals)
can be found on the pack ice near Jan Mayen Island,
off Labrador and northeastern Newfoundland, in the
Gulf of St. Lawrence, and in Davis Strait southwest
of Greenland. These large migratory seals follow a
somewhat different path from the harp seals, congregating
with the harps off the fjords of southwest
Greenland in the spring, but then mainly moving up
the east coast of Greenland in summer. Inhabiting
pack-ice masses far offshore, they are not accessible
to human hunters in much of west Greenland, apart
from the extreme southwest.
The six species of North Atlantic seals may thus
be said to form three pairs: a north temperate group
(common and grey seals); a high-arctic group (ringed
and bearded seals); and an ice-riding migratory group
(harp and hooded seals). In each case, the smaller of
the pair is the more numerous, and harp seals probably
greatly outnumber all other species combined.
These three pairs of species do have partially overlapping
ranges, but have very different associations with
summer and winter drift and fast ice. Their behavior
also produces quite different vulnerabilities to human
hunting. The common and grey seal populations
most familiar to Celtic and Nordic hunters prior to
the trans-Atlantic expansion of the Viking age form
predictable seasonal concentrations at recurring locations—
excellent hunting targets, but subject to depletion
and local extinction. The dispersed but abundant
arctic ringed and bearded seals have long provided
a key resource for North American arctic hunters,
but require specialized harpoon technology and icehunting
skills for their regular capture. The migratory
seals (especially harp seals) are present in large numbers
for a relatively short period of time over most of
their range, requiring a highly focused but potentially
very productive hunting effort. The differing biological
requirements of these six seal species provide a
potential set of proxies for past climate, especially
sea-ice conditions.
Norse Seal Hunting in the North Atlantic
Seal hunting in the Baltic and North Atlantic extended
into the Mesolithic era, and, through the centuries,
different cultures have made use of a wide variety
of hunting techniques (Armit 1996, Clark 1946,
Härkönen et al. 2005, Storå 2002). The Viking-age
settlers of the North Atlantic islands thus had a long
heritage of sealing, but by the ninth century AD,
seal hunting had become a very limited portion of
a subsistence economy centered on fi shing, barley
growing, and herding of domestic mammals in most
of western Scandinavia and the British Isles. Archaeofauna
from both Pictish and Norse contexts in
Shetland, Orkney, Caithness, and the Hebrides, usually
produce some common and grey seal bones, but
these comprise far less than 10% of each collection
(Perdikaris and McGovern 2008). Similar patterns
are refl ected in Viking-medieval archaeofauna from
Sandoy in the Faroe Islands (Church et al. 2005)
and in most Viking-age Icelandic sites (McGovern
et al. 2001). In the eastern North Atlantic during the
Viking Age and early medieval period, seals (almost
exclusively common and grey seals) thus tended to
represent a locally useful supplement to subsistence,
2009 A.E.J. Ogilvie, J.M. Woollett, K. Smiarowski, J. Arneborg, S. Troelstra, A. Kuijpers, A. Pálsdóttir, and T.H. McGovern 65
an occasional source of good quality fat and skins,
and a product that could sometimes fi nd its way far
inland, but not a critical staple for either regular subsistence
or large-scale external trade. The situation
was somewhat different in Greenland, however. For
a comparison of the frequency of seal bones versus
mammal bones found in a sampling of sites across
the North Atlantic, see Figure 4.
Seal Hunting in Iceland
The practice and history of seal hunting in Iceland
has been documented in great detail by Luðvík
Kristjánsson (1980) and is clearly as old as the fi rst
settlement. Seals appear to have been an extremely
important addition to the daily diet, especially at
times when other traditional food sources failed. Several
proverbs testify to this fact, including Selurinn er
sæla í búi “A seal means contentment in the home.”
The main seals that were hunted were landselur
(common seal), útselur (grey seal) and also vöðuselur
(harp seal). Luðvík Kristjánsson states that the
blöðruselur (hooded seal), kampselur (bearded seal),
and especially hringanóri (ringed seal) were also taken.
Kristjánsson describes the ways in which the seals
were hunted, including the varied uses of netting and
clubbing. Seal hunting appears to have been practiced
all around the coasts of Iceland, although he notes
that harp seals were only caught on the north and west
coasts, and that the usual method was harpooning,
although netting was also used in the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries. Kristjánsson also describes a
variety of additional methods used in seal hunting,
including the digging of pits, and the placing of iron
spikes on rocks where the seals would be caught fast.
The use of harpoons ceased in 1875.
Figure 4. This graph shows the frequency of seal bones (all species) as a percentage of all mammal bones (%NISP) in a
sampling of sites across the North Atlantic. Seals present uniformly minor parts (less than 5%) of mammals from farm sites in
the Faroes and coastal southern Iceland, independent of period. Seals are much more commonly observed in some coastal
northern Icelandic sites, with seals comprising the majority of mammals in the early modern assemblage of Svalbarð. In
Greenland, seals comprise more than 30% of mammal bones in almost all farm sites shown here, with several sites having
seals as the majority of the mammal assemblage. V48, in particular, shows a proportion of seals which parallels that
of Thule and Inuit winter sites in West Greenland and Labrador, where subsistence economies were built almost entirely
around seal hunting.
66 Journal of the North Atlantic Volume 2
In the seventeenth century, there were 364
coastal farms that had sealing rights. However, according
to the land registers of 1702–1712, only
215 such farms were recorded. In 1932, the total
number of such farms was 264 (Kristjánsson 1980).
The reason for the apparent decline in sealing in the
early eighteenth century is not clear. Seal-hunting
rights were considered highly valuable. The skins
do not appear to have been exported until the eighteenth
century, but were in great demand within the
country, especially for the making of shoes. Sealskin
shoes were considered superior to shoes made of
leather as they were more durable in wet conditions
(Ingi Unnsteinsson, Farmer, Narfastaðir, Iceland,
pers. comm.). Seal meat was also an important food
source, and was used fresh, salted, and smoked.
The hunting of seals is described in many of
Iceland’s varied historical records, including the
Sagas of Icelanders. In Egil’s Saga, for example, it
is said of Skallagrim, an early settler, that “He had
a farmstead built on Alftanes and ran another farm
there, and rowed out from it to catch fi sh and cull
seals ...” (The Complete Sagas of Icelanders I:66).
An example of a description of seal hunting on sea
ice may be taken from the Brevis Commentarius
de Islandia written in 1592 by Arngrímur Jónsson
(noted above). Clearly, seal hunting was an “ancient
custom.” Because harp seals are associated with sea
ice, and were one of the most frequent seals taken,
it is likely that the seals in Arngrímur’s description
below refer to this species.
Why; it is an ancient custome of the Island that
they which inhabite neare the sea shoare do usually
go betimes in a morning to catch Seales, even
upon the very same ise which the historiographers
make to be hell, and in the evening returne home
safe and sound. (From Arngrímur Jónsson’s Brevis
Commentarius de Islandia translated in Hakluyts
Voyages 1904 vol. IV:123.)
Although the presence of sea ice off the coasts of
Iceland had primarily negative effects (such as: the
lowering of temperatures on land, which, in turn,
could adversely affect the all-important grass crop;
the prevention of fi shing; and the hindrance of trading
vessels from landing), the marine mammals that
were often brought with the ice were an important
addition to the food supply (Ogilvie and Jónsdóttir
2000). Arngrímur Jónsson also notes that harp
seal and ringed-seal pups were sometimes carried
inshore by drift ice and were then clubbed, often in
great numbers. With the general decline of sea ice
off the coasts of Iceland from the early-twentieth
century onwards, the harp and ringed seal have
been less in evidence recently than in former times
(Kristjánsson 1980, Sergeant 1991).
The documentary evidence regarding seal hunting
in Iceland is corroborated by the archaeological
record. Here it may be noted that there is regional
variability in seal-bone abundance, with archaeofauna
from the West Fjords district in the northwest,
Þistilfjörður in the northeast, and the island of Flatey
in Breiðafjörður showing the greatest abundance of
seal bones (Amorosi 1992, Amundsen 2003, Edvardsson
and McGovern 2005). A few seal bones
have also been recovered from inland Icelandic
sites dating to both the ninth and tenth centuries,
and to early modern contexts, suggesting at least a
local pattern of movement of seal products from the
coast to inland consumers (Amorosi 1996, McGovern
et al. 2006a). The regular recovery of newborn
(neonatal) common seal bones in all these Icelandic
sites indicates a spring hunt focused upon pupping
beaches, probably supplemented by net hunting of
adults in other seasons. Kristjánsson (1980) notes
that as the common seal has its pups in the spring or
early summer and the grey seal births in the autumn
or early winter, the two species were also referred to
as spring and autumn seals, respectively.
The pattern of recovery of seal products is refl
ected in, for example, the post-medieval layers of
the deeply stratifi ed farm midden at the site of Svalbarð
in Þistilfjörður in northeastern Iceland (Amorosi
1992). In this archaeofauna, harp seal bones are
present in substantial numbers by the seventeenth
century, eventually outnumbering cattle bones. This
pattern seems to refl ect the sort of locally intensive
hunting activities on the sea ice described in
the passage from Arngrímur Jónsson cited above.
Other fi nds of harp seal bones in fourteenth-century
contexts at Gásir in Eyjafjörður (Harrison 2007,
Harrison et al. 2008a), from early modern contexts
at Vatnsfjord (Pálsdóttir et al. 2008), from Eyri in
the West Fjords (Harrison et al. 2008b, Taylor et al.
2005), and from Hofstaðir in Mývatnssveit (McGovern
et al. 2007) may also refl ect periodic use of
harp seals. However, at present, only the Svalbarð
archaeofauna indicates intensive harp-seal hunting,
thus refl ecting a major dietary supplement to farming
and fi shing.
It may be noted that seals also feature greatly
in Icelandic folklore, perhaps a refl ection of their
importance for subsistence. A well-known example
concerns the scholar, historian, and priest, Sæmundur
fróði, or Sæmundur the Learned, who lived from
1056–1133. According to the folk tales collected by
Jón Árnason (1956), it is said of Sæmundur that he
tricked the devil into assuming the shape of a seal so
that he could swim with him to Iceland on his back.
The context of the story is that Sæmundur covets a
desirable property in the south of Iceland, named
Oddi, but so do others. The King of Norway decides
that the man who gets there fi rst, from Norway, shall
have it. The story goes that Sæmundur tells the devil
that if he can be brought ashore without him getting
his cloak wet, the devil may have his soul. When
they are close to shore, Sæmundur hits the seal on
2009 A.E.J. Ogilvie, J.M. Woollett, K. Smiarowski, J. Arneborg, S. Troelstra, A. Kuijpers, A. Pálsdóttir, and T.H. McGovern 67
Then there is a third kind which is called the “fl ett”
seal, which grows to about the same length as
those mentioned above. There is still a fourth kind,
called the bearded seal, which occasionally grows
to a length of six ells or even seven. In addition
there are various smaller species, one of which
is called the saddleback; it has this name because
it does not swim on the belly like other seals but
on the back or side; its length is never more than
four ells. There remains the smallest kind, which
is called the “short seal” and is not more than
two ells in length. It has a peculiar nature; for it
is reported that these seals can pass under fl at ice
masses four or even fi ve ells thick and can blow
up through them; consequently they can have large
openings wherever they want them. (Larsen 1917,
The King’s Mirror-Speculum Regale-Konungs
Skuggsjá:139–140.)
It may be noted that an “ell” is approximately
56–58 cm. The last seal mentioned, the “short” seal,
sounds very much like the ringed seal. According to
the notes in Larsen’s translation of The King’s Mirror,
the “saddleback” corresponds to the harp seal.
The same source suggests that the “erken-seal” is the
same as the grey seal. The “bearded” seal is clearly
Erignathus barbatus. It may be conjectured that the
“corse” seal is the common seal, and the “fl ett” seal
is the hooded seal.
The biogeography of seal-migration patterns
seems to have affected the Norse seal catch, since
hooded seals were commonly taken in the Eastern
Settlement in the far southwest, but are rare in
Western Settlement archaeofauna (see Fig. 6 showing
later phases of mean seal catches). Sealing
technology and hunting techniques as well as seal
biogeography also affected the seal species taken
regularly by Norse hunters. Medieval to Early Modern
Scandinavian sealing techniques seem to have
included the use of seal nets, and fragments of nets
made from whale baleen have been recovered from
Gården under Sandet (GUS), The Farm Beneath the
Sand, in the Western Settlement (J. Arneborg, unpubl.
data). Interestingly, a recent study of ancient
“dirt” DNA from this farm also corroborates the pattern
seen elsewhere of a general increase in the ratio
of seal bones to other domestic mammals over time
(Hebsgaard et al. 2009). Clubbing on land and on sea
ice certainly occurred, and possibly also the use of
boat drives into net barriers (Fenton 1978; Kristjánsson
1980:317–405; McGovern 1985a, b). The use
of harpoons or barbed spears characteristic of Inuit
seal-hunting technology do not appear to have been
used. However, seal harpoons are mentioned in thirteenth-
century sources in Iceland, and were used in
western and northern Iceland where harp and hooded
seals were available (Orri Vésteinsson, Institute of
Archaeology, Reykjavík, Iceland, pers. comm.).
The Greenland Norse apparently did not make
signifi cant use of harpoons or ice-hunting techthe
head with a psalter, causing him to sink, and then
swims to shore by himself. He gets Oddi. A statue,
completed in 1926 by the Icelandic sculptor Ásmundur
Sveinsson, which shows Sæmundur smiting the
devil/seal is to be found in front of the main building
of the University of Iceland in Reykjavik (Fig. 5).
Seal Hunting in Norse Greenland
When Norse settlers arrived in West Greenland
in the late tenth century, the Viking Age Icelandic
pattern of small-scale, low-intensity seal predation
was changed dramatically in this new location. The
zooarchaeological record indicates that the Norse
Greenlanders immediately recognized the tremendous
potential of the newly encountered migratory
harp and hooded seal populations, as the earliest
archaeological contexts dating to the late ninth
century produce great quantities of seal bone from
these species. Stratifi ed archaeofauna tend to show
a steady increase in seal bones through time, with
seal-bone relative percentages ranging from 30 to
over 80% of the total archaeofauna on both coastal
and far-inland farms (McGovern 1985a, b; Perdikaris
and McGovern 2008). Clearly, seals were a critical
subsistence staple in Greenland, and the thirteenthcentury
source noted above, The King’s Mirror, lists
seal skins and fat among Greenlandic trade exports.
This work also contains a fascinating description of
known seal species, given below:
In those waters there are also many of those species
of whales which we have already described.
It is claimed that there are all sorts of seals, too,
in those seas, and that they have a habit of following
the ice, as if abundant food would never be
wanting there. These are the species of seals that
are found there. Once is called the “corse” seal;
its length is never more than four ells. There is
another sort called the “erken” seal, which grows
to a length of fi ve ells or six at the very longest.
Figure 5. Statue of Sæmundur and the seal in front of the
University of Iceland, Reykjavik. Sculpture by Ásmundur
Sveinsson. Photograph © A.E.J. Ogilvie, 2008.
68 Journal of the North Atlantic Volume 2
tial numbers (see discussion in McGovern et al.
1992a, b). Any climatic cooling that would promote
additional fast-ice formation in winter or longer
periods of stable ice in spring would tend to favor
these species, so the shortage of ringed and bearded
seal bones in the later Norse archaeofauna probably
refl ects hunting technology rather than species
abundance. In short, it is likely that the high-arctic
seal species were present in large numbers in Viking
times. Certainly the complex indented shoreline and
exposure to pack ice should have created mosaic
ice environments on a generalized scale within the
region (Godtfredsen and Moberg 2004; McGovern
1985a, b).
Comprehensive Greenlandic seal-catch records
(Fig. 7) provide a useful picture of recent hunting
patterns by modern Greenlanders in the two
former Norse settlement areas (McGovern 1991,
Vibe 1967). These recent sealing patterns contrast
with the patterns in the Norse archaeofauna in the
far larger number of ringed seals taken by modern
Greenlanders, but provide a consistent biogeographical
pattern in the absence of hooded seals
from the Nuuk/Western Settlement area. Today, the
Qaqortoq and Narsaq districts are heavily affected
by summer drift-ice carried around Cape Farewell
from East Greenland and Denmark Strait, and as a
result, common seals are very rarely seen or hunted
niques, but concentrated instead upon mass netting
and clubbing of seals on land, or on drift-ice, by
coordinated groups of hunters. While much remains
to be learned about Norse sealing in Greenland, the
presence of large amounts of seal bone in inland
farms may suggest the special communal nature
of Norse sealing (Dugmore et al. 2009; McGovern
1985a, b; McGovern et al. 2006b; Smiarowski et
al. 2007). Analysis of available seal dental annuli
suggests a hunt concentrated in spring/summer
(McGovern et al. 1996). The Norse sealing methods
in Greenland seem to have been directly adapted
from methods used to hunt common seal colonies in
the eastern North Atlantic, and stressed communal
collaboration and coordinated attacks on groups of
seals rather than individual hunters stalking and killing
individual animals. These strategies were well
suited to taking many of the seasonally-concentrated
migratory harp and hooded seals, as well as taking
large quantities of the familiar common seals, and
probably worked quite effectively to provision the
settlements (Dugmore et al. 2007). However, the
communal sealing strategies employed by the Norse
were not as effective in taking substantial numbers
of ringed or bearded seals, which nineteenth- to
twentieth-century catch statistics, as well as scattered
paleoeskimo archaeofauna, suggest were
present in both Norse settlement areas in substan-
Figure 6 Mean of identifi ed seal species from Eastern and Western Settlement archaeofauna dating to later phases (older
collections are probably all post-1250; only the latest phases of stratifi ed collections included).
2009 A.E.J. Ogilvie, J.M. Woollett, K. Smiarowski, J. Arneborg, S. Troelstra, A. Kuijpers, A. Pálsdóttir, and T.H. McGovern 69
late thirteenth century in the substantial Brattahlið
N farm archaeofauna.
While the scarcity of ringed seal bones in these
Norse deposits is almost certainly the product of a
very different seal-hunting technology and social
organization from that of modern Inuit Greenlanders,
the presence of substantial numbers of common seals
in earlier phases, and their reduction in later phases, is
not readily explained by technological or social differences
in the seal hunters. The observed change occurs
entirely within the Norse cultural context during
a period of apparent cultural stability.
Common seal populations tend to be localized, and
it is certainly possible that particular pods could have
been wiped out or forced to relocate to less accessible
hauling-out locations by over-exploitation. However,
it would be expected that such impacts would have occurred
earlier in the settlement process. By around AD
1250, the Norse had been hunting in this part of Greenland
for about nine human generations. Understanding
of Norse natural-resource management capabilities
pioneered by archaeologists such as Degerbøl (1934,
1941) has been expanded by recent work in Iceland
and the Faroes, where there is growing evidence for
successful community-level management of seabirds,
waterfowl, freshwater fi shing, and common grazing
(Church et al. 2005; McGovern et al. 2006; Simpson
et al. 2002, 2003, 2004). As more has been learned regarding
Viking-Medieval Norse economy in the North
Atlantic, previous theories of widespread heedless
depletion of all forms of natural capital (e.g., McGovern
et al. 1988) are being replaced by evidence of more
in these districts. Further north, common seals are
regularly taken in the inner fjords of Nuuk district
(around modern Kapisillit), which are not affected
by summer drift ice.
Archaeological Evidence: What the Bones Tell Us
Archaeological evidence highlighted here includes
changes in the relative proportion of seal
bones from sites in the Eastern Settlement area (see
Fig. 8) as well as stratifi ed seal-bone collections
from both the Eastern and Western Settlement areas
(Fig. 9). Data are also available on the ratio of seal
bones to the main domestic mammals (cattle, sheep,
and goats) from the major chieftain’s farm at Brattahlið
(E29a) in the Eastern Settlement, and what
is probably the second-ranking chieftain’s farm at
Sandnes (W51) in the Western Settlement (Fig. 10).
The discussion below considers whether the changes
shown are due to changes in culture, technology, or
climate. Another approach to the same question may
be to compare the changing ratio of bones of the
major domesticates for the two same sites (Fig. 11).
Figure 8 presents the identifi ed seal bones recovered
from the quantifi able Phases III–V from
the 2005–06 excavations at Brattahlið (Edvardsson
and McGovern 2005). Harbor seal bones are far
more prolifi c in the lower layers than the modern
catch data would predict, and early thirteenth-century
Norse hunters seem to have taken these seals in
some numbers. Harbor seals appear to have then declined
sharply in abundance between the early and
Figure 7. Modern catch records for Qaqortoq and Narsaq districts (covering the former Norse Eastern Settlement) and the
village of Kapisillit (a small settlement in Nuuk Fjord) in the middle of the former Western Settlement.
70 Journal of the North Atlantic Volume 2
Figure 8. Relative proportions of identifi ed seal bones. Phase V n = 41, Phase IV n = 44, and Phase III n = 14.
Figure 9. Identifi ed seal species from stratifi ed sites in both the Eastern and Western Settlements. Broad vertical lines
roughly divide archaeofauna from before and after the later thirteenth century in both settlement areas. Data: Enghoff
(2003), McGovern et al. (1993, 1996).
2009 A.E.J. Ogilvie, J.M. Woollett, K. Smiarowski, J. Arneborg, S. Troelstra, A. Kuijpers, A. Pálsdóttir, and T.H. McGovern 71
Figure 10. A direct ratio of seal bones to the bones of the major Norse domestic mammals (cattle, sheep, goats). Taller bar
indicates more seal bones.
Figure 11. The ratio of cattle bones to both sheep and goat (caprines) bones at Brattahlið in the Eastern Settlement and
Sandnes in the Western Settlement.
72 Journal of the North Atlantic Volume 2
proximately 66 m2, and the cattle byre was 127 m2.
The hall of Sandnes W51 was approximately 72 m2,
and the cattle byre was 84 m2 (McGovern 1992a).
Like all other stratified archaeofauna known thus
far, both site collections show an increase of seal
bones relative to domestic mammals with time, but
there would appear to be some marked differences
in the rate and amount of increase in seal bones
relative to domestic mammals at the two sites.
The Western Settlement chieftain’s farm shows a
ratio ranging from just over 1:1 to just under 1:2,
while the Eastern Settlement collection shows
a shift from around 2.5 seal bones per domestic
mammal bone to just over 4:1 between the early
thirteenth and the fourteenth century. If models
which see seals as a secondary resource used to fill
provisioning gaps left by the farming economy and
the caribou hunt are correct (McGovern 1985a, b;
Perdikaris and McGovern 2007), these ratios may
suggest diverging solutions to the ongoing problem
of provisioning large high-status households. Were
the managers of the Eastern Settlement manor facing
drift-ice problems not shared by their contemporaries
further north?
Another approach to the same question may be
to compare the changing ratio of bones of the major
domestic mammals for the same two sites (Fig. 11).
The proportion of high-status cattle bones to lowerstatus
caprines (sheep and goats together) has often
been used as a site status indicator in North Atlantic
zooarchaeology. There certainly tends to be a close
association between larger farms with richer pastures
and a higher proportion of cattle bones in the site
middens (Enghoff 2003; McGovern 1985a, 1985b,
1992a, 1992b). As Figure 11 indicates, both Sandnes
W51 and Brattahlið E29 maintained a virtually identical
“high status” Greenlandic profi le through the
thirteenth century, but after ca. 1300, there appears to
have been a signifi cant shift at the Eastern Settlement
site towards sheep and goats. These species may have
been culturally less prestigious, but required about
a sixth of the winter fodder consumed by a cow and
could be maintained on lower-quality pastures. While
further research needs to be done, it appears that the
challenges posed to Eastern Settlement residents at
all status levels by the sea-ice changes of the thirteenth
century may be visible in the archaeological
record. Two hypotheses may be advanced to explain
the marked transition in the archaeofauna noted
above: either the stocks of common seals had been
depleted in the Eastern Settlement area due to overhunting
by Norse sealers, or the climate changed from
warmer conditions with little or no summer drift-ice
to a climatic regime with more sea ice during the later
thirteenth century. Evidence for changes in sea-ice
regimes is considered below.
sophisticated and successful resource management
(Dugmore et al. 2009). Common seal populations
are still sustainably hunted in several parts of Iceland
today on a small scale. However, Icelandic sealing
has clearly been very different in scope from the far
larger Greenlandic effort, and unanticipated consequences
or unavoidable circumstances can certainly
overtake management strategies on the local scale. A
broadening of the data set to include more sites in both
settlement areas may be helpful in assessing the two
hypotheses (see Fig. 9).
Figure 9 compares available stratified sealbone
collections in both settlement areas. These
collections may be roughly sorted temporally, by
radiocarbon and stratigraphy to before, versus after,
the late-thirteenth/early-fourteenth century. In the
Eastern Settlement area, both the older archaeofauna
from E17a at Narsaq, and the 2005–06 Brattahlið
North Farm (E29a) phased collections show
similar patterns of abundant common seal bones in
the earlier layers, and a sharp reduction in the later
layers. The two sites are far enough apart that it is
unlikely that both would have hunted the same local
common seal pods, suggesting a wide impact rather
than a local depletion. In the Western Settlement,
collections from GUS, W51 Sandnes, and the small
site W48 all continue to contain varied, but always
substantial, amounts of common seal bones both
before and after the late-thirteenth century (Enghoff
2003, McGovern et al. 1996). The W51 Sandnes
site is close to what was the largest common seal
hauling-out and pupping ground in this portion of
Nuuk district in the early twentieth century, and the
continued availability of common seals throughout
the Norse occupation at Sandnes may be another argument
in favor of successful management of common
seal resources.
Zooarchaeological evidence for such sea-ice impacts
upon farming systems is inevitably indirect, and
is complicated by local social and economic factors.
However, a comparison of two comparably excavated
midden deposits from higher-status farms spanning
the thirteenth-century sea-ice transition may suggest
some directions for further investigation.
Figure 10 compares the ratio of seal bones to the
major domestic mammals (cattle, sheep, and goats)
from the major chieftain’s farm at Brattahlið (E29a)
in the Eastern Settlement and from what is likely to
have been the second-ranking chieftain’s farm at
Sandnes (W51) in the Western Settlement (McGovern
et al. 1996, Smiarowski et al. 2007). While
there is some controversy regarding the secure
identification of the archaeological site E29a with
the top-ranking chieftain’s farm at Brattahlíð as
mentioned in the written sources (Guldager 2002),
E29 was clearly a major manor with buildings as
large as Sandnes. The E29 hall floor area was ap2009
A.E.J. Ogilvie, J.M. Woollett, K. Smiarowski, J. Arneborg, S. Troelstra, A. Kuijpers, A. Pálsdóttir, and T.H. McGovern 73
Proxy Climate Data: What the Natural and
Human Archives Tell Us
North Atlantic paleoclimate data and documentary
data (the latter mainly from Iceland) help to cast
light on past sea-ice conditions. The very earliest
mention of sea ice in the Icelandic annals is for the
year AD 1145, but as this is an isolated account, it is
diffi cult to evaluate (Ogilvie 1991). There is some
further evidence from Iceland that the latter part of
the twelfth century experienced a relatively harsh climate.
These kinds of records also suggest relatively
cold conditions in the late 1200s (Ogilvie 1991).
The King’s Mirror, noted above, and possibly
written around AD 1250, describes sea ice in Denmark
Strait, but the account is tantalizing because it
is unclear if this is perceived as a new or a persistent
threat to navigation:
As soon as one has passed over the deepest part
of the ocean, he will encounter such masses of ice
in the seas, that I know of no equal of it anywhere
else in all the earth. Sometimes these ice fi elds
are as fl at as if they were frozen on the sea itself
... There is more ice to the northeast and north of
the land than to the south, southwest, and west;
consequently, whoever wishes to make the land
should sail around it to the southwest and west,
till he has come past all those places where ice
may be looked for, and approach the land on that
side. It has frequently happened that men have
sought to make the land too soon and, as a result,
have been caught in the ice fl oes. Some of those
who have been caught have perished; but others
have got out again, and we have met some of
these and have heard their accounts and tales. But
all those who have been caught in these ice drifts
have adopted the same plan: they have taken their
small boats and have dragged them up on the ice
with them, and in this way have sought to reach
land; but the ship and everything else of value had
to be abandoned and was lost. Some have had to
spend four days or fi ve upon the ice before reaching
land, and some even longer. (Larsen 1917,
The King’s Mirror-Speculum Regale-Konungs
Skuggsjá:138–139.)
The Icelandic annals and certain sagas suggest
that the 1360s and 1370s were cold on the whole,
but the time span from 1395 to 1430 was probably
comparatively mild. However, the paucity of the
data makes it very diffi cult to draw hard and fast
conclusions based on them. Information from these
annals and sagas, as well as other written records, is
described in detail in Ogilvie (1991).
Relevant paleoclimatic data include evidence
from two high-resolution marine sediment cores
from Nansen Fjord, off eastern Greenland, which
were collected in 1991 (Jennings and Weiner 1996).
Analyses of the cores show evidence of changes in
oceanographic and sea-ice conditions from ca. AD
730 to the present. The changes are inferred primarily
from two independent lines of proxy evidence for
environmental change: variations in ice-transported
debris and foraminifera. Both types of evidence
suggest that the interval from AD 730 to 1100 was
one of relatively warm and stable conditions, and
that there were also two cold intervals that culminated
in ca. AD 1150 and ca. AD 1370 (Jennings and
Weiner 1996, Ogilvie et al. 2000). Ice-core records
from Greenland suggest a period of relatively low
temperatures (when normalized to a 700-year mean)
ca. 1343–1362 (Barlow 1994, Barlow et al. 1997).
Other examples of paleoclimatic data are drawn
from a location in the Eastern Settlement site, in the
Igaliku fjord close to the Norse site of Garðar. Using
sediment cores collected in 1998 from both the inner
and outer part of the fjord, Jensen et al. (2004) undertook
analyses of hydrographic changes and sea-ice
conditions over the past 1500 years. Currently, sea
ice carried by the East Greenland Current is present
in the outer part of this fjord for several months per
year. Southeast of the fjord, in the Cape Farewell
(Uummannarsuaq) area, the concentration of drift
ice has usually been greatest between February and
June (Buch 2000). Jensen et al. (2004) focus on the
analysis of different species of diatoms (aquatic microorganisms)
found in the core material. As different
species fl ourish under different prevailing temperature
and sea-ice conditions, it is possible to deduce
changes in these parameters by noting the numbers of
different types of diatoms in different sections of the
cores. The analysis suggests a cold and presumably
moist climatic regime prevailing from ca. AD 535
to 770. From then to around AD 1245 hydrographic
conditions were characterized by limited sea ice and
the infl uence of Atlantic (warmer) water. This period
was punctuated by episodes of in-fl ow of colder water
around AD 960 and 1080. Marked hydrographic
changes began around AD 1300 and culminated
around 1500. Specifi cally, it would appear that advection
of ice-loaded Polar water by the East Greenland
Current into the fjord entrance markedly increased
after ca. AD 1300, while the ice coverage of the inner
part of the fjord became more extensive (Jensen et al.
2004). These authors suggest that their results support
the hypothesis that one of the reasons for the loss
of the Norse settlements was climatic deterioration
(Jensen et al. 2004).
A further study of the core taken at the entrance
of Igaliku fjord used palynofacies analysis (changes
in the abundance of various types of sedimentary
organic matter [SOM]) with the aim of reconstructing
late Holocene paleo-oceanographic changes in
the North Atlantic and in Greenland coastal waters
(Roncaglia and Kuijpers 2004). In particular, the
presence of a variety of dinofl agellate assemblages
present in the core were used to assess the paleohydrographic
conditions during deposition of the
74 Journal of the North Atlantic Volume 2
sediments. Based on this evidence, it is suggested
that cold conditions with extensive sea ice prevailed
from 3300–1180 BP, i.e., prior to around AD 770.
Subsequently, a period of climatic amelioration is
suggested to AD 960. The evidence of “sea ice” diatoms
prevailing during ca. AD 1245–1680 noted in
Jensen et al. (2004) is paralleled by the cooling trend
from AD 1285 noted by Roncaglia and Kuijpers
(2004). On the basis of this evidence, more than 6
months of sea-ice cover per year would be expected
in the Igaliku fjord area after ca. AD 1300 (Roncaglia
and Kuijpers 2004). In a parallel study to that
of Jensen et al. (2004) and Roncaglia and Kuijpers
(2004), Lassen et al. (2004) analysed foraminifera
fauna from the outer part of Igaliku fjord. They concluded
that intensifi ed wind stress and overall environmental
changes may have contributed to the loss
of the Norse settlement in Greenland. It is interesting
to note a comment in the Icelandic Annals for the
year 1287: “At this time, many severe winters came
at once, and following them people died of hunger”
(Ogilvie 1991).
A study of Holocene environmental changes in
an area somewhat to the north of the Eastern settlement
area, in central west Greenland, was begun in
the year 2000 with the aim of understanding their relationship
to large-scale North Atlantic atmosphere
and ocean circulation changes (Moros et al. 2006).
For this study, diatom and lithological analyses were
carried out on two sediment cores from the Disko
Bugt area and the adjacent Kangersuneq Fjord. The
authors found no evidence for a marked warming
during the traditionally dated “Medieval Warm Period”
in the Disko Bugt core. Indeed, the period of 1.7
to 0.7 kyr BP appeared to include the coldest period
overall of the entire investigated period. Clearly, in
the Greenland region, as elsewhere, climatic anomalies
are characterized by complex patterns (Moros et
al. 2006). However, evidence was found for a possible
link between hydrographic (sea-ice) changes
and human settlement and hunting history. In particular,
it is suggested that the period of the Saqqaq
settlement (4.4–3.4 kyr BP) was characterized by
relatively high sea-surface temperature (SST) conditions,
which was favorable for these people, who
were preferentially open-water hunters (Meldgaard
2004). In contrast, the Dorset people (2.8–2.1. kyr
BP) were more adapted to sea-ice hunting. The oldest
era of this culture is suggested to be coincident
with low SST conditions and a more extended seaice
cover in Disko Bay.
Two marine-based proxy records from northern
Iceland (Kristjánsdóttir 2005) and from northwestern
Iceland (Dietrich et al. 2004, 2005) show great
variability in the sea ice and climate record, with
a general gradual cooling over the past 1000 years
to the present (northern Iceland ) and a mild period
peaking around AD 850 with gradual cooling to
around AD 1600 (northwestern Iceland) respectively.
For a longer-term perspective on sea-ice variations
see Andrews et al. (2009).
Discussion: Potential Impacts of Summer Drift
Ice in Greenland
The most immediate impacts of the onset of regular
summer drift ice adjacent to the Eastern settlement
area would have been on the maritime components
of the Norse economy: local and international seafaring
and maritime subsistence activities. Norse
sealing parties would clearly have been affected by
the disruption of established common seal colonies.
By around the mid-thirteenth century, these may
well have been formally owned and communally
regulated. The Description of Greenland according
to Ívar Bárðarson, noted above, although problematic
as regards to its sea-ice description, may well give an
accurate picture of conditions in Norse Greenland in
the second half of the fourteenth century, when the
rights to fi shing and hunting grounds were owned by
the large land owners (Jonsson 1930, Halldórsson
1978). The multiple problems and hazards imposed
on small-boat traffi c in increasingly ice-fi lled waters
would also have impacted hunting activities.
Apart from seasonal sealing expeditions and the
long-distance voyaging to the northern hunting
grounds around modern Disko Bay (McGovern 1984,
Perdikaris and McGovern 2007), much of the daily
travels of farmers along the steep-sided fjords within
the core settlement areas would have been carried out
by boat, and some farms are extremely diffi cult to
reach on foot. As a comparison, it may be noted that
in the present day, summer drift ice can completely
block access to coastal settlements even by modern
steel-hulled ships in the former Eastern Settlement
area, cutting off communities for weeks at a time.
It is not certain if the Norse Greenlanders ever
possessed locally owned ocean-going ships. However,
if they did, there certainly would have been none
in existence by the thirteenth century, as local wood
and driftwood could not support the construction of a
vessel larger than the “six-oared boats” described in
the written sources as being used for voyages within
Greenland (probably similar in size and cargo capacity
to the Shetlandic sixern, discussed in McGovern
[1984]). It has also been argued by Kristjánsson
(1965) that the settlers could have made the initial
voyages on 10- and 12-oared boats. These are “ocean
going” in the sense that they were used to fi sh off
the east coast of Greenland in early modern times.
They were comparatively thin-hulled, clinker-built,
open wooden boats, and were probably some of the
most valuable (and diffi cult to replace) possessions
of the Norse Greenlanders. Trans-Atlantic trade was
2009 A.E.J. Ogilvie, J.M. Woollett, K. Smiarowski, J. Arneborg, S. Troelstra, A. Kuijpers, A. Pálsdóttir, and T.H. McGovern 75
carried by larger cargo ships and was organized by
the Norwegian kings who maintained a commercial
monopoly. The Kings Mirror describes the trade:
But in Greenland it is this way, as you probably
know, that whatever comes from other lands is
high in price, for this land lies so distant from
other countries that men seldom visit it. And
everything that is needed to improve the land must
be purchased abroad, both iron and all the timber
used in building houses. In return for their wares
the merchants bring back the following products:
buckskin, or hides, sealskins, and rope of the kind
that we talked about earlier which is called leather
rope and is cut from the fi sh called walrus, and
also the teeth of the walrus. (Larsen trans. 1917,
The King’s Mirror-Speculum Regale-Konungs
Skuggsjá:142).
Summer drift ice in the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries greatly affected European contacts with
Greenland, with whalers and early explorers generally
avoiding the ice-fi lled fjords of the southwest
coast. The relative lack of summer drift ice in the
former Western Settlement area facilitated the establishment
of a mission in 1721 by the Norwegian Hans
Egede (1686–1758). Egede had hoped to fi nd the lost
Norse colonies. When he did not, he began to work
among the Inuit. An interesting aside is that, in translating
the Lord’s Prayer he judged that “Give us this
day our daily bread” was best rendered as “Give us
this day our daily common seal.” Egede also founded
the administrative capital of colonial and modern
Greenland in the outer fjords of the former Western
Settlement at Godthåb (now
Nuuk) well north of the summer
sea-ice limit.
For the Norse Greenlanders,
the religious, administrative,
and economic heart of
their settlement was established
early in the Brattahlið-
Hvalsey-Garðar area, where
the Bishop’s manor and major
chiefl y farms were located, in
a zone which today is often impacted
by the summer ice. The
marine impacts of the onset of
regular summer drift ice were
not fatal; the last contemporary
written record documenting
overseas contact dates to
1408 (Fig. 12) and radiocarbon
evidence suggests the
Eastern Settlement survived
into the mid-fi fteenth century
(Arneborg 1996, 2000). However,
a change in summer ice
conditions certainly would
have imposed additional costs
and hazards on both local and trans-Atlantic travel as
well as displaced common seal populations.
Since grain growing was probably never economically
viable in Norse Greenland, the pastoral
farming economy based upon herding of cattle,
sheep, goats, horses, and (a few) pigs (the latter fed
with marine food; J. Arneborg, unpubl. data) ultimately
depended upon the productivity of pasture
vegetation (Amorosi et al. 1998). Pasture productivity
is affected by multiple variables, including soilnutrient
levels and exposure, but temperature (both
annual and within the summer growing season) and
soil-moisture levels have been demonstrated to be
the most critical factors (Adderley and Simpson
2006, Jakobsen 1987, 1991). For further discussion
of soils in southwestern Greenland, see also Rutherford
(1995). The terrestrial ecosystem would also
have been signifi cantly affected by summer drift ice.
The topography of much of the Eastern Settlement is
marked by steep-sided fjord systems with most level
pasture areas often close to the shore, creating special
vulnerabilities to drift-ice cooling effects. Sea
ice reduces ground-level temperature on shore when
it appears in signifi cant amounts, depressing pasture
growth and productivity when it appears during the
short summer growing season. Such impacts have
been widespread in northern Iceland when summer
sea ice has arrived close in to the shore (Friðriksson
1969; Ogilvie 2005, 2008). The late-sixteenth
century account by Oddur Einarsson, noted above,
makes this point eloquently:
Figure 12. The ruin of Hvalsey church in the Eastern Settlement (located near modernday
Qaqortoq). The last written record giving contemporary information concerning
the Greenland Norse is to be found in an entry in the Icelandic Annals for 1408. This
documents the wedding of Sigriður Björnsdóttir and Thorsteinn Ólafsson, both from
Iceland, on 16 September 1408 at Hvalsey. Photograph © A.E.J. Ogilvie, 2008.
76 Journal of the North Atlantic Volume 2
It makes a great difference at what time of year
the ice comes. In the autumn, and at the time of
winter solstice, when the frost has already got into
the ground and there is snow cover, its presence
does less damage. But during the spring and summer,
when the weather is becoming milder, the
ice invariably brings disaster with it, because that
is when it has the greatest power and the grass is
most adversely affected. The northerners are thus
far worse off than the southerners who never see
this ice ... (Oddur Einarsson [1971] Qualiscunque
descriptio Islandiae ca. 1593, trans. in Ogilvie
2005:272).
Summary
Research currently underway in the Eastern Settlement
area by interdisciplinary teams coordinated
by the Danish National Museum in cooperation
with the National Greenland Museum and Archives
(Nuuk) will soon expand our understanding of patterns
of Norse settlement and subsistence, human
impacts, and also climate impacts, in this region in
the near future. In the meantime, the data currently
available suggest that something occurred to change
Norse hunters’ access to common seals in the latter
half of the thirteenth century in several parts of the
Eastern Settlement, but not in the Western Settlement
area. On the whole, the paleoclimatic records
noted above tend to support a mid- to late-thirteenth
century transition point from a largely open-water
summer marine environment in Denmark Strait.
Thus, at present, the most likely hypothesis for
changes in seal-hunting patterns seems to be the
infl uence of climate change and a transition to conditions
of increased summer drift-ice.
Acknowledgments
Astrid Ogilvie acknowledges support from the
National Science Foundation for the SYNICE project
(0629500). We also acknowledge support from: the CUNY
Doctoral Program in Anthropology; the CUNY Northern
Science and Education Center; the Greenlandic Museum
and Archives; the Danish National Museum; the Mývatn
Research Station; the Leverhulme Trust Program “Landscapes
circum-Landnám;” the NSF REU program (Grant
OPP 402900001); the NSF “Landscapes of Settlement”
Project (BCS 0001026); and IPY NABO Human Ecodynamics
project (OPP 0732327). We thank Kerry-Anne
Mairs who drew the map in Figure 1, and Andy Casely
for facilitating the use of this map. This paper is a product
of the North Atlantic Biocultural Organization (NABO)
research cooperative.
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