if they had assimilated into the inuit culture, or at the very least borrowed what could be borrowed from them. Learning how to build their boats, learning how to fish and navigate in them etc.
They held stubbornly onto their argicultural package which depended on barley, cows and pigs, which even in Scandinavia could be argued to be at the edge of where it would be a good package, it was merely used because it was the least bad package they knew, and they didn't bother to learn and accept the 'devolution' into accepting their neighbours hunter/gatherer package
That... or relocated to Newfoundland, or even further south.
Yes, Jared Diamonds research have a reputation for being somewhere between bad and outright wrong ... in this case he gets to the right result with tons of wrong calculations. Greenlander Norse did fish, but they was unable to get enough good lumber to replace and maintain their fishing fleet, and they had a very ill fitting agriculutral package, specially when accounting for the end of the medieval warm period (which also decimated Iceland which have slightly better climate).
From what we can tell, while they did have some kind of semi-presistent trade relations with Dorset-Culture, with the more aggessive Thule-Culture peaceful trade seems to have largely stopped, and the Norse had previously failed to inherit the Dorset technology to forage after the forementioned lumber shortage, cut down on available ships (which also cut down on access to Walrus Ivory, which in turn cut down the profit for going there for icelandic traders, together with a royal monopolisaiton and African Ivory through the Sahara trade routes becoming more common), and the Trade seems to have been Food from the Dorset for luxury goods or knowledge from the Norse (selling out of their smaller and smaller iron supplies for one).
Without this stranglehold and more willingness to use Native American
Could inbreeding have been a factor? The colony never grew much beyond 5000 people (some sources say only 3000). That seems very small, considering that the colony lasted nearly 500 years. And later gravesites contained a large number of young women.What ended the colony was that the people of greenland didn't want to live like the inuits. What seems to have happened is that the people departed (or tried too) for warmer pastures. Such as the abandonment of the Western Settlement. Where these people went is another question because it wasn't iceland or norway or the like.
It's not so much of them "dying out" (though some stubborn folk did), as they "moved out", slowly. With most of the young ones leaving for better lands. And without enough young people the colony declined and then vacated.
Inuit aren't really Native Americans
if they had assimilated into the inuit culture, or at the very least borrowed what could be borrowed from them. Learning how to build their boats, learning how to fish and navigate in them etc.
They held stubbornly onto their argicultural package which depended on barley, cows and pigs, which even in Scandinavia could be argued to be at the edge of where it would be a good package, it was merely used because it was the least bad package they knew,
and they didn't bother to learn and accept the 'devolution' into accepting their neighbours hunter/gatherer package
Could inbreeding have been a factor? The colony never grew much beyond 5000 people (some sources say only 3000). That seems very small, considering that the colony lasted nearly 500 years. And later gravesites contained a large number of young women.