Bet your image of Vikings and their drinking horns is more likely to include beer or whiskey than white wine, but new research shows that Viking-era Danes may have been producing wines as well.
Because of the colder northern climate, it’s always been assumed that the evidence of wine in Scandinavia reflected imports from southern Europe. But new analysis of grape seeds in archaeological sites has convinced researchers that they were grown locally.
Since Vikings of that era knew wine from their raids to the south, and used imported wines, they believe that it is likely that the local grapes were also used to make wine.
Is this another significant pointer to the Global Warming of a thousand years ago ?
We’re not even back to the temperatures the Vikings enjoyed 1,000 years ago. Maybe the folks who live in colder climates – like I do – would benefit from such a warming. My heating costs certainly would. If it was a few degrees warmer then I’d have to burn less fossil fuels to survive. And that would , maybe, “Save the Planet”. It’s all scare mongering. Temperatures here in the UK are way down on what they were 20 years ago. No more highs of 99’F !! – Rarely hit 80’F now.
I’m more worried about Global Cooling now !
It might. But the issue in the climate change argument is not whether climate change has happened in the past (the warming you mention was followed by the so-called Little Ice Age that led to Iceland’s isolation from Europe and other historic events). The issue is that our actions have reached a scale where unlike a thousand years ago, we’re driving the bus…over the cliff.