Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Ever wondered why the Romans were defeated in the Teutoburg Forest? What secrets lie buried in prehistoric Ireland? Or what made Alexander truly great? With a subscription to History Hit, you can explore our ancient past alongside the world's leading historians and archaeologists.
You'll also unlock hundreds of hours of original documentaries with a brand new release every single week covering everything from the ancient world to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com slash subscribe. Hello and welcome to this special episode of The Ancients. Now, as I'm sure you're aware, Greenland is and has been in the news quite a lot recently.
Now, on The Ancients, we don't cover events of the modern day, but what we can do is shine a light on the incredible histories and prehistories of these areas of the world and Greenland is a fantastic example of that. We want to promote the archaeology, the prehistory of this massive island in the north of the world. A prehistory that stretches back thousands of years.
A rich tale of archaeology but also mythology. What I loved about this chat is the wealth of archaeology that survives because of the cold conditions. Think of the snow and the cold conditions acting like a natural freezer. So, so many organic materials survive. And then combining that with mythology to learn more about how these people lived and how they viewed the polar world around them.
Our guest for this episode is Dr. Asta Munstul. She is an archaeologist from Greenland. She also specialises in the mythology as well. She was so wonderful to talk to, so warm and lovely and really shines a light on the people of Greenland and their long, long history. I really do hope you enjoy. Let's go. It's 800 years ago.
High up in the Arctic, a fire burns brightly, nurtured within a building made of stone and bone. Animal skins insulate the interior. The house is well built for the cold climate. The fire's heat does not escape. This winter house is home to several families, their wet outdoor clothes drying on racks above. Now they come together around the fireplace to eat and tell stories.
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Chapter 2: What archaeological discoveries reveal about prehistoric Greenland?
Children run around, as they do, until they're finally told to sit and take their place. The storytelling is about to begin. Forward steps the Shaman, a leading figure in their small community and the deliverer of tonight's tale. What was it to be tonight? Perhaps the story of the heroic hunter who slew the great whale many moons ago that still provides food for this community.
Or perhaps a myth steeped in survival knowledge, lessons for the young to take heed of in this snowy landscape. Or maybe a story about the spirits that lived in the world around them, in the beaches, atop the mountains, even in their own houses.
Or maybe, just maybe, the shaman will talk about the majestic beast that crosses land and sea, covered in white fur, able to stand on two legs, protective of its young, with razor-sharp teeth and claws that could easily end the life of a human. The dangerous yet fascinating bear that calls this polar world its domain. The children hoped for an exciting story, but tonight their luck is out.
As the Shaman begins, it's soon clear that tonight's tale is not one of their favourites. Slowly their eyes begin to close. Soon they are fast asleep. Perhaps tomorrow the Shaman will treat them with a more thrilling tale of valiant heroes. Perhaps. Welcome to the Ancients and our brand new episode about prehistoric Greenland.
About the people who have called this great arctic island their home for centuries, who learnt to thrive in this cold climate and about whom we know a remarkable amount. This is a story of incredible archaeology, of prehistoric settlements preserved along the coastlines of Greenland, of organic materials, clothing, food, human remains that have survived in the permafrost.
But this is also a story about mythology. Tales passed down for centuries that reveal more about what these communities believed in. Together, these fields help tell the fascinating story of Greenland's prehistoric populations, how they lived, and how they viewed the Arctic world around them. I'm Tristan Hughes, your host, and this is the story of prehistoric Greenland.
Our guest is Dr. Asta Munster, visiting researcher at the University of Copenhagen. Asta, it is such a pleasure to have you on the podcast today.
Yeah, thank you for having me.
You're more than welcome. And to explore the prehistoric story of Greenland, I mean, Asta, with everything that's going on in the world at the moment, it feels very important to highlight the long history the people of this land have. That does stretch back hundreds and hundreds of years into prehistoric times.
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Chapter 3: How did the cold climate preserve artifacts in Greenland?
You can look at other places that are very cold, whether it's in the Altai Mountains or high up in the Alps, where they do get those rare discoveries of organic material preserved in, as you say, these natural freezers.
to think that there is so much of that surviving in Greenland, that you have this invaluable record to learn more about how these people lived all along the coastline, as you say, all around Greenland. So not just like the southern tip, you know, further north as well. That's amazing.
Yeah. Oh, and I forgot textiles. I mean, oftentimes we had skin clothing, but we also find fragments of textiles from the Norsemen, for example.
You also mentioned in passing one of the things that survives is baleen. Now, is that whale blubber?
Is that where they should be? No, it's the whale with this sifting. It's not their teeth. So it's called baleen. Yeah. And I've forgotten the name of that specific whale right now.
Is it the bowhead? Is it the bowhead whale?
It's the bowhead. Yes, exactly. It's the bowhead whale. And it has this sort of sifting system in its mouth. So it swallows up a lot of water and then all the food is sort of sifted and stay inside the mouth while all the water is being sifted out.
And baleen could be used for, because they come in these sort of strings and you can sort of pull them apart and then you can make fishing lines that goes hundreds and hundreds of meters into the sea ice. But you can also carve it out. The hard bit can also be carved out.
I've got to ask for that straight away. So have people like yourself, have you discovered prehistoric fishing lines made out of baleen that went hundreds of meters into the sea?
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Chapter 4: What role does mythology play in understanding Greenland's past?
No, humans are just a part of that chain. And it goes to show even today, for example, so when you have killed your first seal as a young hunter, it was believed that it is the same seal that you will hunt for the rest of your life if you treat that seal with respect and if you treat it well. So you need to serve it some fresh water because just as any other creature, it is thirsty.
Just like when you get guests over, you ask them, do you want something to drink, right? But you do that with the hunting game as well. And you show that respect to the animal and then it will sort of be reincarnated and you are going to hunt that seal for the rest of your life. And that's going to create a sort of relationship between you and the hunting game.
So there was this belief that animals were not killed because of your skills only. You needed to train on your skills, but you also needed to treat the animals and the rest of nature with respect. So when you would go out hunting for whale, for example, the whale was quite picky in a way or, you know, it likes fine things, the whale.
So you need to put on your best suit or if you can, a newly, a new suit. set of clothing when you go hunting for it to pay its respect for that hunting animal and to attract the animal to you. So there is something about you, what you put into the world is going to come back to you, right?
Yeah. How much of this mythology, how many stories like that have survived to the present day that have their origins back in prehistoric times? Is it quite a rich library of information?
In a way, it really is. It really is. We have stories. I mean, because they are stories that were handed over from generation to generation, they could be hundreds of years old. And within archaeology, we like to date things, but it is difficult to date stories, right? Especially when they needed to be handed over for decades and decades and never be changed, for example. But in...
When the colonizers came then, the missionaries in 1721, they started to write down or make some notes on some of these stories that they had heard from the local people. And today, when we look at those sources, we need to sort of peel it just like an onion because they write down, I have heard this story. ridiculous story told by the locals, of course.
So we need to take away the layers to find out what did the locals actually tell them from that time. So already from 1735, we have stories being written down about what the locals were telling each other and what they believed. And then we have all the way up until 1981, those stories were recorded.
So today we have a database containing 2,280 stories that were all collected over that time span of 250 years. And of course, the question for us is, is there anything missing? And there probably is, because there is also something about, might there be stories that you tell the outsiders that come and ask you, if the priest come and ask you, hey, you What stories do you believe in, right?
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Chapter 5: When did the first people arrive in Greenland and how did they survive?
To begin with, we actually see a sort of assembly house. People have their own houses or maybe for two families. And then you have an assembly house where people can meet. It's called the Qassi. That's where you meet. You could dance. You could sing. You could tell your stories and entertain one another. You could laugh and probably also sing.
spook one another because that's also a way of connecting with people. And later on we see, and now we're in the 1600s, the middle of the 1600s, we start seeing what we call communal houses. And they are more elongated and sort of rectangular in shape, but you still have that entrance tunnel that you need to crawl through. And then you enter a space that it's more rectangular.
And instead of having small niches for your families, they all have one long sleeping platform. And then you have sort of curtains dividing the different family compartments. So there you could then, then you didn't have to go outside to the assembly house. You could just simply meet inside there to tell your stories. But, but, uh, the, uh,
The shaman of the settlement could also do his seances right there.
I'd like to ask a bit more about shamans as we go on. But it almost sounds a bit like, dare I say, going too much into medieval territory here, but like a Viking longhouse or something similar to that. Yeah, yeah.
So it sounds like what you were saying earlier, you've got the summer houses as well and the igloos, but to survive in the archaeology, to be seen today, to be recorded today, do we have more examples of the winter houses surviving because they are more... they're more sturdy. They have survived the test of time better.
Yeah, they have survived better. I mean, we register summer tents as well, which they only leave remains in the landscape as sort of rings of stone. But the winter houses, because you dug into the turf area and they are much sturdier, they need to be built to last a whole winter. And sometimes the winter house was probably even not fortified, sort of made stronger.
What would be the right word for that?
Oh, yes, no, yeah, protected, you know, in regards to what?
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Chapter 6: What types of houses did prehistoric Greenlanders build?
Is most of the art that you find in these settlements, is it animalistic? Is it always depicting animals or what types of art should we be thinking of?
We also sometimes have figures looking like humans, but actually in the Tula culture, the Inuit culture, we don't see so many carvings and so much ornamentation as we see in the Dorset culture. So the Dorset culture, we see the pictures of humans and It's much more, such a rich material to look into. So why the Inuit culture later on were too lazy to do it, I don't know.
But the Dorsey culture have amazing source material to look into the ornamentations and what they depict and how lifelike they are. But we also have amazing find from, actually from my hometown, It's eight mummies, and they are called the Riligitok mummies. And they are dated back to the mid-1400s. And what is amazing here is how well-preserved they are.
So we find all their skin clothing, inner clothes and outer clothes, And they got some extra clothing. So you have a handful of women and then two boys. And they have been put to rest with the skin clothing. But on some of the women, at least one of the women, she has facial tattoos. Tattoos, okay. Because their skin is so well preserved, you can see their nails clearly.
I believe you can even see the lashes on some of their eyes. It's amazing. And there you really feel like you are staring into the people of the past.
Okay. Yeah. We've got to talk about this then.
You need to look that up, even though it might look a little scary, but it's such an amazing find and such a rich find. And it tells us a lot about what sort of diseases could they have at the time. It's amazing. Yeah.
Well, let's talk about that quickly as well because we did an episode last year on the Siberian ice mummies and they did recent research with the skin surviving on those mummies high up in the Altai Mountains. They were able to figure out how they were tattooed and actually the method they probably used to get the pictures on their skin. So do we know a lot then?
You used that example from your hometown just then. Do we have quite a rich corpus of understanding about how mummies the Tula Inuit, how they buried their dead, how they looked after their deceased relatives?
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