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by Jongseong
4195 days ago
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The Norse found only abandoned Dorset settlements when they first came to Greenland. They had already disappeared from Greenland by A.D. 300, long before the Norse arrived. They did reoccupy northwestern Greenland around A.D. 700, but didn't go into the areas that would later be settled by the Norse. Because their settlements didn't overlap, they would have encountered each other only on hunting expeditions and such. Norse objects such as pieces of smelted metal have been found in Dorset sites, though this doesn't definitely establish face-to-face contact as these objects may have simply been scavenged from abandoned Norse sites. Anyway, the Dorset disappearance is usually blamed on the Inuit (whose oral traditions recount driving off the Dorset people), although they seem to have already been in decline when the Inuit arrived. It could be that Inuit pathogens may have partly been to blame, though we may never know. |
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