Migration to Greenland

Inuit cultures at the mercy of Mother Nature
People have lived in Greenland for more than 4500 years, although there have been long periods when the country has been completely uninhabited because conditions made it impossible. This could have been due to a lack of animals to hunt or in the event of a change of climate that made conditions too harsh for survival. Excavations from throughout Greenland and finds of ruins, tools, bones and clothing bear witness to highly developed cultures that immigrated in several separate waves.

Winter house from 17th century A.D.

1st wave of immigration: Saqqaq culture
The first immigration from Canada to Greenland took place in around 2500 BC and lasted until 900 BC. The Saqqaq people settled from the southern part of Melville Bay, round Cape Farewell and up the southeast coast to what is today Ittoqqortoormiit. At the small settlement of Saqqaq in Disko Bay the first tools from this culture were found, and the settlement is what gave this culture its name. The culture lived primarily inland and hunted reindeer.

2nd wave of immigration: Dorset culture
The next wave of immigration took place from 500 BC to around the time of the birth of Christ – also via the ice at Thule, then southwards along Greenland’s west coast and probably on to the east coast. The Dorset people brought with them the well-known Inuit women’s knife, the ulo, which is still in use today. Large knives for cutting snow indicate that this was the first culture to have learnt the art of building an igloo. The culture, named after Cape Dorset in Canada, lived primarily on the tundra and hunted land mammals such as reindeer and musk oxen.

3rd wave of immigration: Dorset 2, Norse settlers and the Thule people
Before the end of the first millennium, i.e. before 1000 AD, no less than three different cultures arrived in a third wave of immigration to Greenland. This third wave arrived after the country seems to have been uninhabited for around 800-900 years. The Dorset 2 people arrived in the 8th-9th centuries AD. This group settled primarily around Thule and in North and Northeast Greenland.

It is thought that the Thule people arrived in Greenland in around the tenth century AD. The Thule people settled all the way round the country on both the west and the east coasts.

Qilakitsoq mummy A.D. 1475

Greenlanders today are descended from the Thule people, who, unlike the first immigrants, were a maritime race that lived close to the coast and utilised the sea’s resources. The last known immigration from Canada took place in around 1860.

The final immigration in the Early Middle Ages was by Norse settlers, and unlike the earlier immigrations, the Norse settlers came from Iceland and Norway. It is the only race whose arrival in Greenland can be precisely dated, i.e. the year 982 AD, when Erik the Red set foot in South Greenland. The last that was heard of the Norse settlers, who were primarily farmers, was from reports of a wedding held in Hvalsey Church in 1408.

All over Greenland traces of the last immigrant cultures, in particular, can be seen today, and local museums and the National Museum in Nuuk contain comprehensive exhibitions of these cultures.

 

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