DNA study to settle ancient mystery about mingling of Inuit, Vikings asserts the headline-but read on, the story makes clear that it won’t settle jack. Did some of the Greenland Norse become absorbed into the skraeling peoples? Surely. But if you read any of Gretel Ehrlich’s books on Greenland you will note how much intermarriage has occurred between Danes, natives and other visitors since “re-contact” (one Inuit family notes proudly their Jewish ancestry from an early 19th century merchant in This Cold Heaven). I am skeptical that even “pure” Inuit who seem phenotypically non-European have escaped Danish taint in the past 300 years. I am a big fan of using genetics to answer historical questions, but ’tis often far easier to falsify than validate, and the archaeology to me implies that 1) Most Greenlanders left for Iceland or 2) if they were desparate they became accultured to Inuit methods and lost their Christian faith and European ways. Because there is an alternative and more plausible pathway to explain the presence of exogenous DNA from Scandinavia this seems more like a publicity stunt than an honest quest for an answer.
Via Human Races. Also, I recommend The Greenlanders if you are curious to read a novelization of the history & culture of the Norse.
Comments are closed.