Die. Diet. Die

“A three hour tour you said.”(USPD/Commons.wikimedia.org)

Fishy stink with deadly links.

Would you eat to keep from starving or choose to keep the faith?

A dilemma.

Greenland’s Vikings might have consciously made that choice…or not.

(Oddly the Vikings may have something in common with dinosaurs and the Aztecs. You know, that freezing and starving to death thing due to uncontrollable catastrophe. Maybe…)

Around 1,000 A.D. a group of Vikings from Iceland invaded or immigrated to Greenland. (Depending on your view point. “Indigenous” often means “those who got there before you did and managed to stay alive and thrive.) 

Viking moving day was a during the Medieval Warm Period (about 900-1300) when the sea ice had decreased so sailing from Scandinavia to Greenland was much less tricky. 

Once there, they didn’t really show any plans to return home. For about 400 years they were happy with longer growing seasons with plenty of meadows and grazing lands along Greenland’s southwest coast for cattle, sheep, and goats. Maybe it felt  like simply recreating the medieval European lifestyle in a new location. . 

Suddenly and mysteriously, the whole lot disappeared.

No, no sign of sleeping with the fishes.(USPD/Common.wikimedia.org)

No one really knows why, but there are theories: Like they starved to death.

• Poor land management? (Overgrazing could have cause soil erosion ending agricultural bounty.)
• A better offer from Aliens Spaceships?
• Some strict religious concept?
• Climate change?
• A combo of just bad luck?

They couldn’t build new ships for a return to their homelands since Greenland has very few trees: slender birches and willows.

Note to self: always book with a reputable travel agent who guarantees a return trip and makes sure the cruise line doesn’t feature an open boat. (USPD/Commons.wikimedia.org)

Then worse luck: a mini-Ice Age arrived just like with the Aztecs.

Freezing weather possibly caused by a volcanic explosion on the other side of the world.

Greenland didn’t have enough trees, or even excess wooden home furnishings, to burn and stay warm.

Now here’s a creative theory: they starved to death while surrounded by bountiful sea’s fish, because they would not eat seafood.

(Many parents have worried / threatened their children who turn up their noses at fish dinners, but a whole starving society?)

Why do researchers think so?

They point to the odd fact that there are no remnants of fishbones anywhere around the settlements, homes, or their garbage dumps.

Does anyone actually think think people would gather up their fish leftovers, then haul the stinky mess off on some sort of maritime garbage scow/raft to be towed out to sea and dumped? (Only  advanced, civilized, sophisticated societies do that, right?)

There is no trace of fishbones anywhere.

Not even fish bone ornaments, needles or other useful implements that can be made from fish bones.

Although it has pointed out that the bones could have been crushed and used for crop fertilizer or animal food. 

Symbolic fish of stained glass feed the soul, but that may not be enough.(Evelyn Simak/Commons.wikimedia.org)

One grim, uncomfortable theory suggests the Vikings might have decided that fish were untouchable – perhaps to be worshiped. A revered fish god? 

Starve to death or eat and be damned? Really?  That’s a choice? (Said from a modern perspective…)

Most archeologists don’t seriously consider the “starve rather than break the faith” theory

It’s more likely the Greenland Vikings were either wiped off the face of the earth due to some sort of climate catastrophe (accompanied by angry polar bears or seals looking for revenge or hors d’oeuvres?) or were overrun by the Inuits. (Source) 

(Inuits? Hmm, Now, where did they come from…”Indigenous”? Or greedy territory invaders themselves?)

There’s just so much you can swallow.

Determined to become self sufficient. Why can’t he just give up and call Pizza Hut? Stupid “experience vacation!” (USPD/Commons.wikimedia.org)

Why do whole groups of people suddenly decided to “eat this and not that”? They couldn’t all be worried about an approaching swimsuit season.

The Scottish Pictish are another such puzzle.

According to researchers, the Pictish inhabitants thrived with farms period during 550 to 700 A.D. and ate a diet primarily of barley, beef, lamb, pork and venison. Serious meat-eaters with fresh and saltwater fish oddly missing from their diet.

It wasn’t from lack of skill or knowledge: Pictish sea power is well documented from archaeological remains of naval bases, their surviving records discuss their ships, and obviously, sea people know how to fish.

One explanation is the Picts did not eat fish for cultural and spiritual reasons.

“We … know from Pictish stone carvings that salmon was a very important symbol for them, possibly derived from earlier superstitious and folklore beliefs that include stories about magical fish, such as the ‘salmon of knowledge,’ believed to have contained all the wisdom in the world,” explains researcher Curtis-Summers. “It’s likely that fish were considered so special by the Picts that consumption was deliberately avoided.” (Source)

Your guess is as good as theirs.

Sea life design: Like life, complex and inter-related. (USPD/Commons.wikimedia.org)

Another one: the Britons

For some reason about 5,000 years ago, it looks like Britons suddenly tossed out their regular diet of fish and shellfish in exchange for what became the standard European meal of meat and high carbohydrates.

Since it is true that people are what they eat; bone bare facts reveal diet. By measuring and comparing carbon isotope ratios of Neolithic human bones and comparing them to Mesolithic /Middle Stone Age bones (Around 9000 to 5,200 years to those 5,200 to 4,500 years ago.), results suggest that the Middle Stone Age people ate more seafood.  

So what do you think caused that switch?

• Easier to go get the cow or lamb rather than risk, rough unpredictable seas – and possibly Viking marauding sea people – just for fish sticks?
• Shift from hunter-gatherer existence to a more settled, agricultural way of life?

Or the basic, universal human motivation: Keeping up with the elites or the presence of picky kids in the house. “Mum, not fish stew again! Nobody eats fish stew anymore. Henry’s family has guided swans or lamb chops. Only poor people eat fish….or Catholics. Fish stinks!”  

Fishes in design by design. (USPD/Commons.wikimedia.org)

Mysteries are easy to get hooked on. (With human behavior, that quickly becomes a trotline.)

“Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.”

(Henry David Thoreau)

“Memory is a net: one finds it full of fish when he takes it from the brook, but a dozen miles of water have run through it without sticking.”

(Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.)

“It has always been my private conviction that any man who puts his intelligence up against a fish and loses had it coming.”

(John Steinbeck)

Mom always said “Fish is brain food.”

Phil, the Philosopher Mouse of the Hedge