By examining ancient walrus DNA, an international research team led by Lund University in Sweden have retraced the walrus ivory trade routes of the Viking Age. They found that Norse Vikings and Arctic Indigenous peoples were probably meeting and trading ivory in remote parts of High Arctic Greenland, several centuries before Christopher Columbus “discovered” North America. The study is now published in Science Advances.
“On a more human level these remarkable encounters, framed within the vast and intimidating landscapes of the High Arctic, would probably have involved a degree of curiosity, fascination and excitement.”
In Medieval Europe, there was an enormous demand for elite products, among them – walrus ivory. With the Vikings playing a vital part in the ivory trade, this drove the Norse expansion into the north Atlantic to Iceland and then Greenland; as they looked for new sources of ivory.
“What really surprised us was that much of the walrus ivory exported back to Europe was originating in very remote hunting grounds located deep into the High Arctic. Previously, it has always been assumed that the Norse simply hunted walrus close to their main settlements in southwest Greenland”, says Peter Jordan, Professor of Archaeology at Lund University.
The researchers used genetic “fingerprinting” to reconstruct precisely where traded walrus artifacts were coming from.
“We extracted ancient DNA from walrus samples…
