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●
Greenland's past
in a new
masterpiece
4,500 years of Greenland's
prehistory has now been
collected in one great book
By Christian Schultz-Lorentzen
For the first time, a complete
work on Greenland's prehistory
has been published.
The work provides information
about the different cultures
that settled at different
times on the world's largest
island and how they used
imagination and ingenuity to
form a life for themselves in
challenging conditions. It all
started more than 4,500 years
ago, when the first humans
arrived at the northern part
of Greenland and then quickly
occupied most of the country.
The large, 430-page book,
which is richly illustrated and
is appropriately called »Prehistoric
Greenland«, mentions
well-known facts as well as
new research findings.
- The book is the first
comprehensive description of
prehistoric Greenland and it
is the result of cooperation
between two national museums
in Greenland and Denmark
that recently completed
the great task of returning
cultural artefacts to Greenland.
The shared knowledge
of the country's past has now
been collected in one great
work, the contents of which
reflect the respect and admiration
we must feel for these
ancient cultures, says the editor
of the book, research
Air Greenland inflight magazine 19
professor Hans Christian Gulløv
of the National Museum
of Denmark.
The newly-published work
describes different Greenlandic
societies and their cultural
positions based on archaeological
evidence dating
from the first Palaeoeskimo
immigration about 4,500
years ago, to the Norse Middle
Age and up to the 1800's,
when the influence of the
European explorers, whalers
and missionaries left its mark
on Greenland.
- Our knowledge about
the distinguished past of the
world's largest island has increased
significantly during
recent decades. New archaeological
discoveries and new
techniques in particular have
given us new knowledge of
the different cultures that
have left their mark on fertile
and barren regions of the
country alike.
The discovery of the Dorset
Culture's great cult buildings
in Thule attracted particular
attention. They stand as a
significant example of sha-
● Implements made of soapstone, bone, horn and wood were used in Norse
households and at the table. In the kitchen, food containers were made of
wood, as were spoons and ladles. Cooking pots were carved out of soapstone
found locally. At the table, cutting boards, wooden or soapstone bowls,
wooden and soapstone drinking vessels, horn spoons and iron knives were used.
● Qallunaatsiaat illuini nerinermilu atortorineqarsimasut ukkusissamik,
saanernik, nassunnik qisunnillu sanaat. Iggavimmi nerisassaasiviit alussaatit
qajuuttallu qisunnik sanaajupput. Nerrivimmi kitseriviit, niaquusat qisummik
ukkusissamilluunniit sanaat, imertarfiit qisunnik ukkusissamillu sanaat, alussaatit
nassunnik sanaat saviillu savimerngit atorneqartarput.
● I den norrøne husholdning og ved bordet blev anvendt husgeråd af fedtsten,
ben, horn og træ. I køkkenet var madbeholdere af træ, det samme var skeer
og øser. Kogekar blev skåret i den lokale fedtsten. Ved bordet blev anvendt
skærebrædder, skåle af træ eller fedtsten, drikkekar af træ og fedtsten,
hornskeer og jernkive.
manistic activity and were in
use until the 1100's, when
people of the Thule Culture
arrived in the country and
the Norse had long been
living in settlements in the
south. For the first time, the
book describes the meeting
between the three different
cultures in northernmost
Greenland.
But archaeological studies
of Norse farming society in
the Arctic still provides us
with new and surprising
knowledge about earliest
Christianity and church building
in the New World. Using
the results of new scientific
investigations of skeletons
from Norse graveyards, the
book gives us an insight into
the manner in which the farmers
adjusted to the changing
climate and sought increasingly
to find food in the sea.
NARAYANA PRESS