The Collapse of the Greenland Norse Essay -- european history

In Jared Diamonds novel Collapse How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed he discusses many civilizations that moved away from their homelands, grew in population, and then either failed or succeeded in their new environments. Throughout this essay I will attempt to explain the Collapse of the Greenland Norse, one of the many societies to upgrade and fall. The Greenland Norse faced multiple challenges including economical, agricultural, and unfriendly neighbors. Alongside Greenland other North Atlantic islands faced geographical challenges that lead to some of their falls as well. Yet, firstly I will discuss why the Norse left Scandinavia in search of new terrain.Similarly to other enlargements the Norse, also known as Vikings, expansion was most likely caused by whats commonly known as push/pull triggers. Push means that the population pressure lead to a lack of opportunities in their homeland while pull represents good opportunities and empty areas to colonize elsewhere (Co llapse pg. 185). Another reason for their sudden expansion is autocatalytic process. For the Norse two very distinct events set of this type of process one was that in A.D. 793 a raid took place in Lindisfarne Monastery yielding a racy haul of booty that lead to even larger yields in following years and the second reason being the discovery of the unpopulated Faeroe Islands lead to the decision of larger, more distant islands (Collapse pg. 186).Even though the islands looked promising the Norse soon found out otherwise as the geographical environments posed many problems. For instance, Orkneys which lays in the Gulf Stream was perhaps their most successful island as it enjoyed mild climates and allowed for great agricultural production, but on... ...the Norse (Collapse pg. 255). Furthermore, the Inuit was able to outlive the Norse referable to their advanced fishing skills that the Norse refused to learn from their neighbors largely in part to religion. In the end though it was the Norses decision to refrain from take fish, ringed seals, and whales that potentially could have saved them from collapse (Collapse pg. 274). Even though the Greenland Norse only survived for four hundred and fifty years they werent of necessity failures. After all their unique European society was able to survive longer than weve been able to survive here in America (Collapse pg. 276). If we, Americans, dresst learn from others past are we doomed to follow in their footsteps? In my opinion, the answer is yes, but hopefully well be able to turn the tides in the lead its too late and we fall into collapse like so many other societies.