DNA analysis has changed so much about science, and history, too, now that we can trace individual genes back to their geographic origin. We knew that the Vikings were keen on trading ivory, which was in high demand in Europe. They didn't get it from elephants, but rather walrus tusks. A recent study of the DNA contained in that ivory indicates that some of it came from the very north end of Greenland and upper Canada, on the Arctic Ocean. Norse ships were not previously known to travel that far north, and their New World settlements were mainly in the southwest of Greenland.
Hunting in that area would mean catching a window of only ten weeks when the sea was ice-free, and the trip from southwest Greenland would have taken a month. That leaves only two weeks to catch a year's worth of walruses for their ivory. An alternate theory is that the Norse bought the ivory from indigenous Inuit people, but that would also involve travel as the Inuit did not tend to go south to trade. The discovery speaks to the toughness of Vikings and their ships, and to the extreme value of the ivory they brought back. Read more about this discovery at ScienceAlert. -via Real Clear Science
(Image credit: Captain Budd Christman, NOAA Corps)
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