ABSTRACT
Greenland is geologically and geographically a part of North America, but politically it is today a part of Denmark. How could a community of 2000–3000 Viking peasants survive for more than four centuries in Arctic Greenland, and why did they finally disappear? These two questions are equally exciting and challenging. The question which has attracted the greatest interest among scholars and laymen is the second one, the demise of Norse Greenland. Sources about Norse Greenland are scarce, which has made the "models" more influenced by the author's own society than is usually the case. Danish authorities feared that Norway could reclaim Greenland. In 1921 Denmark declared that the whole of Greenland and its territorial waters was to be governed by Denmark. Lessons can be learnt from medieval Greenland on how to meet similar crises in the future on a global level. Norse Greenland archaeology has in the last century produced valuable results on Norse architecture and housing.
