Decline of the Norse Greenland Colony (1490s)

Timeline

1. 1400–1490Greenland · GreenlandThe intensifying Little Ice Age, changing trade routes, and Norway's post-Black Death decline reduced annual voyages from Iceland and Norway; after 1408 no reliable written records from Norse Greenlanders exist, leaving the colony isolated.
2. 1492–1499Eastern Settlement · Eastern SettlementEuropean documents of the 1490s still regarded Greenland as part of the Norway-Iceland diocesan system, but actual contact had ceased; archaeology shows settlements abandoned or depopulated, possibly linked to climate deterioration, resource depletion, and the southward expansion of Inuit (Thule) culture.
3. 1500Western Settlement · Western SettlementBy the early 16th century, European voyagers returning to Greenland found Norse settlements deserted; the 1490s are regarded as the decisive decade of the Eastern Settlement's final disappearance, marking the end of centuries of Viking colonization in North America.