In AD 986 southern Greenland was settled by twenty-five shiploads of Norse Vikings from Iceland, drawn there by the enthusiastic reports of their leader, Eirik the Red, who had visited the area three years earlier. They established farmsteads in three areas, in sheltered locations along fjords, remaining on Greenland until the 16th century AD.
They kept sheep, cattle and goats, overwintering them in great byres on fodder crops which they raised locally, and supplemented their diet by fishing and hunting seals and caribou.
They traded with their Arctic neighbours, in whose settlements Norse objects have been discovered, and hunted walrus and bear for ivory and skins.
The Greenland settlements were used as a base for further seafaring expeditions to the west, their purpose including obtaining timber which was scarce in Greenland. It is not known whether these expeditions travelled as far as the North American mainland.
