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Re: Little Ice Age, Plains natives, and other topics (was: Questi
Douglas C Scott (doug@metronet.com)
Sat, 4 Feb 1995 03:20:04 GMT
Arun Gupta (gupta@mrspock.mt.att.com) wrote:
: In article <3gr91u$jvd@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu>,
: Thomas Kavanagh <TKAVANAG@indiana.edu> wrote:
[munch]
: >The so-called Little Ice Age was a period of increased cold/wet
: >which began ca. 1500 and ended ca. 1850. Remember all those
: >Dutch paintings of people ice scating whihc they can't do any more
: >(and not because of the floods), its because the weather had done
: >a mini-flip. In North America, on the plains, the weather was
: Did Viking settlements in Greenland (and sea travel in the north
: Atlantic) get affected by the Little Ice Age ?
: -arun gupta
It certainly did. When the Vikings settled Greenland they were
regularly sailing the northern seas and hardly ever saw icebergs.
Then somewhat later, I forget exactly when but after 1100, we
read a passing statement that sailing between Greenland and
Iceland was dangerous because of all the icebergs. Because
of this contact between Greenland and Iceland became more and
more limited. Also the people in Greenland appear to have
become more and more improverished as the local climate
deteriorated. On a recent PBS show one man was describing
how the Greenlanders had to take their cows into their own
homes to keep them alive during the winter. In the end it
was too much for them.
Doug Scott
Arlington, Tx
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