Abandoned Middle Age Norse settlements / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Norse settlements in Greenland were established in the years following 986 by settlers coming from Iceland. The settlers, known as Grænlendingar ('Greenlanders' in Icelandic), were the first Europeans to explore and temporarily settle North America. It is assumed that they developed their own language that is referred to as Greenlandic Norse, not to be confused with the Eskimo-AleutGreenlandic language.[1][pageneeded] Their settlements existed for about half a millennium before they were abandoned for reasons that are still not entirely clear.