Viking Bronze Casting on Baffin Island

[kbs2244]

A link from todays news page.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1 ... .21497/pdf

She is still publishing!

[Cognito]

It is plausible that the Greenland Norse were back and forth across the Davis Strait into Canada for hundreds of years. As mentioned in a different post, here is an interesting thesis discussing where the Western Settlement might have gone circa 1342: http://csus-dspace.calstate.edu/bitstre ... sequence=1

[kbs2244]

I have no doubt they were there.
But why?
I can accept fur trade, but bronze casting?
Is there copper or zinc anywhere around there?
(Excepting Lk. Superior copper. that would be a long trek. Over the divide and across the whole of Hudson Bay.)

[Minimalist]

I wonder what the fuel source would have been for a smelting industry?




Doesn't look like a lot of trees grow there even today.

[E.P. Grondine]

I wonder what the fuel source would have been for a smelting industry?

Doesn't look like a lot of trees grow there even today.

Whale oil.

From naturally dead carcasses, if not hunted ones.

I don't know much about the burning temperature of whale bone.

A whale carcass was set on fire at Santa Cruz years ago.

[kbs2244]

It is a kind of small pot.
And it seems to be isolated.
So I don't think we can call it an "industry"
More a one time thing to pass away a cold night?

I don't remember offhand the temp need for bronze making.
For some reason I do remember it being less than copper smelting (from ore)
But we must be talking about some kind of forced air induction process.

But again, from what?
Where did the copper and tin come from?
And what were they making?
And why?

A classic case of "The more we learn, the less we know."

[Tiompan]

It's a crucible .

No evidence for the smelting having been done locally ,which could have been elewhere .
Metals are traded /moved why not crucibles ?

[Cognito]

It's just a crucible and not an industry. The most likely use for it would be to melt ingots or to re-melt copper, etc. It's small, it's portable, and all it takes is driftwood to build a strong enough fire. If the Norse wanted more wood than they could possibly cut, then they could sail south to Markland (i.e. Newfoundland). From the Icelandic Annals:

"In 1347, a storm battered small ship from Greenland fetched up at Straumey in Iceland with a crew of seventeen or eighteen. The ship had lost its anchor and been driven off course on its way back from Markland." Seaver KA. The Frozen Echo. Stanford University Press, 1996. p. 28.

They weren't traveling to Markland as tourists.

[Minimalist]

Whale oil.

Possible I suppose...although it would take a lot of it. I always thought that whale oil was not particularly efficient though. I know it was replaced by kerosene as an illuminant fairly early on.
In fact, the ease with which whale oil was replaced by better alternatives is one of the reasons why it was so easy to ban whale hunting.

[kbs2244]

‘”In fact, the ease with which whale oil was replaced by better alternatives is one of the reasons why it was so easy to ban whale hunting.”

While I don’t want to open a whole new thread on economic history, there was a guy named Rockefeller that had something to do with this,
While some may consider his business tactics Viking like, he was well after this discovery.

But the original question remains,

Why here?

The idea that this artifact may have been a re-purposed pot has merit.
Did they check for later use?
(After the bronze making?)
I don’t believe they say.

[E.P. Grondine]

The driver for the exploitation of kerosene was the invention of a lamp which could burn it and not explode.

Driftwood is possible, as is timber from the south.

[Minimalist]

While some may consider his business tactics Viking like

Very good.

[Cognito]

Driftwood is possible, as is timber from the south.

Driftwood makes for excellent firewood while timber is needed for boat planks. The average wooden seawater hull lasts about 30 years and the Norse occupied the Greenland colonies for 400 years. According to Seaver, there was a small amount of timber in Greenland when they arrived that was completely felled within a few years.

To continue making seagoing vessels for their livelihood over centuries, would the Greenlanders pay for imported timber from Norway, 2000 miles away? Or, would they sail to Newfoundland at half the distance to load up for free? Yes, the natives were dangerous and unpredictable, so:

Locate an island, beach the knarr, post a guard, cut like crazy, load the boat and leave. Oh yeah, collect a nice profit after riding the Gulf Stream back home.

[kbs2244]

Is there any evidence that Baffin Island was ever forested?
(It is far north of Newfoundland.)
And, even if it was, why bronze smelting?

[Minimalist]

Is there tin and/or copper ore on Baffin? I can see importing one component but not both.