“The descendants of the Vikings had persevered in their North Atlantic outpost for almost 500 years, from the end of the 10th century until the mid-15th century. The Medieval Warm Period had made it possible for settlers from Norway, Iceland and Denmark to live on hundreds of scattered farms along the protected fjords, where they built dozens of churches and even had bishops.” — Günther Stockinger, ‘Abandoned Colony in Greenland: Archaeologists Find Clues to Viking Mystery’
Greenland has been inhabited, on and off, by Arctic peoples for up to 5,000 years. The Thule are the prehistoric ancestors of the current Greenlandic Inuit population. They left Alaska about 1,000 AD and arrived in Greenland via dogsleds (usually made of driftwood with whalebone runners) and umiaks (large whaling and traveling boats constructed with a frame of walrus ribs covered with walrus hide), in the 13th century.
The Norse colonies…
