The Viking and Norse trade in Walrus Ivory

Recently published research into the trading networks established by Viking and Norse  seafarers across the North Atlantic in search of walrus ivory and their internal trade routes across Europe as far as Kyiv to sell this valuable commodity were reported upon recently by The Independent and on the Life Science website.

The period concerned stretches from the tenth to the thirteenth centuries, the period of the colonisation of the coasts of southern Greenland by Europeans.

Analysis of the physical makeup of surviving examples of such craftsmanship has been compared with that from existing walrus colonies on the coasts of Greenland and northern Canada. What has emerged is that the sources of the tusks were further afield than had been thought and this opened up the possibility of more contact between the Vikings or Norse and the Inuit of the sub-Arctic than had been thought previously.

The Independent article can be seen at Study of walrus ivory gives remarkable insights into how Vikings travelled

The longer and more detailed account from Live Science can be accessed at Medieval walrus ivory may reveal trade between Norse and Indigenous Americans hundreds of years before Columbus, study finds