A Comparison of the Greenlandic Eastern and Western Settlements

Abstract

In the past decade, much fresh research concerning the lost Norse colonies of West Greenland has been carried out. There has been intensive survey in both Eastern and Western Settlements, a series of excavations in the Western Settlement, and a good deal
of laboratory research on Norse paleoeconomy. Building on a long and distinguished tradition of Scandinavian Greenlandic scholarship, this new research and fresh data may justify some preliminary attempts to generalize about the nature of the Norse colonies. This paper presents a very broad, and very preliminary comparison of the two settlement areas.