Thursday, February 03, 2005
Books | Never ask a Viking for advice
Jared Diamond's compelling study, Collapse, asks why throughout history, whole societies suddenly disappear - and what it means for us today
Robin McKie
Sunday January 16, 2005
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive
by Jared Diamond
Allen Lane �20, pp576
In a remote corner of south west Greenland, a group of abandoned buildings stands at the head of a long, mountain-rimmed fjord. Many are made of deftly hewn stone; there are remains of barns, stores and a boathouse, and at its heart, the township's church still stands with intact doorways, niches and gables. Only its turf roof is missing.
This is Hvalsey, a Viking stronghold where, according to anthropologist Jared Diamond, medieval Scandinavian settlers 'wrote in Latin and Old Norse, wielded iron tools, herded farm animals, followed the latest European fashions in clothing - and finally vanished'.
Thus, those lovingly turned stones guard a grim secret, the fate of thousands of warrior-colonists who had made Greenland their home for almost 500 years but who were last heard of in 1410, when Thomas Olafsson, a ship's captain, brought news to Norway that a Greenlander called Kolgrim had just been burnt at the stake for witchcraft. After that, silence. The colony was forgotten until missionaries stumbled on Hvalsey's ruins in 1723.
The Black Death, attacks by pirates and even an invasion by the Skraelings - the Inuit - have since been blamed for the colony's destruction while more recent suggestions have centred on climatic fluctuations. 'It got too cold and they died,' as archaeologist Thomas McGovern succinctly put it. But the true cause, says Diamond, was far more complex and, ultimately, far more revealing than any single, convenient explanation. Yes, climatic deterioration probably helped destroy Norse Greenland. But the Vikings also damned themselves. 'The Inuit survived,' he points out. 'The Vikings' disappearance was not inevitable.......
......................
Robin McKie
Sunday January 16, 2005
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive
by Jared Diamond
Allen Lane �20, pp576
In a remote corner of south west Greenland, a group of abandoned buildings stands at the head of a long, mountain-rimmed fjord. Many are made of deftly hewn stone; there are remains of barns, stores and a boathouse, and at its heart, the township's church still stands with intact doorways, niches and gables. Only its turf roof is missing.
This is Hvalsey, a Viking stronghold where, according to anthropologist Jared Diamond, medieval Scandinavian settlers 'wrote in Latin and Old Norse, wielded iron tools, herded farm animals, followed the latest European fashions in clothing - and finally vanished'.
Thus, those lovingly turned stones guard a grim secret, the fate of thousands of warrior-colonists who had made Greenland their home for almost 500 years but who were last heard of in 1410, when Thomas Olafsson, a ship's captain, brought news to Norway that a Greenlander called Kolgrim had just been burnt at the stake for witchcraft. After that, silence. The colony was forgotten until missionaries stumbled on Hvalsey's ruins in 1723.
The Black Death, attacks by pirates and even an invasion by the Skraelings - the Inuit - have since been blamed for the colony's destruction while more recent suggestions have centred on climatic fluctuations. 'It got too cold and they died,' as archaeologist Thomas McGovern succinctly put it. But the true cause, says Diamond, was far more complex and, ultimately, far more revealing than any single, convenient explanation. Yes, climatic deterioration probably helped destroy Norse Greenland. But the Vikings also damned themselves. 'The Inuit survived,' he points out. 'The Vikings' disappearance was not inevitable.......
......................
Subscribe to Posts [Atom]
