Originally Posted by Horrido

I know they had grassland to work with, but it was also never really enough either volume-wise or nutritionally to support the herds. I wouldn't really say it worked well. They had to depend a lot on imports. I don't think the inhabitants of those colonies ever exceeded 50 or more individuals, and there's also some debate as to whether they were year-round settlements or summer fishing villages. A four-hundred-year time frame seems a bit long, too. My impression was a few decades. It's been 12-years since I studied the subject, so it's a bit fuzzy, and you could very well be spot-on right on all counts from more recent studies. Still, for Norwegians to pack-up and call it quits, it says a lot on how rough the realestate was. lol