Jørgen Hollesen (National Museum of Denmark), Henning Matthiesen1, Hans Harmsen2 and Christian Koch Madsen (Greenland National Museum and Archives)
For a lot of people, the word ‘Greenland’ immediately conjures an image of icebergs and snow: empty, inhospitable and desolate (except perhaps for the occasional polar bear). Greenland’s reputation as a frozen wilderness devoid of human life is actually quite far from the truth—Greenland has been (and continues to be!) a place where people have left behind enormous amounts of evidence of their past lives and livelihoods. Fortunately for archaeologists, much of this evidence is still well-preserved in the permafrost and frozen soils found along Greenland’s coasts. However, rising temperatures in the Arctic now threaten these once pristine archaeological records, placing a fast approaching expiration date on Greenland’s frozen past.
In Greenland, people traditionally settled (and still continue to live to this day) on the country’s extensive coastline and island archipelagos. These areas were only freed from the ice about 8,000 years ago. The Greenland Ice Sheet, which currently covers 80% of the island, is a remnant of the glacial giants of the last Ice Age that once covered huge portions of North America. As the Arctic climate became warmer and the glaciers began to retreat, ice-free areas along Greenland’s coasts opened up and quickly became ecologically rich and diverse habitats for many types of sea and land mammals, birds, and a variety of grasses, sedges and plants. Early Paleo-Inuit peoples which archaeologists know as the Saqqaq and Independence I were the first peoples to move into Greenland’s virgin territories around 4,500 years ago. See Figure 1. These small bands of hunter-gatherers travelled from the Western Arctic across Northern Canada and were always on the move, relocating between the coast and inner fjords to hunt, fish and gather wild edibles depending on the season. During the winter months, semi-permanent camps were set up along the coasts to hunt sea mammals—especially seal, an animal that has always been crucial to survival in Greenland.
Fast-forward to the year AD 1000. Norse settlers from Iceland began landing on the shores of Greenland, drawn by the promise of open land and the lucrative export of walrus ivory and other exotic animal goods. For a time, the Norse did well during their time in Greenland. By the thirteenth century, the two permanent settlements they established had a combined population of 2,000-3,000 people. Contrary to most popular narratives about the collapse of Norse society in Greenland, current archaeological evidence suggests that they were not the unlucky victims of a climate change brought on by the Little Ice Age that began ca. AD 1300. The Norse were quite skilled at adapting to the many changes they saw happening around them—shifting their diets over time to rely less on domesticated livestock and more and more on locally available marine resources, such as harp seal. The gradual disappearance of the Norse in Greenland ca. AD 1450 was a combination of several factors that included changing climate—but was also certainly influenced by other external pressures. These may have included the decline in trade resulting from the Black Plague that ravaged Northern Europe in the 14th century and the diminishing value and demand for walrus ivory.
Shortly after the Norse arrived in Greenland, another culturally distinct group of Inuit people known as the Thule culture entered the scene around 1250 A.D, originating from Alaska and travelling across northern Canada along the same routes that earlier Paleo-Inuit peoples had taken. Modern-day Inuit Greenlanders are the descendants of the Thule culture, a people known for their sophisticated knowledge and technology for whaling, hunting and long-distance travel over sea and ice. Within a relatively short period, the Thule managed to explore and settle Greenland in its entirety, exploiting almost every ecological niche available along the coasts and inner fjords. While there is currently very little archaeological and historic evidence of contact between the Thule and the Norse, the two groups certainly met one another. However, the frequency and the types of the interactions that took place still remains an important area for future study.
Figure 1 Chronology of the different cultures that have colonised Greenland shown in relation to a generalised climate curve for the last 4500 years. Used with permission from the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS).
Over the 16-17th centuries, European explorers and whalers began sailing further north along the western shores of Greenland, drawn by the prospect of lucrative profits from whaling and trade with the Thule Inuit. In 1721, the first Danish-Norwegian mission station was established by missionary Hans Egede at Håbets Ø (Hope Island) near to the present-day capital city of Nuuk. Over the 18-19th centuries, the traditional Thule culture was slowly eclipsed by a growing Danish colonial influence and a gradual population decline brought about by exposure to European disease and establishment of more permanent residences around the colonial settlements. Contact was made with the last isolated Inuit communities in East Greenland in the 1880s, marking the end of Greenland’s Thule culture period.
All of these past peoples, whether Paleo-Inuit, Norse, Thule or European, share a common characteristic in that they all tended to discard their household waste out of the front entrance of their dwellings, creating middens. These middens have proven a tremendous boon for archaeologists working in Greenland. Because of Greenland’s cold conditions, many of the organic materials buried in the middens have excellent preservation, providing archaeologists with everything from ancient wood to bones, feathers, baleen, antler, leather, fur, animal dung and even human hair. See Figure 2. For example, in 2010, researchers from the Natural History Museum of Denmark and the Beijing Genomics Institute sequenced the first ancient human genome from a tuft of human hair collected from a midden at Qeqertasussuk in Disko Bay, West Greenland. The results showed that Greenland’s Saqqaq culture originated genetically from eastern Siberia (Dalton 2010).
Figure 2 Examples of midden finds from Greenland. The top three photos are from Qeqertarsuaq, Disko Bay, West Greenland; from left to right, these show (1) fox skull with cut marks; (2) the inner sock of a Saqqaq kamik (moccasin); (3) complete skeleton of a ringed seal. The two bottom photos are from southwest Greenland: at left are two hunting implements made from caribou antler (top) and walrus ivory (bottom) and at right is an early Thule toy horse made from wood found at a Norse farm (ca. 1300). © National Museum of Denmark.
The impact of climate change on archaeological sites in Greenland
The many discoveries made in the Greenlandic middens have inspired great excitement. However, today this excitement goes hand in hand with concern. There is a growing awareness among the archaeologists working in northern Greenland that many of these midden sites are under pressure from climate change and human impacts, such as agriculture. This is especially true for those archaeological remains preserved in the permafrost. Increasing temperatures heat up the ground and melt the soil. As a result, the buried organic materials begin to break down in a process similar to garden composting.
By 2100, scientists predict that the global temperature will be 4 to 7°C warmer than the observed 1961–1990 average. This is highly concerning for archaeologists, as evidence has shown that even a small increase in temperature has an enormous influence on archaeological sites and deposits. In some cases, thawing soils and excessive drainage will cause middens to dry out and artefacts to crumble. In other cases, increasingly wetter and warmer conditions will result in increased microbial activity and the rapid decomposition of organic artefacts. The raising temperatures also lengthen the growing season and can lead to denser vegetation growth, resulting in the deeper penetration of roots into undisturbed archaeological contexts. See Figure 3. Precipitation and storm surges are also another important issue for many archaeological sites in Greenland as many sites are located close to or on the shoreline. Even a small increase in storminess in the North Atlantic may lead to increased erosion and the collapse of archaeological features into the sea.
Figure 3 Arctic archaeological sites are ‘hotspots’ for vegetation, due to the increased amount of plant nutrients they contain. Root damage and overgrowth occurs at many of the inland sites in Greenland. Comparison of photos of the same site from 1932 (at left) and 2017 (at right) shows a clear increase in the presence of Northern willow (S. glauca) at the famous Norse site Ujarassuit (Anavik). (1932 photo: Roussel, National Museum of Denmark and 2017 photo: Roberto Fortuna, National Museum of Denmark).
Over the last decade, researchers from the Greenland National Museum and Archives, the National Museum of Denmark and the Center for Permafrost Studies (CENPERM) at the University of Copenhagen have worked together to understand how climate change is impacting Greenland’s archaeology. From 2010-2015, environmental monitoring and research was carried out at Qajaa near Ilulissat in West Greenland, a site well-known for its thick midden deposits that contain exquisitely preserved layers of Greenland’s cultural past See Figure 4. The permanently frozen conditions of the subsoil at Qajaa have ensured the excellent preservation of organic artefacts, helping to fix a chronology for Greenland’s settlement history over the last several millennia.
At Qajaa, special attention was given to understanding the relationship between air and soil temperatures as well as any notable increase in the microbial activity degrading organic materials. Experimentation in the laboratory showed that the microbial degradation of both archaeological soils and wooden artefacts was highly temperature-dependent, with decomposition rates increasing 10–15% for each degree of additional warming in the soil. These decomposition rates were combined with other atmospheric monitoring data to assess the future thaw and decay scenarios for the middens at Qajaa. The results showed that in a worst-case scenario up to 60% of the middens’ organic content could potentially vanish within the next 80 years. Although this figure is quite sobering, there is still hope—the results also showed that there is still time for archaeologists to mitigate this loss through carefully planned monitoring and targeted rescue excavations.
Figure 4 A kitchen midden with thick layers of bones, food remains, worn out tools and other refuse is found at the site at Qajaa. Erosion has sectioned the midden, exposing its many layered history. The midden at Qajaa is up to 3 m thick and contains remains of the Saqqaq, Dorset and Thule cultures. Photo: Jesper Stub Johnsen, National Museum of Denmark.
Figure 5 From 2016-2019 the REMAINS of Greenland research project investigated the short and long-term net effects of climate change on the preservation of archaeological sites in the Nuuk region in southwest Greenland.
The work at Qajaa was followed by a large-scale multidisciplinary research project in 2016 entitled the REMAINS of Greenland (recipient of the European Archaeological Heritage Prize in 2020). The project focused on investigating several archaeological sites in the Nuuk Fjord in southwest Greenland. This area was chosen both because of its high density of archaeological sites as well as the fact that in the Nuuk Fjord the effects of climate change are quite visible. REMAINS combined the talents of plant biologists, geomorphologists, geographers, permafrost experts, conservators, archaeologists, and environmental researchers who used advanced methods to map effects of climate change (e.g. high precision drones and spectral analysis to study vegetation patterns) across a variety of archaeological sites. See Figure 5. Unfortunately, the results were a cause for concern: of the 336 known archaeological sites in the Nuuk region, the vast majority are already under threat and are experiencing the effects of climate change, such as increased microbial activity, permafrost thaw and increased vegetation growth. Over the next 80 years, these factors will continue to influence preservation to varying degrees and much of the region will continue to experience substantial loss to heritage as temperatures continue to rise. The most rapid decomposition is occurring in the more temperate, inland areas of the fjord that experience warm and dry summers. What all this means is that it is important to act now. Coastal erosion, permafrost thaw, increasing vegetation, wildfires and increasing human pressures from cruise ship tourism and agriculture are all part of the big picture of the effects of climate change on Greenland’s archaeological heritage. Each type of impact has different consequences, causing damage at timescales that can vary from days to decades or centuries. Triage is required for dealing with the reality of the situation in Greenland. However, in order to come up with an effective plan, archaeologists first need an overview of which sites are most at risk. The REMAINS project represents the first attempt to gain such an overview, and ideally this approach could be used in other parts of the country. Excavations are expensive and time consuming, and archaeologists are already overwhelmed at the scale of loss, so careful prioritization is crucial. As the climate continues to change, the situation will only become worse over time. The current situation in Greenland, as well as other parts of the Arctic demonstrates that we are poorly prepared to respond to a scenario where compounding climate-driven pressures affect thousands of archaeological sites all at the same time.
The next step
Recently, two unique cultural landscapes were designated as UNESCO World Heritage areas in Greenland. Kujataa in the south of Greenland is characterized by a medieval Norse and Inuit sub-arctic agricultural landscape. Just above the Arctic Circle, Aasivissuit - Nipisat represents a seasonal Inuit settlement and hunting area with a history of human activity that extends over the last 4,200 years. These appointments provide a unique opportunity to uncover new knowledge about Greenland’s history and future through robust and intensive cross-disciplinary scientific investigations. With the Activating Arctic Heritage: Exploring UNESCO World Heritage in Greenland project researchers from the Greenland National Museum and National Museum of Denmark have initiated a new series of inquiries within the two UNESCO areas, using innovative and state-of-the-art methods to detect, monitor and quantify threats to archaeological sites and artefacts both above and below the ground. The outcomes of this research will provide archaeologists and heritage managers with the data they need to develop both long- and short-term strategies for sustainable cultural resource management, with a broad potential for application in other parts of the Arctic.
For more information
REMAINS of Greenland
Activating Arctic Heritage
Bibliography
- Dalton, R. DNA secrets of the ice hair. Nature (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/news.2010.64
- Fenger‐Nielsen, R., Elberling, B., Kroon, A., Westergaard‐Nielsen, A., Matthiesen, H., Harmsen, H., Madsen, C. K., Stendel, M., and Hollesen, J. (2020) Arctic archaeological sites threatened by climate change: A regional multi‐threat assessment of sites in Southwest Greenland. Archaeometry, https://doi.org/10.1111/arcm.12593.
- Hollesen, J., Matthiesen, H., Fenger-Nielsen, R., Abermann, J., Westergaard-Nielsen, A., Elberling, B., 2019. Predicting the loss of organic archaeological deposits at a regional scale in Greenland, Scientific Reports 9, 9097.
- Harmsen, H., Hollesen, J., Madsen, C.K., Albrechtsen, B., Myrup, M., Matthiesen, H. A Ticking Clock? Preservation and Management of Greenland’s Archaeological Heritage in the Twenty-First Century. Accepted for publication in CONSERVATION AND MGMT OF ARCH. SITES (September 2018).
- Hollesen, J., Callanan, M., Dawson T., Fenger-Nielsen, R., Friesen, T.M., Jensen, A.M., Markham, A., Vandrup Martens, V., Pitulko V.V., Rockman, M. (2018). Climate change and the deteriorating archaeological and environmental archives of the Arctic. Antiquity 92, 573-586, doi:10.15184/aqy.2018.8
- Hollesen, J., Matthiesen, H., Elberling, B. (2017). The impact of climate change on an archaeological site in the Arctic. Archaeometry 59(6), 1175-1189.
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