Greenland's history would read something like this: 'Nothing much happened, nothing much happened, nothing much happened.
May 16, 2006 (Press Release) --
Greenland's history would read something like this: 'Nothing much happened, nothing much happened, nothing much happened. A couple of blokes arrived but left pretty much straight away. Several decades went past - nothing much happened - and then another bloke with red hair arrived and stayed a bit longer but then after that, for about four centuries, things got really quiet and nothing much happened.' As an historical entity Greenland lacks the Grand Narratives: it's light on when it comes to all-out bloody wars, pukka colonels with muttonchop whiskers, tinpot dictators, throne-wrestling and other Shakespearian dramas. (You just know Merchant and Ivory won't be making a film of Greenland's history any time in the near future.) The lack of big dates and bloody wars can be put down to two things: a minuscule population spread over a vast area; and the effort of surviving under hostile conditions that left precious little time for politicking.
Greenlandic history is something of a slippery beast; an amalgam of legendary sagas, anecdotal evidence, scientific fact and supposition. Best guesses are that, 5000 years ago, there were two distinct tribes that either melted into each other or sequentially died out, although not much is known about either of them. They were followed by the Saqqaq tribe of which a little more is known because they left behind a plethora of artifacts that were subsequently dug up and fussed over by the archaeologists. Scientific data and hypotheses have failed to explain why they also died out.
Time passed...and then a bit more time passed...and then in the 10th century Greenlandic history lumbered to its feet again when the Thule culture arrived on the scene and rapidly spread eastward. This is when, culturally and historically speaking, things really got going. The Thule were relatively sophisticated, responsible for introducing those two Greenland icons, the qajaq (kayak) and the dogsled, and it was probably these two inventions that saved them from going the same way as the hapless tribes before them. The Thule are direct descendants of the modern-day Greenlandic Inuit.
Greenland did not have sustained contact with Europeans until Eric the Red, the legendary Viking, used it as a home-away-from-home during his years of exile. It was Eric the Red who called the country Greenland but the naming proved to be more lyrical than factual; most of the time Greenland was anything but. This did not deter the boatload of Icelanders who promptly set about colonising the land and for a couple of centuries the colonists herded, farmed and hunted while the country slipped back into its usual comatose state. Norway got 'round to annexing the country in 1261, but it was a futile attempt at control; 130 years later a big chill set in and by the time the country thawed out and the outside world made contact again, the colonists had gone, either fully acculturated into, or killed by, the Thule.
Greenland slipped out of mind for another three hundred years until a combination of interest in a passage between Europe and the Far East, the lure of money to be made in whaling and missionary zeal put it back on the map. The conversion rate for the missionaries was fairly high: to the Inuit any religion that punished wrongdoers by sending them into a warm climate had a lot going for it.
Although Danish sovereignty was established in the 1600s, in 1924 Norway made an ambitious claim for it based on the Icelandic colonists of the second century. The claim was lost and in 1953 the international court ratified Denmark's sovereignty over Greenland. This state of affairs lasted for another 20 years before Greenland agitated for, and received, more autonomy. In 1979 the Danist parliament granted Greenland home rule, and in 1998 the right to full, uncontested independence, if they want it.
Source: http://www.yahoo.com
Greenlandic history is something of a slippery beast; an amalgam of legendary sagas, anecdotal evidence, scientific fact and supposition. Best guesses are that, 5000 years ago, there were two distinct tribes that either melted into each other or sequentially died out, although not much is known about either of them. They were followed by the Saqqaq tribe of which a little more is known because they left behind a plethora of artifacts that were subsequently dug up and fussed over by the archaeologists. Scientific data and hypotheses have failed to explain why they also died out.
Time passed...and then a bit more time passed...and then in the 10th century Greenlandic history lumbered to its feet again when the Thule culture arrived on the scene and rapidly spread eastward. This is when, culturally and historically speaking, things really got going. The Thule were relatively sophisticated, responsible for introducing those two Greenland icons, the qajaq (kayak) and the dogsled, and it was probably these two inventions that saved them from going the same way as the hapless tribes before them. The Thule are direct descendants of the modern-day Greenlandic Inuit.
Greenland did not have sustained contact with Europeans until Eric the Red, the legendary Viking, used it as a home-away-from-home during his years of exile. It was Eric the Red who called the country Greenland but the naming proved to be more lyrical than factual; most of the time Greenland was anything but. This did not deter the boatload of Icelanders who promptly set about colonising the land and for a couple of centuries the colonists herded, farmed and hunted while the country slipped back into its usual comatose state. Norway got 'round to annexing the country in 1261, but it was a futile attempt at control; 130 years later a big chill set in and by the time the country thawed out and the outside world made contact again, the colonists had gone, either fully acculturated into, or killed by, the Thule.
Greenland slipped out of mind for another three hundred years until a combination of interest in a passage between Europe and the Far East, the lure of money to be made in whaling and missionary zeal put it back on the map. The conversion rate for the missionaries was fairly high: to the Inuit any religion that punished wrongdoers by sending them into a warm climate had a lot going for it.
Although Danish sovereignty was established in the 1600s, in 1924 Norway made an ambitious claim for it based on the Icelandic colonists of the second century. The claim was lost and in 1953 the international court ratified Denmark's sovereignty over Greenland. This state of affairs lasted for another 20 years before Greenland agitated for, and received, more autonomy. In 1979 the Danist parliament granted Greenland home rule, and in 1998 the right to full, uncontested independence, if they want it.
Source: http://www.yahoo.com
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