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- [00:00]
Tristan Hughes
Ever wondered why the Romans were defeated in the Teutoburg Forest? What secrets lie buried in prehistoric Ireland? Or what made Alexander truly great? With a subscription to History Hit, you can explore our ancient past alongside the world's leading historians and archaeologists. You'll also unlock hundreds of hours of original documentaries with a brand new release every single week covering everything from the ancient world to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com subscribe.
- [00:32]
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- [01:08]
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- [02:24]
Tristan Hughes
Hello and welcome to this special episode of the Ancients. Now, as I'm sure you're aware, Greenland is and has been in the news quite a lot recently. Now on the Ancients, we don't cover events of the modern day, but what we can do is shine a light on the incredible histories and pre histories of these areas of the world. And Greenland is a fantastic example of that, we want to promote the archaeology, the prehistory of this massive island in the north of the world. A prehistory that stretches back thousands of years. A rich tale of archaeology, but also mythology. What I loved about this chat is the wealth of archaeology that survives because of the cold conditions. Think of the snow and the cold conditions acting like a natural freezer so so many organic materials survive. And then combining that with mythology to learn more about how these people lived and how they viewed the polar world around them. Our guest for this episode is Dr. Asta Munster. She is an archaeologist from Greenland. She also specializes in the mythology as well. She was so wonderful to talk to. So warm and lovely and really shines a light on the people of Greenland and their long, long history. I really do hope you enjoy. Let's go. It's 800 years ago, high up in the Arctic. A fire burns brightly, nurtured within a building made of stone and bone. Animal skins insulate the interior. The house is well built for the cold climate. The fire's heat does not escape. This winter house is home to several families, their wet outdoor clothes drying on racks above. Now they come together around the fireplace to eat and tell stories. Children run around as they do until they're finally told to sit and take their place. The storytelling is about to begin. Forward steps. The shaman, a leading figure in their small community and the deliverer of tonight's tale. What was it to be tonight? Perhaps the story of the heroic hunter who slew the great whale many moons ago that still provides food for this community. Or perhaps a myth steeped in survival knowledge, lessons for the young to take heed of in this snowy landscape. Or maybe a story about the spirits that lived in the world around them. In the beaches, atop the mountains, even in their own houses. Or maybe, just maybe, the shaman will talk about the majestic beast that crosses land and sea. Covered in white fur, able to stand on two legs, protective of its young, with razor sharp teeth and claws that could easily end the life of a human. The dangerous yet fascinating bear that calls this polar world its domain. The children hoped for an exciting story, but tonight their luck is out. As the shaman begins, it's soon clear that tonight's tale is not one of their favorites. Slowly their eyes begin to close. Soon they are fast asleep. Perhaps tomorrow the shaman will treat them with a more thrilling tale of valiant heroes. Perhaps. Welcome to the ancients and our brand new episode about prehistoric Greenland. About the people who have called this great Arctic island their home for centuries, who learned to thrive in this cold climate and about whom we know a remarkable amount. This is a story of incredible archaeology, of prehistoric settlements preserved along the coastlines of Greenland, of organic materials, clothing, food, human remains that have survived in the permafrost. But this is also a story about mythology, tales passed down for centuries that reveal more about what these communities believed in. Together, these fields help tell the fascinating story of Greenland's prehistoric populations. How they lived, and how they viewed the Arctic world around them. I'm Tristan Hughes, your host, and this is the story of prehistoric Greenland. Our guest is Dr. Asta Munster, visiting researcher at the University of Copenhagen. Aster, it is such a pleasure to have you on the podcast today.
- [07:23]
Dr. Asta Munster
Yeah, thank you for having me.
- [07:25]
Tristan Hughes
You're more than welcome. And to explore the prehistoric story of Greenland. I mean, Aster, with everything that's going on in the world at the moment, it feels very important to highlight the long history the people of this land have. That does stretch back hundreds and hundreds of years into prehistoric times.
- [07:42]
Dr. Asta Munster
Yes, it does.
- [07:43]
Tristan Hughes
And do we have a lot of archaeology surviving, which has been pieced together by archaeologists like yourselves over the years to learn more about these people and how they lived?
- [07:53]
Dr. Asta Munster
Yeah, I mean, I actually first want to go a little bit back to what you said just before, why it's important to understand that there is a long history, because I think Greenland has often been sort of talked about today as if it was empty or if it was remote or just newly discovered. Right. But in reality, it has been inhabited for thousands of years, hundreds of years, by people with deep knowledge of the land, the ice, the animals, and also the climate. So understanding that long history helps sort of counter the idea that Greenland is just a strategic space or a research frontier. It is a homeland for people, and they know that land, and they know it with their memory, and they have a deep culture of that space. And yes, to answer your first real question, surprisingly, actually we do have a lot of. Of archaeological remains to uncover in Greenland. We have many sites along the coast. So if you look up Greenland on a map, you will see a big ice sheet in the middle. And of course, people don't. People have never lived there until we go back to the dinosaurs, but people have always lived along the coast of Greenland. And all the archaeological sites that we have are along the coast of all of Greenland, actually. And the archaeological remains that we have, we find settlements with house remains, dwellings, we find caches. So people's sort of freezers in the landscape. Cairns, I can name it.
- [09:50]
Tristan Hughes
Cairns, kind of burial mounds kind of thing.
- [09:52]
Dr. Asta Munster
Yeah. I always pronounce it wrong. Sorry. And then all of this has mainly been preserved because of permafrost, preserving many items that would usually decay. So we have many organic materials, such as wooden pieces, for example. You don't find a lot of wood, but what we have might sometimes have been preserved. We have bone pieces, sometimes baleen, tusks, antler, sometimes even fur and hair can be preserved in those icy frozen layers. So excavating an archaeological site can be really interesting and really intriguing because it is sort of this freezer that have just frozen things in time and then, of course, also in layers. So we can see this is not only one incidence, but also there is a deep history at various sites, for example. And then, of course, we also have stone tools. But the more exotic stuff as organic materials, we also find that.
- [11:04]
Tristan Hughes
No, but I mean, that is the incredible fact, isn't it? And you can look at other places that are very cold, whether it's in the Altai Mountains or high up in the Alps where, you know, they do get those rare discoveries of organic material preserved. And as you say this. These natural freezes. To think that there is so much of that surviving in Greenland that you have this invaluable organization record to learn more about how these people lived all along the coastline, as you say, all around Greenland. So not just like the southern tip, you know, further north as well. That's amazing.
- [11:36]
Dr. Asta Munster
Yeah. Oh, and I forgot textiles. I mean, oftentimes we had skin clothing, but we also find fragments of textiles from the Norsemen, for example.
- [11:48]
Tristan Hughes
You also mentioned in passing, one of the things that survives is baleen. Now, is that whale blubber? Is that what it should be?
- [11:54]
Dr. Asta Munster
No, it's the. It's the whale with this sifting. It's not their teeth. So it's called baleen. Yeah, so. And I've forgotten the name of that specific whale. Right.
- [12:07]
Tristan Hughes
Is it the bowhead? Is it the bowhead whale?
- [12:09]
Dr. Asta Munster
It's the bowhead, yes, the bowhead whale. And it has this sort of sifting system in its mouth. So it swallows up a lot of water, and then all the food is sort of stuck, sifted, and stay inside the mouth while all the water is being sifted out.
- [12:28]
Tristan Hughes
Ah, okay.
- [12:29]
Dr. Asta Munster
And baleen could be used for because they come in these sort of strings and you can sort of pull them apart, and then you can make fishing lines that goes hundreds and hundreds of meters into the. Into the sea ice. But you can also carve it out. The hard bit can also be be carved.
- [12:52]
Tristan Hughes
I've got to Ask for that straight away. So have there been. Have they. Have people like yourself? Have you discovered prehistoric fishing lines made out of baleen that went hundreds of meters into the. Into the sea?
- [13:03]
Dr. Asta Munster
Not me, but some of my colleagues have. And you can see it exhibited at the National Museum of Denmark. And it looks amazing. It does. But I have been with modern lines. I have been ice fishing with my father in Greenland. So sort of going in their steps.
- [13:24]
Tristan Hughes
And Asta, we were talking about this just before we began recording. Whereabouts in Greenland do you come from? Because it's not. Once again, it's not the southern tip. It is quite high up in the. Well, in the scheme of things in Greenland.
- [13:38]
Dr. Asta Munster
It is, it is. It is called Ummanna. And there are several places in Greenland called Umanna because oftentimes you named places after what they look like so you can recognize it in the landscape or you could. The name could implement what function like is it a natural harbor or something like that? This is where we hide our meat or this is our hunting ground for hunting reindeer. So the place name could often hint of those. Of those functions, but also of what they look like. And Ummana means heart like or heart shaped light, because of that mountain that
- [14:21]
Tristan Hughes
you saw earlier as a mountain which overlooks that the settlement.
- [14:25]
Dr. Asta Munster
And it's sort of this. Exactly.
- [14:28]
Tristan Hughes
I had a look on Google Maps of Umanak and I noticed that they always had a football pitch as well, like a football team, which is like just amazing, even though it's absolutely striking. But back to the story of prehistoric Greenland. So it sounds like you have this rich array of archaeology to learn more about these people. But Aster, tell us also about mythology. How important a source can mythology be also for learning more about these people?
- [14:53]
Dr. Asta Munster
It is a rich, rich source that we cannot overlook. Mythology would be and in many, many cultures right across the globe. But mythology would explain how the world sort of worked and also how humans should behave within it according to the social norms agreed upon. So sort of spirits, animals and also the weather and people were deeply interconnected in these stories. And it was explained sort of how humans can fit into this world, but they are not the rulers of this world. So it doesn't have this anthropocentric idea that humans, they can just do whatever they want. No, humans are just a part of that chain. And it goes to show even today, for example. So when you have killed your first seal as a young hunter, it was believed that it is the same seal that you will hunt for the rest of your life. If you Treat that seal with respect. And if you treat it well, so you need to serve it some fresh water because just as any other creature, it is thirsty. Just like when you get guests over, you ask them, do you want something to drink? Right. But you do that with the hunting game as well, and you show that respect to the animal and then it will sort of be reincarnated and you are going to hunt that seal for the rest of your life, and that's going to create a sort of relationship between you and the hunting game. So there was this belief that animals were not killed because of your skills only you needed to train on your skills, but you also needed to treat the animals and the rest of nature with respect. So when you would go out hunting for whale, for example, the whale was quite picky in a way, or, you know, it likes fine things, the whale. So you need to put on your best suit or if you can, a newly, a new set of clothing when you go hunting for it, to pay its respect for that hunting animal and to attract the animal to you. So there is something about you, what you put into the world is going to come back to you, right? Yeah.
- [17:44]
Tristan Hughes
How much of this mythology, how many stories like that have survived to the present day that have their origins back in prehistoric times? Is it quite a rich library of
- [17:53]
Dr. Asta Munster
information in a way? It really is. It really is. We have stories, I mean, because they are stories that were handed over from generation to generation, they could be hundreds of years old. And within archaeology, we like to date things, but it is difficult to date stories, right. Especially when they needed to be handed over for decades and decades and never be changed, for example. But in, when the colonizers came, then the missionaries in 1721, they started to write down or make some notes on some of these stories that they had heard from the local people. And today, when we look at those sources, we need to sort of peel it just like an onion, because they write down, I have heard this ridiculous story told by the locals, of course. So we need to take away the layers to find out what did the locals actually tell them from that time. So already from 1735, we have stories being written down about what the locals were telling each other and what they believed. And then we have, all the way up until 1981, those stories were recorded. So today we have a database containing 2280 stories that were all collected over that time span of 250 years. And of course, the question for us is, is there anything missing? And there probably is, because there is also Something about, might there be stories that you tell the outsiders that come and ask you, if the priests come and ask you, hey, what stories do you believe in? Right? Do you give it all away, or do you hold some of the stories back? And that is difficult for us to answer, of course. But even if some of the stories have been held back, it is still a rich source for us today because what we can do as archaeologists is sort of consult, but even do more than just consulting, these oral stories, we can also see how archaeology can be challenged by those stories. So what I tried to do in my PhD thesis, for example, was to learn from the oral history and take the stories as seriously as possible. And what I learned was when we go to a site, we see a beach, we observe the beach, and we often think of it as the natural harbor that is the entryway from the sea or the sea ice in the wintertime, to a settlement, either by boat or kayak or by your dog, sledge. What I didn't know, but what I figured out or what I learned from the oral stories was that the beach could also be an ally. So if there was a murderous person out there who wanted to harm you or someone who had sent a tupilak, so an evil spirit to harm you, you could go down to that beach right in front of your settlement and pour out some blood or some urine. You could recite a spell to protect yourself. And then when that dubilac would arrive to the beach, the beach would rise up and become large stones and rocks that would crush that hurtful creature. Right? And it's not for me to say, no, that never happened, because it tells me a lot about the way of thinking about the world that I cannot excavate. But I know it through the sources of the old stories.
- [22:10]
Tristan Hughes
And I guess it's one of those wonderful things you mentioned earlier, like the importance of spirits in the natural world, in the mythology, that then when you go, as I'm sure we'll delve into some examples as we go along, you go to a particular archaeological site, maybe a house, you find certain objects within a house, which maybe, if you didn't know, the mythological context, would look rather strange. But maybe certain objects, if you know the mythology stories, might explain why you find them in a house for some reason or another. You know, it may give more context into, as you say, what they believe, which gives so much more value to the things that you're finding, certainly.
- [22:53]
Dr. Asta Munster
But we also need to remember that in the Greenlandic context, we sometimes see everyday objects being used for ritual activities. So of course, when we excavate, let's say we excavate a house, we find a fork or a knife lying on the ground and you think, oh, this is just for cooking, you know, and we cannot really say was it also used for ritual activity? And we cannot take a sample from that knife. It's not going to tell us. But it just gives a different or a new way of interpreting some of these objects that we encounter.
- [23:43]
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- [24:20]
Tristan Hughes
Hey sweetie, your mother showed me this Carvana thing for selling the car. I'm going to give it a try. Wish me luck. Me again. I put in the license plate. It gave me an offer. Unbelievable. Okay, I accepted the offer. They're picking it up Tuesday from the driveway. I haven't even left my chair. It's done. The car is gone. I'm holding a check anyway. Carvana give it a whirl. Love ya.
- [24:43]
Dr. Asta Munster
So good you'll want to leave a voicemail about it. Sell your car today on Carvana. Pick up Fees may apply.
- [24:50]
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- [26:03]
Tristan Hughes
If you love a good story, why aren't you listening to Dan Snow's History Hit podcast? It's a show where we tell you every amazing, crazy and important thing that's ever happened in human history. From the perilous voyages of the first Polynesians, the discoveries of Captain Cook. Cook. The deadly Viking raids on Britain and Ireland, the rise and fall of the great English kings and queens. We'll tell you how Waterloo was won, the Alamo was lost, and all the history in between. So make sure you check it out. D History Hit for the best true stories ever told. Wherever you get your podcasts, Let's go through some key themes in the archaeology now. First off, I must ask about arrival dates, roughly when we know about when people first reach Greenland. So, I mean, as to how far back can we go? I mean, when do people first reach Greenland that we know of from archaeology?
- [27:13]
Dr. Asta Munster
Well, Greenland is more or less one of the last places on earth to be inhabited by humans. So the first people reaching Greenland, that happened 4,500 years ago.
- [27:27]
Tristan Hughes
Okay.
- [27:27]
Dr. Asta Munster
Yeah. So it's not that long history compared to other parts of this earth, but that is the long history we have here in Greenland. Yeah.
- [27:38]
Tristan Hughes
And do we know how they reached Greenland? Presumably it's from the west, it's from
- [27:43]
Dr. Asta Munster
North America, it's from Canada. Yeah. So the first people entering Greenland, they came all the way from Alaska or southeast Siberia, across Alaska and then crossed Canada and into Greenland.
- [27:59]
Tristan Hughes
Do we know much about these people? I mean, I have my. Is it like the Dorset culture that it's called, or do they have much that survives?
- [28:08]
Dr. Asta Munster
The oldest culture is archaeologically called the Saka culture. And then we have the Dorset culture, which is sort of in between. And then we have what is archaeologically called the Thule culture, also called the Inuit culture, which are the ancestors of modern day Greenlanders.
- [28:31]
Tristan Hughes
And do they follow directly after those ones you mentioned previously, or, like, are the earliest people who reach Greenland? Are their migrations successful? Or is it, you know, the ancestors of indigenous Greenlanders today, do they actually arrive a little later? The Tul, as you say?
- [28:48]
Dr. Asta Munster
Yeah, the, the Tula, they arrive the latest. So the first waves, we don't see connections genealogically between the different cultures. And when we excavate at the sort of gate into Greenland, which is considered to be Northwest part of Greenland, where I think it's only 40 km to Canada. So you can walk that when there is ice. When we excavate in that area, we see remnants of even cultures or waves in between those three that I just mentioned. But they never really went any further than just into the land, and then for whatever reason, they turned back into Canada.
- [29:36]
Tristan Hughes
Right, yeah. And when did the Tula Inuit arrive? And I guess then start being a bit bolder and, you know, settling more and more of the coasts of Greenland?
- [29:46]
Dr. Asta Munster
Yeah. We see a difference from the Dorset culture and Thule culture. The Dorset and also the Sakur Way don't find remains of sledges or them having dogs, for example, or kayaks. But we see that with the Tula culture, we see remains of them having dog straps and sledges, and they also have kayaks and the big boat for multiple people, which is called the omiak.
- [30:19]
Tristan Hughes
The Omiak. Okay. Do we know much about the Umiak and, like, how it functioned?
- [30:25]
Dr. Asta Munster
Well, we. We often see historic paintings or depictions of mainly women sitting inside those umiaks, and then the men would be sitting in the small kayaks, and the women would be rowing it with all their gear, like their skins for their tents and the kids and the dogs. So the women were really toug.
- [30:53]
Tristan Hughes
I can imagine. Yes. And so is it naturally, therefore, that we have the earliest Tul settlements? Are they from that northwestern part of Greenland where they first arrived?
- [31:04]
Dr. Asta Munster
Yeah, yeah, they are. We see the first Thule people arriving at that gate, as we have seen before, and then they spread across the country. And some of the items that we see. For example, when you think about Greenlandic culture, many people think of the igloo. Right? Yes.
- [31:26]
Tristan Hughes
I was going to ask about the igloo. Yes.
- [31:29]
Dr. Asta Munster
And an igloo that we understand it today as this sort of snow house. Of course, we cannot excavate igloos today because they melt, but we do find snow knives, and we find them from that gate in Greenland at the northwest, a part of Greenland, but we also find them all the way down to Disco Bay. So they have been using these snow knives and probably therefore also made igloos. But an igloo in itself actually comes from the Greenlandic word ihlu, and ihlu simply means house. So when we think about the turf houses and the stone houses that we see also later on, all the way up until 1930, some places in Greenland, these turf and stone houses should actually also be called ichlu.
- [32:26]
Tristan Hughes
Right. Well, I'm going to get straight onto houses now. But you mentioned Disco Bay in passing there, and I've just got it on my maps. And that looks like 2/3 of the way down or maybe 3/4 of the way down there. So really far south of the original entry point. And I have in my notes here is one of those early settlements up that far northwest, is it Ruin island, which sounds an incredible name for a settlement, for a place.
- [32:49]
Dr. Asta Munster
Yeah, it is, yeah. So at Ruin island, we find some of the earliest remains from the Tul culture, the Inuit culture, and they date all the way back to 1150 AD. So that's some of the earliest sites that we have. And I think it's only six houses on. On that ruin, but on that island. Sorry. And then later on, we also see much larger sites. For example, when you go to Nuhlid, which is close to today's Bitufic space base, there, we have a site with around, I think it's at least 30 houses and dwellings on that site. And that is because it's close to really good hunting grounds. So in Greenland, we have winter sites from the Tula culture, approximately about 2,500 sites.
- [33:54]
Tristan Hughes
Wow.
- [33:55]
Dr. Asta Munster
On those sites that have been registered, sometimes we have one or two winter houses, but other times we have up to around 30 houses on one side. And then we also need to remember that a house could be reused. So when we excavate the houses, sometimes we find two or seven layers of people who had inhabited that house.
- [34:24]
Tristan Hughes
Amazing. Well, you mentioned winter houses there, so I feel it's time that we moved on to the housing of these prehistoric people. And. Yes, take it away, Asta. With these winter houses, I mean, what do we know about the structure of these houses? Because looking at them online, they look absolutely incredible.
- [34:42]
Dr. Asta Munster
They do. They are amazing and well structured for the environment that they were built in. And the winter houses was only one type of house. So in Greenland, because it's such a large area and also the seasons vary a lot, the winter house is only one dwelling. In the summertime, people would be staying in summer tents.
- [35:06]
Tristan Hughes
That makes sense.
- [35:07]
Dr. Asta Munster
That was much more mobile. And in between those two sort of extreme climates or seasons, you would stay at something that is called a kama. So it is a construction that is a sort of hybrid between the summer tent and the winter house. So the winter house is built from the ground up, or actually it's dug around 40, 50 centimeters into the turf layer. And then you build your walls up from stones and turf that you cut in the area. Then you have an entry tunnel an entrance tunnel. And it's around. It can be one and a half meter all the way up to six meters. And the entrance tunnel is going to work as a sort of cold trap. So because it is dug into the ground, all that cold air is gonna stay in that entryway. And then you climb up, you crawl through that long entryway.
- [36:18]
Tristan Hughes
It's crawling, is it? It is crawling.
- [36:20]
Dr. Asta Munster
To get in, it really is, you need to crawl. And then you come up into the raised floor area. And from that floor area, you can go to a raised sleeping platform. So because it is those layers, the cold trap works really well. And the warmest space inside the house is on the sleeping platform where the kids are running around probably naked. So it's really well structured for that extreme environment.
- [36:53]
Tristan Hughes
So it's a really good keeping the cold out and the warmth in. And could they have made a fire in there, or would it have smoked out the whole house? Or was it. Was it adept for having a fire as well?
- [37:05]
Dr. Asta Munster
To begin with, for example, at the. At Ruin island, we see fires inside in a small sort of kitchen niche. And then at some point they figure out, oh, this land that we have just moved to. Wood is not abundant. So we need to figure out another way of doing things. So they start cutting into stone, soapstone, for example, and they make these soapstone lamps. And in the soapstone land, you can put some seal blubber, whale blubber, whatever blubber you have. And then you put some dried mosses that you sort of roll into small sausages along the side. And there you have a huge candle. And this candle, so to say, is going to give you some lights, but it also provides the house with much needed warmth. So you can also cook above that lamp. So it's also your sort of cooking area. And then even raised over your cooking pot, you could have a drying rack to dry your skins and your mittens and all of that from being outside. So it was really well structured. And of course, sometimes we see houses that was meant for only one family, but we also see houses that could be for multiple families. So to begin with, they are often rounded. And then the houses could also be sort of clover shaped, depending on if you have two, three or four families staying under the same roof, it's almost
- [38:56]
Tristan Hughes
little niches for each family kind of idea. Right?
- [38:59]
Dr. Asta Munster
Exactly, because. And then that niche is for your sleeping platform. And then when you imagine you have that cold trap and you have your lamp going on, but you also have people's body heats, and you could also insulate the Walls with skins on the inside, so it could be really warm inside those winter houses.
- [39:24]
Tristan Hughes
And were these also very communal places as well? Could you imagine, you know, several of these families in one of those houses gathered around a fire, you know, retelling their myths, you know, what their beliefs are. So, you know, that part to the story as well.
- [39:42]
Dr. Asta Munster
To begin with, we actually see a sort of assembly house. People have their own houses, or maybe for two families. And then you have an assembly house where people can meet. It's called. That's where you meet. You could dance, you could sing, you could tell your stories and entertain one another, you could laugh and probably also spook one another, because that's also a way of connecting with people. And later on we see. And now we're in the 1600s, the middle of the 1600s, we start seeing what we call communal houses. And they are more elongated and sort of rectangular in shape, but you still have that entrance tunnel that you need to crawl through, and then you enter a space that it's more rectangular, and instead of having small niches for your families, they all have one long sleeping platform, and then you have sort of curtains dividing the different family compartments. So there you could then. Then you didn't have to go outside to the assembly house. You could just simply meet inside there to tell your stories. But. But the angakok, the shaman of the settlement, could also do his seances right there. That's what's good to see.
- [41:12]
Tristan Hughes
I'd like to ask a bit more about shamans as we. As we go on, but it almost sounds a bit like, dare I say, going too much into medieval territory here, but like a Viking longhouse or something similar to that.
- [41:22]
Dr. Asta Munster
Yeah, yeah.
- [41:23]
Tristan Hughes
And so do we have. So it sounds like what you were saying earlier with, you know, you've got the summer houses as well and the igloos. But to survive in the archaeology to be seen today, to be recorded today, do we have more examples of the winter houses surviving? Because they are more, you know, they're more sturdy, they have survived the test of time better.
- [41:44]
Dr. Asta Munster
Yeah, they have survived better. I mean, we register summer tents as well, which they only leave remains in the landscape as sort of rings of stone. But the winter houses, because you dug into the turf area and they are much sturdier, they need to be built to last a whole winter. And sometimes the winter house was probably even not fortified, sort of made stronger. What would be the right word for that?
- [42:22]
Tristan Hughes
Oh, yes. No, yeah. Protected, you know, in regards.
- [42:27]
Dr. Asta Munster
Yeah. Or you at least maintain you Maintain the house, even if it has sort of fallen a bit down.
- [42:34]
Tristan Hughes
Oh, repaired, okay, so you repair it.
- [42:36]
Dr. Asta Munster
For example, if a wall is almost sliding in, you course need to repair it. But the idea in Greenland was also that once you have built a house there, you're going to stay during that winter. But once you leave the house, it's not yours. So whoever reaches that house in the next autumn to occupy it during that winter, it's their right, it's everyone's rights. So you need to be there first. So just because you helped build it and you had sweat and tears and all of that building that house, it doesn't matter. It's not yours. So we can also see where the good hunting grounds were, depending on how many times did families stay there.
- [43:31]
Tristan Hughes
Well, we'll go into hunting then after this. But I'd like to ask one more question on the houses in regards to mythology, surviving mythology, do we have archaeological evidence as well to show that these were places of spiritual and ritual belief? Was there a lot of mythology linked to the houses that they lived in?
- [43:50]
Dr. Asta Munster
We see sort of traces, linguistic traces, connected to the house. So you have that entryway that I told you about that could be really long, that is called. And the tohluk means throat. So the torso is the entrance tunnel itself. And the tohluk is throat on any animal. When you are inside the house, the winter house has an ichlop, sohlua, and it means the house's nostrils, that is the ventilation hole. So you get fresh air inside, especially when you're cooking inside. So the house also needs to breathe. And then you have. The isikivik means a view. And that of course is very close to isit, which are eyes. And where do you see the view? You see that through your window. So the house also had eyes. And what is really interesting about this is that all of those three elements, so the throat, the nostrils, and the eyes, they are all three placed on the front wall of the house. So you don't have eyes in the back of the house, you have all of it in the front wall. So the house actually has a face. And that face was oftentimes facing the ocean. And the ocean in Greenlandic worldview is oftentimes where you get your food from. You get your food from marine animals. You can also hunt muskox and reindeer, but you oftentimes get food from the sea. And we also find it linguistically in how you would communicate, where you would go. So if I asked you, where are you going for hunting, and you're going to tell me I'm going to go west along the coast. And in order to understand that, I need to have that compass of yours as well. So I need to have my back against the inland ice. I need to have my nose and my eyes towards the sea. So when you tell me I'm going to go west along the coast, if we are in west Greenland, that means you're going south. And if you are in east Greenland, you are going north.
- [46:39]
Tristan Hughes
Right.
- [46:39]
Dr. Asta Munster
It's sort of before we have north, south, west, east, you have this inner compass that is also more or less depicted in the houses.
- [46:51]
Tristan Hughes
Goodness.
- [46:51]
Dr. Asta Munster
Don't have this in numbers, but when I have talked to colleagues of mine, we sort of agree that many of the houses, they are facing the ocean.
- [47:02]
Tristan Hughes
Gosh, that is incredible. I love that fact right there. I would also point out that if I was sent out to go and hunt up there, I would certainly not return alive. So thank goodness I am rescue, right? Exactly. Search and rescue would have to go out there very, very fast. But that's amazing. That kind of layout of the houses that you can see in the archeology. And do you see that all the way back to some of the earliest tula winter houses that survive. So you can see that tradition continuing for centuries.
- [47:32]
Dr. Asta Munster
It's difficult to say. I mean, because some of the knowledge we have from the oral stories and it's difficult for us to. I mean, we haven't yet looked into is this a regional phenomenon or is it really widespread in Greenland and how far back in time does it go? So we do see indications of this, but it's difficult for us to know yet how common an idea it was. But we also need to think about because we have the same, some of the same mythology coming from Alaska and Canada. What is interesting in Alaskan mythology is, for example, that the raven plays such a huge part in their cosmology. And they have a story from Alaska where the raven is one day flying over the. The sea, the ocean, and he sees a whale. He sees this splash coming out and he gets closer and he allows himself to be swallowed up by this whale. And when the raven comes inside the whale, he finds out there is a woman sitting inside the whale and keeping a lamp. And the raven asks her, what are you doing? And she says, I am the keeper of the whale. I am the spirit of the whale, and if I don't tend to this lamp, the whale is going to die. And what is really interesting about that is that some of the houses, for example, they did look Very organic and roundish. So are they supposed to be representations of a whale? And then you have that soapstone lamb inside that needs to be kept, oftentimes by a woman, most times by a woman. And that might be an idea that was very common at the time, but it's really difficult for us to prove it. But it's just to say that there are ways of interpreting this and understanding it.
- [50:01]
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- [50:30]
Dr. Asta Munster
Mom, can you tell me a story? Sure.
- [50:32]
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- [50:34]
Dr. Asta Munster
Was she brave? She was tired mostly.
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- [50:40]
Dr. Asta Munster
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- [50:42]
Tristan Hughes
Did you have to fight a dragon?
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- [50:43]
Dr. Asta Munster
She bought it 100% online from her bed, actually.
- [50:47]
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- [50:50]
Dr. Asta Munster
Did the car have a sunroof? It did, actually. Okay, good story.
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- [51:14]
Tristan Hughes
Let's talk on something which kind of links in with what you were saying, because you mentioned whales there and you also mentioned musk ox. So as to how much variety was there in the types of animals that they hunted, you know, centuries ago. Do we know much about their hunting techniques and what they hunted?
- [51:32]
Dr. Asta Munster
We can find some of the bones, for example, on the mittens that were placed right outside of the houses. So in those mittens, we can find some of the bones after what meals they have had. So we do find muskox and reindeer, seal, a lot of seal, different types of birds. Also fish bones, if they were preserved. Also sometimes fish bones. Foxes and hares and walrus.
- [52:09]
Tristan Hughes
Walrus, wow.
- [52:11]
Dr. Asta Munster
And narwhal. And different parts of Wales. Yeah. So different types of animals. That would also tell us what part of the season did they occupy this house. For example, one time we were excavating and there was 10 meters away from us where we were excavating. There was a bone from the neck, a neck Bone from a whale, from the neck.
- [52:36]
Tristan Hughes
Okay, Yep, yep, yeah.
- [52:38]
Dr. Asta Munster
A spine bone, A neck bone?
- [52:40]
Tristan Hughes
No, no, it's not a mandible, is it? So, okay, from that part of the
- [52:43]
Dr. Asta Munster
whale was lying very close to. And we were excavating. This was in 2015, and we were excavating the midden of an old kasi. So this assembly house dated back to the 1300s, and it was fun for us to think maybe they hunted that whale, because, of course, whales are really difficult to date because of the marine effect. But we were excavating harpoon heads, mainly for walrus. And also we excavated a lot of tusks from the narwhal as well. But one of my colleagues, he managed to find this huge harpoon head measuring around 20 centimeters.
- [53:37]
Tristan Hughes
Wow. Okay, that's a big one.
- [53:39]
Dr. Asta Munster
Yeah. And that is definitely not for walrus. That is for whale, for that bow ahead whale. So the people that live there might have hunted that whale, which remains. We saw right there.
- [53:54]
Tristan Hughes
Firstly, I love that we're now exploring, like, midden heaps, you know, kind of the. The prehistoric rubbish heaps that they. How much information they can reveal about diets and so on. And secondly of all, as to you mentioning them using harpoons and massive harpoons there. So do we have a good sense of, like, the types of gadgets that they use to help them know when they're taking down, like, a narwhal or, as you say, a walrus or. Or one of these great whales? You know, they had the tools with them and they had the expertise to use them to the best that they could.
- [54:26]
Dr. Asta Munster
We, of course, have the tools that you mentioned, but we also know from historic times and also from Canada that you would go hunting for whales in sort of cruise. So you had an Inuit whaling crew led by an umialik. An umialik means someone who owns this boat, this large boat, because you need that when you go hunting for a whale. And then they would sail out in those umiaks and they will search for a whale. And one person will have the amazing job of being either the bravest of the bravest or the dumbest of the dumb, because he would need to wear this suit made from. And I probably need to check up on this, but made from skins, seal skins. I'm just wondering if it was actually walrus skin, but some skins you have removed the hair and then it's sewn together to be sort of like a wetsuit. And then you would do the amazing thing to be jumping from that boat of safety onto that Whale that you want to surprise attack.
- [55:49]
Tristan Hughes
Okay.
- [55:50]
Dr. Asta Munster
You throw, you have your friends throwing some harpoons into it with bladders that will keep it from diving.
- [55:59]
Tristan Hughes
Diving, Yep.
- [56:01]
Dr. Asta Munster
And then you need to find the breathing hole on that whale and then you need to put your lance into it, kill it. So just imagine being. Yes, Tom, you are that person. You have been chosen. We like you so much.
- [56:23]
Tristan Hughes
Or I don't know if you've. I don't know if you've watched the Lord of the Rings at all last time, but there's like Legolas who's on top of one of the big elephants, you know, kind of thing like that. It's. It's that mind boggling bravery slash stupidity or like that heroism, isn't it, of that one person?
- [56:37]
Dr. Asta Munster
Yeah.
- [56:38]
Tristan Hughes
Wow.
- [56:38]
Dr. Asta Munster
So, but then if you manage to kill the whale, my gosh, you have food for months and blubber and bones and. Yeah, baleen.
- [56:53]
Tristan Hughes
Yeah, the baleen, as we mentioned, the fishing tackle and all of that. Well, I mean, as you mentioned, you know, so much food from one whale. And I can imagine there must have been like mythologically stories of great heroes, right. Taking down the whale and doing that exact thing, going on the whale and, you know, spearing it. You can imagine so many tales being told around the fires in these settlements about these great heroes of old who accomplished this and brought in a great whale for their, their community. Can't you, with that scene that you've just pictured for us?
- [57:27]
Dr. Asta Munster
Yeah, yeah. I mean, definitely we have stories like that. And we also need to remember that today when I read bedtime stories for my kids, I have a book and I have, I read out loud from this. But in the stories, the settings of the stories, it's very social and sort of relational situation. So you could be sitting around 40 people gathered together and then you have the great storyteller entering, being really good at remembering all of it. And also being great with mimics and gestures and when to lower your voice and when to be really loud. Right. So it was almost a show before we had tv. But even through all of that entertaining, it's also teaching us what to do, what not to do. Oh, look, he did this stupid thing. Don't ever do that. Or he did this amazing thing. So let's all aspire to work on our skills and stuff like that. So definitely inspiring stories to keep people awake. And we also have stories that were supposed to put people to sleep and be boring. Different sort of functions for different stories.
- [58:48]
Tristan Hughes
It's amazing. It's like, you know. Yes. As you say like the Tula Inuit version of Heracles, tackling the great, you know, sea beast or. Or lamb beast as well. I mean, do we hear of, let's say, are there interactions is perhaps the. A neutral word. But is there great combats against the big beast of the land up there, polar bears?
- [59:10]
Dr. Asta Munster
Yes, there definitely is. And I mean, what a creature to be hunting down. Right. So there are stories, but also we see it on ornamentation in some of the. We see polar bears, but we also see other animals being depicted as small figurines, so small boys and girls could play with them or throw their miniature harpoon after them. Practicing. Right. But the polar bear had a special place in the heart of the Inuit because sort of as humans, it can walk on land and it can also swim in the water. So we sort of are in the same realms. And also because it can probably look very human, like, in a way, and you see mother polar bears taking care of its cubs and it can stand on two feet just like humans. So the polar bear also had a close relationship, and we see that in depictions and in figurines. They are also in some of the stories of an angakok. So when you train to become a shaman of the settlement, there are gruesome stories about what you need to endure to become the right set of mind to. To be sort of able to negotiate and see the other invincible world with the spirits. But you had to be eaten up whole by a polar bear.
- [60:58]
Tristan Hughes
Oh, goodness, no. No, thank you.
- [61:00]
Dr. Asta Munster
Yeah, that's just a part of the training. And if you could do that and still be alive and sane, then maybe you could become an anger cop.
- [61:10]
Tristan Hughes
Well, hang on. But you have to be eaten by a polar bear and survive it. I don't think that works.
- [61:15]
Dr. Asta Munster
So it's probably symbolic, but how that really worked, that's still up for questions, but it. It just tells it how important a role the polar bear plays. We see it as this animal of strength and probably also intelligence, even though other animals, just like the raven, was also intelligent.
- [61:41]
Tristan Hughes
So, yeah, Aster, I could ask so many more questions about so many different things. I think I'll. I'll skip over asking more about the shaman, but they sound a bit kind of like the druids, or. Well, maybe not druids, but got a link to nature, but who can talk with the supernatural and have a lot of. We can presume back even centuries and centuries ago when the two linearies arrive, they hold a big place in societies, and that's kind of what we can imagine from them.
- [62:07]
Dr. Asta Munster
Yeah. So the Angaka was the sort of spiritual advisor of a settlement. Sometimes he was the same. He or she, it could be a man or woman. Sometimes this person would also be the leader of the pack, so to say. But other times it could be another hunter who was just respectful and he had authority and then he would be the leader. So sometimes it would be two different roles, the angakok and then the. The leader.
- [62:40]
Tristan Hughes
And going quickly also onto art you mentioned earlier, like miniature polar bear figurines that have been discovered. Is most of the art that you find in these settlements, is it animalistic, Is it always depicting animals? Or what types of art should we be thinking of?
- [62:57]
Dr. Asta Munster
We also sometimes have figures looking like humans. But actually in the Tula culture, the Inuit culture, we don't see so many carvings and so much ornamentation as we see in the Dorset culture. So the Dorset culture, we see the pictures of humans and it's much more such a rich material to look into. So why the Inuit culture later on were too lazy to do it, I don't know. But the Dorsey culture have amazing source material to look into. The ornamentations and what they depict and how lifelike they are. But we also have amazing find from. Actually from my hometown, it's eight mummies, and they are called the mummies. And they are dated back to 14, the mid. The mid 1400s. And what is amazing here is how well preserved they are. So we find all their skin clothing, inner clothes and the outer clothes, and they got some extra clothing. So you have a handful of women and then two boys, and they have been put to rest with the skin, clothing. But on some of the women, at least one of the women, she has facial tattoos.
- [64:33]
Tristan Hughes
Tattoos, okay.
- [64:35]
Dr. Asta Munster
Because their skin is so well preserved. You can see their nails. I believe you can even see the lashes on some of their eyes. It's amazing. And there you really feel like you are staring into the people of the past.
- [64:51]
Tristan Hughes
Okay, we. Yeah, we've got to talk about this then.
- [64:54]
Dr. Asta Munster
You need to look that up, even though it might look a little scary. But it's such an amazing find and such a rich find, and it tells us a lot about what sort of diseases could they have at the time. It's amazing.
- [65:08]
Tristan Hughes
Well, let's talk about that quickly as well, because we did an episode last year on the Siberian ice mummies, and they did recent research on, with the skin surviving on those mummies high up in the Altai Mountains, they were able to figure out how they were tattooed and actually the method they probably used to get, you know, the pictures on their skin. So do we know a lot then you use that example from your hometown just then. Do we have a quite a rich corpus of understanding about how the Tula Inuit, how they buried their dead, how they looked after their deceased relatives?
- [65:42]
Dr. Asta Munster
We have stone graves, burials in the landscape, and oftentimes they are connected to settlements that we have already registered. So you have a settlement and then around the periphery, of course, depending on the landscape itself, if it's very rocky or if it's very flat, that will tell us where the periphery is. And also depending on is it a very stony area. But then we find the graves and oftentimes they would be burying one person within one grave. But we also see examples from Sisimiut when they were clearing out to make the new airport, well, new back then, airport, they found a grave where you had buried one person, but then you had reused it, so you had pushed the bones a little aside and then buried a new person. And I believe it was six or seven times you had done that. Then we find the graves are often also sometimes up in the mountain or in the back, and they have oftentimes really beautiful views. And when you look at the oral stories, you can also see this close connection to some of their favorite sites. So there is no doubt in my mind that sometimes before you died, you could say, I really want to be buried here or there. But then you could be buried behind the settlement and you could be buried with the clothes that you were wearing, of course, but also your hunting gear if you were a man, your sewing kit if you were a woman, and also your cooking pot, so that soapstone land, for example, or cooking pot itself. If we also see small children being buried with a dog, for example. So maybe it was a favorite animal or friend, or maybe this dog was supposed to help you to the next world, to the realm of death, and accompany the child on that journey.
- [68:05]
Tristan Hughes
I like that mention of the dog at the end, you know. Once again, Muddy notes that they also had pets with them as well for their day to day lives and how similar they are to us today. Asta, I also love this idea. Maybe as you say, of course, as you mentioned, the settlements have been along the coast. Human habitation is along the coast as it is today. Someone from one of those communities, seeing the snowy wilderness, the center of Greenland, thinking, I'd like to be buried up there in the wildness, in the wildlands, or myths of people who went into the snowy wastelands and did, did Great deeds. It's a. It's. It's an amazing landscape to think about and how they survived and how they viewed, as you've highlighted, their worldview of the natural world around them. I wish I could ask so many more questions. We may well have to get you back on in the future for another one. But is there any message that you would like to. Closing remarks for this episode that you'd like to leave us with with the story of prehistoric Greenland?
- [69:10]
Dr. Asta Munster
Well, the prehistory of Greenland is just so rich in its material, but also on the different perspectives that it teaches us about humans that entered that part of the world. So I think it's a good chance to get to know more about Greenland and the history there that all of a sudden became the eye of the storm. But what is it actually? What kind of home is it to what kind of people? And when we look closely, we often find out or rediscover that we are not so different. We can recognize. You like the idea of the dog being buried with the child. Right. And we oftentimes see those things even in the forest culture that we imagine. Oh, I'm. I'm never gonna be able to recognize myself in this. But then again, we are just humans and we have just made homes on different parts of the same world, and we have different conditions, but some of the same feelings and problems.
- [70:36]
Tristan Hughes
Yeah, absolutely. And it's been wonderful to shine a light on the prehistoric story of Greenland. The amazing archaeological sites and artifacts that survive entwined with mythology. What a rich area of the world to learn more about its distant past in the years to head. It must be so exciting for you and everyone else. Tell us finally about yourself. You're currently in Copenhagen and you're doing your own particular work on this at the moment.
- [71:01]
Dr. Asta Munster
Yes, I am a prehistoric archaeologist and I am working on a new project called Liquidize. So we will be looking into the climate changes in Greenland and what effect it has on the communities there, but also for the potentials of hydropower, for example. So we want to be engaging with people on the ground and seeing into what kind of future do they want or do they see. And as an archaeologist, it's really enriching to knowing so much about the past, but also to be asking people today, not in this project, but in other projects that I'm in, what do you want to revive or what do you want to discuss from our past and what do we want to take with us into the future? So I'm also talking with architects, for example, of do you want to do they want to be inspired by prehistoric archaeological house models, for example, or by the stories. It can be intangible cultural heritage as well that the architects could be inspired by. So that the houses in Greenland or the buildings in Greenland aren't just houses that could have been built anywhere on this planet, but they could be more cultural specific and people could mirror themselves in that architecture. I think that would be amazing.
- [72:50]
Tristan Hughes
Very cool. Bring back the winter houses. Aster, it just goes to me to say thank you so much for taking the time to come on the show.
- [72:58]
Dr. Asta Munster
Yeah, thank you for having me.
- [73:07]
Tristan Hughes
Well, there you go. There was the fantastic, fantastic Dr. Asta Munstahl talking you through the remarkable archaeology, the prehistory of Greenland and the people who have lived there for centuries. It's such a remarkable story. I hope you enjoyed listening to this episode just as much as I did recording it alongside my producer Joseph. We were both listening intently to Asta telling the story and yeah, what a story it is. I can't praise Asta enough. So once again, really hope you enjoyed this episode and thank you for listening if you did enjoy the episode. If you do enjoy the Ancients, please make sure that you're following the show on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. That really helps us and you'll be doing us a big favor, so please do that. If you'd also be kind enough to leave us a rating as well. Well, we'd also really appreciate that. So all of those things really, really helpful to us and allow us to keep, keep doing what we do, sharing these incredible stories, prehistoric stories from our distant past with you and with as many people as possible and promoting the work of experts like Asta. Don't forget you can also sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries with a new release every week. Sign up@historyhit.com subscribe that is all from me and I will see See you in the next episode.
- [74:36]
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