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.
FIRST WAVE OF IMMIGRATION: INDEPENDENCE I
The first people in Greenland came from Northern Canada around 2500 BC. The Independence I culture spread along the northern coastline of Greenland to the southern parts of the present day National Park in Northeast Greenland.
These early hunters were dependent on relatively stationary animal populations and primarily lived of musk oxen and ringed seals. The latest finds from Independence I has been dated approx. 1730 BC.
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SECOND WAVE OF IMMIGRATION: THE SAQQAQ CULTURE
“The second immigration from Canada to Greenland took place in around 2400 BC and lasted until 8-400 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 subsequently gave the name to the culture. The people of the Saqqaq culture are the ones who has lived in Greenland for the longest unbroken period.
This was mainly due to the fact that these hunters were able to hunt and use a wide variety of animals, such as whales, seals, fish, birds and land mammals.
New DNA research has proven that the Saqqaq people originated from the Aleutian Islands and were not genetically related to the later Inuit.
THIRD WAVE OF IMMIGRATION: INDEPENDENCE II AND THE DORSET CULTURE
The next two immigrations were by the Independence II culture along Greenlands northern coastline and into Northeast Greenland from approx. 800 BC to 0 AD and a new culture, the Dorset, which came across the ice near present day Qaanaaq, and moved then southwards along Greenland’s west coast and probably on to the southern part of the east coast.
The Dorset people brought with them a women’s knife, the ulo, which is still in use today in Greenland. 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.
