Science: Did rising seas play a role in Viking abandonment of Greenland settlements?
The Vikings’ final disappearance from Greenland remains enigmatic. Historians and archaeologists attribute their departure to a range of environmental factors—worsening weather in a changing climate, flooding, erosion, shrinking markets for walrus ivory (a staple trade good) and ongoing conflict with the indigenous Inuit people. The story, it turns out, is a bit more complicated. Newresearchadds another, surprising factor: Sea-level rise, driven counterintuitively by advancing glaciers, may have inundated the Vikings’ Eastern Settlement. Read the full articlehere. Courtesy/LANL