FYI

Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION

Hey, Erik The Red, let's slip out for a brewski

By: Staff Writer

Posted: 02/4/2012 1:00 AM | Comments: 0 (including replies)

ONE of the Great Unsolved Mysteries of the Arctic is how did the Icelandic colonists who settled in Greenland in the late 10th century survive for about 400 years without beer?

Well, it appears that they didn't, on either count. They didn't ultimately survive, but they may not have gone without beer either.

Archeologists from the Danish National Museum have unearthed evidence that the colonists grew barley in Greenland, an essential ingredient for beer which, along with mead, was the beverage of the day among Norse people. And it was literally the beverage of the day, consumed at breakfast, lunch and dinner and frequently in between, further confirmation, perhaps, of the opinion held by many scholars that the Middle Ages were the high point of western civilization.

The Danish archeologists found the remains of burnt barley in a dunghill -- it's better not to speculate -- that dates back to the time of Erik the Red, the Icelandic outlaw who led the colonization.

When the first settlements occurred, Greenland and Europe were in a period of global warming. The colonists practised animal husbandry, raised cattle, pigs and sheep, and we know that they grew cereal crops as well. Beer just logically follows.

We are now in another era of global warming, although Greenland is still not yet an agricultural nation, nor is it noted for its breweries, even though the ice caps are melting, the polar sea is becoming open water and killer whales are threatening the livelihood of polar bears and Inuit alike.

The turning of the climate cycle, the end of the warming period and the arrival of the "little ice age" spelled the doom of the Greenland colonies -- the last recorded note of them is of a wedding ceremony in 1408 A.D.

Modern global warming worriers don't believe our current warming period is part of a cycle, but the polar bears might take comfort from the idea of an impending -- eventual -- ice age.

In the meantime, no one knows what happened to the Greenland colonies. It is the Great Unsolved Mystery of the Arctic that has intrigued historians and archeologists for more than 200 years. Some scholars believe they were massacred by Inuit; some say they died of disease; some say they simply went home; and some say they migrated into the Arctic islands and what is now Labrador, that Canada holds their bones and perhaps their DNA.

The last theory seems the most likely, but it's unproven. What we can speculate with confidence, thanks to a team of Danish archeologists, is that they didn't just go out for a beer and not come home.

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition February 4, 2012 J12

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