Archaeology: Flourishing trade in Greenland's ivory

Daring Icelanders settled on Greenland's west coast at the end of the tenth century.

However, they were never completely self-sufficient there, but relied on active trade relations with their old homeland.

At first they mainly exported skins, only in the twelfth century did walrus tusks become a bestseller: at that time elaborate carvings made of ivory had become fashionable, in both a spiritual and secular context.

On Iceland's coasts, however, walruses were almost extinct.

As a result, the Greenland Norse were able to fill a gap in the market and dominate Europe's ivory market for two hundred years.

Scientists from Norway and the Ukraine have discovered that the trade in walrus tusks was still flourishing far to the east, in distant Kyiv.

Walruses native to Canada's east coast or west coast of Greenland are genetically distinct from their more easterly relatives.

Apparently one population on the east side of the Atlantic survived the ice age, another on the west side.

In principle, the origin of walrus ivory can therefore be easily determined.

Provided one can isolate well-preserved DNA.

Of course, extracting material for relevant investigations is out of the question in the case of valuable works of art.

However, it was once common for walrus teeth to remain firmly anchored in the jawbone when traveling as a trade item.

They were only freed from the bone in the workshops.

The severed and carelessly discarded parts of the walrus skull provide scientists with useful DNA to verify its origin.

As it turned out, almost all finds that can be assigned to the eleventh century or even older come from the northeast Atlantic.

In the case of more recent finds, this proportion shrinks abruptly: In northern and western Europe, mainly tusks of western walruses were processed in the twelfth century.

Numerous finds show that the trade in walrus teeth from Greenland was still widespread in Kyiv.

As the researchers led by James H. Barrett from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim and Natalia Khamaiko from the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine in Kyiv report in the "Proceedings of the Royal Society B", only two out of seven maxillary bones come from discovered during archaeological excavations in Kyiv, from the eastern range of the walrus.

Thanks to DNA analysis, the other five could be clearly assigned to the area between the east coast of Canada and the west coast of Greenland.

Greenland even becomes a bishopric

That these Kiev walrus bones originated in Greenland also confirmed the relative abundance of stable isotopes of carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur.

The way the walrus skulls were trimmed for transport also suggests Greenlandic origin.

It is typical of Western European trading centers such as Trondheim and Schleswig, which resold walrus tusks shipped via Iceland.

In the twelfth century, a trade route led from Schleswig across the Gulf of Finland and Lake Ladoga.

We then went south via Novgorod and on the Dnieper to Kyiv.

Although a rich assortment of twelfth-century ivory carvings has survived in Novgorod, only a single fragment of a walrus skull from this period has been discovered there.

On the other hand, only a few relevant works of art are known from Kyiv.

However, in the old part of the city called Podil, where the examined bones come from, there were undoubtedly workshops that processed tusks.

Conveniently located with a natural harbor on the banks of the Dnieper, Podil was once characterized by craftsmen and traders.

The archeological excavations at the former port unearthed walrus bones as well as other objects that were imported from the north in the mid to late twelfth century.

Apparently, by the late Middle Ages, Kyiv had established itself as an important trading center, through which goods of northern origin could be sent as far as Byzantium and on to Asia.

Among other things, the tusks reported by Greek and Arabic sources from that time.

Well integrated into a globalized market, Greenland became an independent diocese.

In the twelfth century, the Scandinavian settlers were numerous and economically strong enough to build a bishopric and a sizable church.

To get walruses, they had to venture far north beyond their settlements.

It remains an open question whether they mostly killed the huge seals there themselves or traded the coveted tusks from the indigenous population.

Appropriate barter objects such as knives and other iron tools finally came regularly with the ships from Norway, which also delivered wood and grain to Greenland.

In the middle of the fourteenth century, the thriving walrus tusk business suddenly came to an end.

Maybe because the plague had broken out in Norway and shaken the economy.

Perhaps because Arab traders were now shipping elephant tusks all the way to Europe.

Such ivory was much better suited for filigree carving than walrus teeth.

The rapidly falling demand is likely to have severely shaken the economic basis of Greenland's settlers.

Presumably this deficit in the trade balance contributed to the complete extinction of Greenlandic settlements during the fifteenth century.