"simply ignores all evidence that is Inconveniently True." Only until it can be declared 'moot.'

JayJay, Greens are easily confused.
Gene Modification by selective breeding existed before the Medieval Warm Period, but from Wikipedia:

"Winter wheat (usually Triticum aestivum) are strains of wheat that are planted in the autumn to germinate and develop into young plants that remain in the vegetative phase during the winter and resume growth in early spring. Classification into spring or winter wheat is common and traditionally refers to the season during which the crop is grown. For winter wheat, the physiological stage of heading is delayed until the plant experiencesvernalization, a period of 30 to 60 days of cold winter temperatures (0° to 5 °C; 32–41 °F).[1]

Winter wheat is usually planted from September to November in the Northern Hemisphereand harvested in the summer or early autumn of the next year. In some places (e.g. Chile), winter wheat completes a year and is harvested more than a year after it was planted. Winter wheat usually provides higher yields compared to spring wheat."

"Barley is a widely adaptable crop. It is currently popular in temperate areas where it is grown as a summer crop and tropical areas where it is sown as a winter crop time is one to three days. Barley grows under cool conditions, but is not particularly winter hardy."

The full quote from that source dating to circa 1250 is:

“As to whether any sort of grain can grow there, my belief is that the country draws but little profit from that source. And yet there are men among those who are counted the wealthiest and most prominent who have tried to sow grain as an experiment; but the great majority in that country do not know what bread is, having never seen it.”

So the writer of King’s mirror (Konungs skuggsjá) beliefs this.
Yet the same writer also says (from the full text of the Konungs skuggsjá):

He regards the polar zones as generally uninhabitable; still, he is sure that Greenland lies within the arctic zone; and yet, Greenland " has beautiful sunshine and is said to have a rather pleasant climate."

Does Greenland have a "rather pleasant climate" today? Of course it has improved quite a bit over the last 20 years.

Perhaps they did have enough to make enough beer, but little (as the minority may have known bread) was left after that. But a Viking without beer - perish the thought!

And perhaps something else can be given to the chickens and they just kept grazers (cows, sheep, goats) as life-stock. That does leave the thorny issue of getting enough hay to feed the cattle for the period that they can't graze due to snow & ice. Must have been warm enough, long enough each year, for that. Today that is just doable, with a little help from technology (and global warming of the last few decades).

I think it is probable that the settlement on Greenland ended when they could no longer grow enough hay due to the returning cold. A longer period of too low temperatures leaves too little time to create enough hay. Not enough to feed the cattle. Then by the mid 15th century most Norse on Greenland gave up & left (or perished). No doubt others had already left by 1400.

JayJay, I think I have read elsewhere that many of the failed Greenland settlements (and later ones in the Canadian arctic) were in part due to a failure to adapt. The article, as I recall, said that these communities were in fairly regular contact with the arctic-dwelling native north-American 'Indian' tribes, even receiving help from them on occasions. But they failed to change to the lifestyle which these tribes successfully employed to allow their continued existence in Arctic climates.

Fascinating resource, that Kings Mirror…

[Son] Now since the land is constantly frozen over in both winter and summer, I wish to ask you to tell me exactly how the climate is in Greenland: whether there is any warmth or fair sunshine as in other lands, or if the weather is always unpleasant, and whether that is what causes the excessive ice and frost …

[Father]it is quite probable that the cold zones lie on the outer edges of the world to the north and south: and in case I have thought this out correctly, it is not unlikely that Greenland lies under the frigid belt; for most of those who have visited Green-land testify that there the cold has received its greatest strength. Moreover, both sea and land bear testimony in their very selves that there the frost and the overpower-ing cold have become dominant, for both are frozen and covered with ice in summer as well as in winter.

[Son]  There is one more thing that looks strange to me which you mentioned earlier in your speech, namely that you consider Greenland as having a good climate, even though it is full of ice and glaciers. It is hard for me to understand how such a land can have a good climate.

[Father]In reply to your remark about the climate of Green-land, that you think it strange that it is called a good climate, I shall tell you something about the nature of the land. When storms do come, they are more severe than in most other places, both with respect to keen winds and vast masses of ice and snow. But usually these spells of rough weather last only a short while and come at long intervals only. In the meantime the weather is fair, though the cold is intense. For it is in the nature of the glacier to emit a cold and continuous breath which drives the storm clouds away from its face so that the sky above is usually clear.

[Son]. You stated earlier in your talk that no grain grows in that country; therefore I now want to ask you what the people who inhabit the land live on, how large the population is, what sort of food they have, and whether they have accepted Christianity.

[Father] The people in that country are few, for only a small part is sufficiently free from ice to be habitable; but the people are all Christians and have churches and priests. If the land lay near to some other country it might be reckoned a third of a bishopric; but the Greenlanders now have their own bishop, as no other ar-rangement is possible on account of the great distance from other people. You ask what the inhabitants live on in that country since they sow no grain; but men can live on other food than bread. It is reported that the pasturage is good and that there are large and fine farms in Greenland. The farmers raise cattle and sheep in large numbers and make butter and cheese in great quantities. The people subsist chiefly on these foods and on beef; but they also eat the flesh of various kinds of game, such as reindeer, whales, seals, and bears. That is what men live on in that country.

I guess he left out the rivers of ale quaffed nightly 'cos he was talking to a minor. Yes, that'll be the reason. ;-)

JayJay

I think you mean 200sq.ft. to make 5 gallons of beer, not 200 acres.

IIRC you need 1lb of barley to make 1 gallon of beer and can expect about 1lb of barley for every 40sq.ft in a Greenland enclosure.

Those five people per farm I mentioned would need about half a gallon of beer per person per day, 912 gallons per year.

To grow 912lb of barley would need 36,400 sq ft, an enclosure or enclosures 60 yards by 60 yards, or 0.8 acres.

Now that sounds reasonable.

Beginnings of a timeline.

When they first arrived around 1000AD they grew barley.

By 1250 and The King's Mirror they were no longer doing so. They had lost the knack or the seed or the warmth.

I guess he left out the rivers of ale quaffed nightly 'cos he was talking to a minor. Yes, that'll be the reason. ;-)

Mar 13, 2018 at 8:42 PM | Phil Clarke

Mar 13, 2018 at 8:47 PM | Entropic man

You both seem to be expressing certainty about the quantity of ale consumed. Can you be certain about its alcohol content, and why they were drinking it? From:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_beer

"Small beer is a lager or ale that contains very little alcohol, typically about 0.75%[1]. Sometimes unfiltered and porridge-like, it was a favored drink in Medieval Europe and colonial North America as against more expensive beer with higher alcohol. Small beer was also produced in households for consumption by children and servants.

Until the mid-20th century, much drinking water was likely to make one sick because of poor sanitation. Practical experience showed that fermented beverages were less likely to produce illness. It is understood today that a fermented beverage that smells and tastes acceptable is likely to have a microbial balance in which favorable microbe populations have outcompeted unfavorable ones.

It was common for workers (including sailors) who engaged in heavy physical labor to drink more than 10 imperial pints (5.7 liters) of small beer during a workday to quench their thirst. Small beer was also drunk for its nutrition content; it might even have bits of wheat or bread suspended in it."

Just because Climate Scientists like to drink exotic chilled cocktails on tropical beaches, does not mean that all alcohol was only ever brewed for the purpose of merriment. It enabled water to be drunk, rather than the poor.

@Entropic Man, golf charlie, Phil Clarke.

I think you mean 200sq.ft. to make 5 gallons of beer, not 200 acres.

Woops, yes. I had mindlessly copied that from some home-brewers site. Two sites had the exact same, so I just copied it. Never registered that they were talking about something even bigger than an 'are' (an are = 10x10=100 m2, and even that is too big). I'm from Holland, so metric for me (I've no mental picture or feel for things like gallon, acre or lb, I need to convert all of those).

IIRC you need 1lb of barley to make 1 gallon of beer and can expect about 1lb of barley for every 40sq.ft in a Greenland enclosure.
Those five people per farm I mentioned would need about half a gallon of beer per person per day, 912 gallons per year.
To grow 912lb of barley would need 36,400 sq ft, an enclosure or enclosures 60 yards by 60 yards, or 0.8 acres.

Now that sounds reasonable.

Agree. And it would be home-brew beer, in an open container most likely. Fairly easy to do.

You both seem to be expressing certainty about the quantity of ale consumed. Can you be certain about its alcohol content, and why they were drinking it?
...
Small beer is a lager or ale that contains very little alcohol, typically about 0.75%

I think Entropic Man is certainly aware that we are talking about the standard beverage, which even the kids drank, because water is too dangerous. You can see that from his calculation. the 'five people per farm' includes the kids.

In the European Middle Ages everyone was drinking something else than water, like watered down wine, small beer, apple cider and drinks made from European small fruit, like berries. You can make a nice drink from elderberry by cooking them in water. The water is unsafe to drink, unless you cook it. They knew the water was unsafe, but (probably) not really why. Also I'm not sure that cooking was always involved or whether the low alcohol content of (say) watered down wine would be enough to keep it safe.

So most of it is indeed for small beer, with perhaps a part a bit stronger stuff for mommy and daddy. But even they would not drink the stronger stuff all the time of course, mostly small beer when eating or needing a drink from hard work. German and Polish construction workers drink beer all the time in summer, trust me that is watered down lager, not the 5% stuff (or at least it should not be :) ).
Same for wine-countries in the Middle Ages, so when you hear stories about southerners drinking wine all the time, even kids, just remember that most of it must have been watered down wine. At least when the adults weren't feasting :)
OK, in France one drinks real wine at lunch, the adults that is.

Beginnings of a timeline.

When they first arrived around 1000AD they grew barley.

By 1250 and The King's Mirror they were no longer doing so. They had lost the knack or the seed or the warmth.

Indeed that was what I was thinking as well.
So from arrival (c. 985) until say c. 1235 they could grow barley, thereafter they could still grow hay until sometime close to c.1450, but not much later.
For drinking they would need to switch to more milk (they had cows, apparently a fairly large number given the size of the reported stables), perhaps also imported grains, but that would become rather pricey.

I was thinking 1233/34 because we have the sudden (temporary) cold in Europe around that time (thereafter it recovers to some extent, but less than earlier). The cold had already started to creep in sometime earlier (reports of growing glaciers in the Alps c 1215). Can't find the quote, but it was in the winter of (probably) 1233/34 that the monks near Köln (Cologne) were complaining that a sudden cold-spell had destroyed their (sub-tropic) trees (a.o. figs no less). Of course such trees don't grow anywhere near to Köln (or NL, where I live) nowadays (except perhaps in Dutch greenhouses). Cold spells in winter are reported more often in the MWP (such as 1067/77, 1149/50 and 1204/05 (France), 1215/16 (N-Italy)), but by the mid 13th century or so we see a slow downturn beginning (long before the proper start of the LIA by c.1550 or so).

By 1378 the bishop was not replaced because the travel was considered too dangerous, too much floating ice on any route, even in summertime. Floating ice and sea areas covered by ice lower south was reported already since the mid 13th century (contrast this with King Sven's (1047-1076) remark about first sea-ice 1 day sailing north of Thule), but by the mid 14th century this was really becoming an issue for travel to Greenland. That of course also means that trade and supply by sea (always already quite dangerous, even for Vikings) was becoming too dangerous. Some enterprising people will have kept on doing it, but for a price and much less frequent.
It is just because the Pope ordered a new bishop appointed in 1448 (which didn't happen AFAIK) that I think they must have been able to hold out until around that time, otherwise I would estimate the end to be quite a bit earlier.

Mar 14, 2018 at 10:14 AM | JayJay

During the MWP it was warmer, but some years or decades, it would have been verging on the unsurvivable, if a bad summer was followed by a bad winter.

From a seafarers point of view, there is no storm free period in the North Atlantic, but the summer months are more likely to be more pleasant, or less unpleasant. Due to the shortage of trees, ship building and ship repairing, would require imported materials, which assumes the necessary skills survived from one generation to another. It seems unlikely that they could have afforded and maintained their own seagoing ships

The Vikings survived in Greenland, and may have flourished for decades at a time, in small homesteads and communities. Subsistence farming and agriculture was possible, but their only cash crop would have been harvesting whales and seals. Polar bears would have been valued for meat, but very tradeable for their warm white furs.

Golf Charlie, JayJay

I was thinking of small beer. Sorry, I'll stick to metric next time.

Bottom line, a family could grow enough barley to meet its minimum small beer consumption from an area smaller than a soccer pitch. That is small enough for enclosed fields to be practical.

I was considering Supertroll's point. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, but that is usually the way to bet. Perhaps the malted barley left over from the beer making ended up fed to the cattle, rather than in the midden.

I found an unofficial timeline for Iceland and Greenland.

http://www.personal.utulsa.edu/~marc-carlson/history/grontime.html

I was a little surprised how few ships were involved in maintaining both colonies. The Greenlanders built a few ships (the Greenland style is mentioned) but may have only had one in operation at a time. There is reference to THE Royal Greenland knarr, a single cargo ship like a plump longship. Its last recorded visit to Greenland was in 1367 and it was lost off Bergen in 1369.

I also found this, which discusses some of the recent thinking among the archeologists.

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/11/why-did-greenland-s-vikings-disappear

Mar 14, 2018 at 9:46 PM | Entropic man, thank you for your response.

"The Greenlanders built a few ships (the Greenland style is mentioned) but may have only had one in operation at a time. There is reference to THE Royal Greenland knarr, a single cargo ship like a plump longship. Its last recorded visit to Greenland was in 1367 and it was lost off Bergen in 1369."

I never suggested that Greenland was warm enough during the MWP to grow trees for shipbuilding! I would agree that some ships were built for the purpose of supporting the trade with the Greenland colonies. From Wikipedia "Knarr":

"Knarr is the Old Norse term for a type of ship built for long sea voyages and used during the Viking expansion. The knarr was a cargo ship; the hull was wider, deeper and shorter than a longship, and could take more cargo and be operated by smaller crews. They were built with a length of about 16 m (54 ft), a beam of 5 m (15 ft), and a hull capable of carrying up to 24 tons.[ambiguous][1] It was primarily used to transport trading goods like walrus ivory, wool, timber, wheat, furs and pelts, armour, slaves, honey, and weapons. It was also used to supply food, drink, weapons and armour to warriors and traders along their journeys across the Baltic, the Mediterranean and other seas. Knerrir routinely crossed the North Atlantic carrying livestock such as sheep and horses, and stores to Norse settlements in Iceland,Greenland and Vinland as well as trading goods to trading posts in the British Isles, Continental Europe and possibly the Middle East. They may have been used in colonising, although a similar small cargo vessel (the byrthing) is another possibility."

Golf Charlie

Somewhere in what I've been reading was a note that the Greenlanders cut down Birch trees in their early years, but they were quickly used up. There was also a reference to building a ship in Greenland using imported materials.

Some Icelanders found the wreck of a ship in the Greenland style, and salvaged the nails. They seem to have been very short of metals. One of the excavated farms included a knife resharpened so many times that the blade was worn down to a stub.

Mar 15, 2018 at 10:42 PM | Entropic man

Birch trees are one of the hardiest hardwoods, but as a hardwood, it is not very hard!

Birch (Betula) and similar looking Aspen (Populus) are found at the extreme altitudes and colder temperatures that few other trees can manage.

Native Americans used birch bark, as the outer skin of their canoes, and this is still considered by purists to be the "best".

Birch is low density, so burns easily and quickly, but total heat output per log is low. I have just burnt some!

It is not used for structural purposes, so no use for durable ship construction. I do not know whether it waterlogs easily, and loses its buoyancy.

The Vikings would have been familiar with Birch when they arrived in Greenland, if there was some there. Fine looking trees, but not very useful!

Birch sap has traditional medicinal uses, and is fermented to prolong the life of the birch sap and those that drink it. Allegedly.

Pine tar and derivatives such as Stockholm Tar would have required pine sap. Stockholm Tar is still used to waterproof ships timbers and joints, and for horses hooves etc.

If there is evidence of shipbuilding in Greenland using locally grown timber, I would be surprised, but impressed. It would also confirm that the MWP was significantly warmer than the current climate, which is not something I have claimed.

The Inuit prized finds of metal. This was a recurrent theme of local folklore concerning the lost ships of the Franklin Expedition, and some of their discarded equipment. You can cut, slice and pierce with bone and ivory tools, but you cannot hammer them, as you can iron nails, chisels etc.

Archaeologists attach great significance to evidence of metal working. I presume that has been found in Greenland, but not smelting?

Smelting would require lot's of wood. They would already need wood for warmth (otherwise dung or fat).
AFAIK there were trees in Greenland when they arrived, but they would have run out after a while.

As to iron, that comes from mines, from iron-hydroxide lumps on the ground (ijzeroer ('irony') on sandy soils, bog iron, swap iron etc), telluric iron and meteoric. Only one of these is known from Greenland: Telluric Iron

Telluric iron, also called native iron, is iron that originated on Earth, and is found in a metallic form rather than as an ore. Telluric iron is extremely rare, with only one known major deposit in the world, located in Greenland.
...
... the only known major deposits exist in and nearby the area of Disko Bay, in Greenland. Found in the volcanic plains of basalt rock, the material was used by the local Inuit to make cutting edges for tools like knives and ulus. The Inuit were the only people to make practical use of telluric iron.

Nice thing about this type is that it may be fairly pure, so may not require (much) smelting.

The Vikings did do iron-working, in fact a recently found (2016) site in Canada is considered to be of Norse origin due to a find of a stone hearth that was used for iron-working.
Discovery Could Rewrite History of Vikings in New World

And then, of course, there was the most valuable resource of all: bog iron. It’s a type of ore that forms when rivers carry dissolved particles of iron down from mountains and into wetlands, where bacteria leach the iron from the water, leaving behind metal deposits.
The Norse didn’t do much mining. Most of their iron was harvested from peat bogs, and their very way of life depended upon it.

Because this was in (Southern) Newfoundland, there would be enough local wood to smelt it. Same method as they knew and same as used by e.g. Salian Franks in NL/DE just North of the Rhine and Ruhr. That did result in cutting down of most of the trees in a large area. I think that this type of iron requires the most wood to smelt and purify (telluric and meteoric the least.)

By the way iron from mines is very often quite impure, so (often) requires even more energy typically (and blast furnaces). It is just that the near-surface iron (incl. bog iron) is very easy to harvest, and only requires simple ovens to smelt, but it is also known for the very significant quantities of wood required for charcoal.
Anyway smelting telluric iron seems to require the least amount of wood.

JayJay, I was wondering whether metal working was done with peat, not timber, by the Vikings in Greenland? In Iceland, they may have used some assistance from geothermal.

I have never sailed a Viking Long Ship, but they were/are rated very highly, as seaworthy boats, capable of ocean passages, and efficient under sail and oar. They were sturdy enough to be built on land, and then rolled on logs for launching, which also meant they could be hauled out of the sea, up a beach beyond the high tide mark, for maintenance and winter storage. Timber buildings and engineering lasts longer, the further North you go, as rot and worm lose their appetite. Longships do not offer much dry accommodation for crew, passengers or cargo, but tarpualin tents many have been used.

Pure speculation but ... as the Vikings travelled South, the life expectancy of their ships would have been significantly reduced. The Vikings may have survived extended tours of duty over several (?), 5+years(?) in warmer climates, but their ships didn't.

This remains a problem today for wooden boats and yachts, built with the best methods and materials in one area, may not be durable in another. The Royal Navy put copper sheathing on sailing ship hulls, to reduce marine ship worms etc, but it acted as antifouling, keep the hull clean of weed growth.

Where did Europe get copper from? Sweden
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falun_Mine
"Falun Mine (Swedish: Falu Gruva) was a mine in Falun, Sweden, that operated for a millennium from the 10th century to 1992. It produced as much as two thirds of Europe's copper needs[1] and helped fund many of Sweden's wars in the 17th century. Technological developments at the mine had a profound influence on mining globally for two centuries.[2] The mine is now a museum and in 2001 was designated a UNESCO world heritage site."

Named after Falun is Sweden's traditional red paint: Falu red

 or  (/ˈfɑːluː/ FAH-loo, in Swedish falu rödfärg (Swedish pronunciation: [ˈfɑːlɵ ˈrøːfærj])) is a dye[1] that is used in a deep red paint, well known for its use on wooden cottages and barns. The paint historically originated from various copper mines in Sweden. Most well known is the mine at Falun, in the province of Dalarna. In Finland, falu red is known as punamulta ("red earth"), after the pigment, which consists of finely divided hematite. Since the binder is starch, the paint is permeable to water

Entropic Man, you have conducted some of your own research into the Vikings and their occupation of Greenland. You have found records indicating more trees that I had previously considered.

Do you understand why Historians and Archeaologists object to Mann erasing the MWP? With improved forensic science, more evidence has been found since 1998, to confirm Lamb, not Mann.

JayJay, I was wondering whether metal working was done with peat, not timber, by the Vikings in Greenland?

As to wood: after exhausting all wood on Greenland (IDK how much there was in the first place), they could use wood from Canada (Newfoundland) and probably Iceland. Canada would mean an expedition and Iceland a fairly dangerous trip (at least later on). So wood would fetch a good price on Greenland.
It does help when you can prevent your wooden ships from decaying too fast of course.
They would still need wood, or some replacement, for heat and cooking.

JayJay,

whale and seal blubber fat fires? To the concern of many, indigenous people regard slaughtering an entire pod of whales in a narrow inlet or channel, as a rich harvest of a cash crop.

Shortage of trees would have been a very limiting factor for any Viking farmstead colony to expand into a village, without supplies from elsewhere. Timber structures last longer in cold conditions, whether in water or air.

A brief explanation of Viking Ship construction demonstrates that they were lightweight, in their use of timber, but they still needed trees and planks as long as a ship, or a bit longer:
http://www.vikingskip.com/norse-shipbuilding.htm

Golf Charlie

Take a look at Figure 1 here.

https://skepticalscience.com/greenland-used-to-be-green-basic.htm

Southern Greenland is showing Mediaeval temperatures similar to the1990s, based on Mann et al
2009.

There is archeological evidence that the Vikings burned off scattered thickets of Mountain Birch (Betula pubescens ) and Gray-leaf Willow (Salix glauca) when they cleared their pastures. It did not turn out well. Once cleared, grazing would not allow any woody plants to regrow. They suffered serious soil erosion afterwards.

There is one such thicket left in Greenland, in the Qingulla Valley.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qinngua_Valley

I think we can agree on some tree and shrub cover in the most sheltered areas. Calling it a forest would be a bit much. I doubt that there would be enough wood to make much charcoal.

I demonstrate blacksmithing at work. With coal it is straightforward. I tried charcoal once, but at working temperatures you go through fuel pretty fast. Neither peat or wood get hot enough. You need 800-1100C.

Most sources quote iron tools as a major import. I suppose blacksmithing would have been possible using imported iron and fuel, but it was sounds easier to bring in the finished product. Shipbuilding probably worked the same way. You bring in a kit of parts, including wood, nails, iron fittings and tools. You could probably fit a knarr kit inside another knarr.

JayJay

Lots of peat on Greenland. Where you don't have ice you would have tundra. Tundra is basically peat bogs and peat soils with the subsurface peat frozen into permafrost.

There are traditional houses built partly of peat in Iceland and Greenland and recently peat fires.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sisimiut_Museum

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4771046/Arctic-Greenland-burning-hunters-blinded-smoke.html

http://nationalpost.com/news/canada/according-to-new-findings-new-brunswick-may-have-been-home-to-a-lost-viking-settlement

If confirmed, it would be only the second Viking settlement in Canada, the other being L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland

Oh, one caveat.

When you make a hoop to go around a wooden wheel you make it slightly too small to fit.

We then heat it red hot in a peat fire to expand it.

The hoop is then dropped into place and soaked with water to shrink it onto the rim.

Peat gets it red-hot, around 850C, but no higher.

Peat gets it red-hot, around 850C, but no higher.

Mar 16, 2018 at 7:59 PM | Entropic man

Thank you. Is that with or without some form of bellows?