维京人为何放弃了他们在北美的殖民地，且再也没有返回？
Why did the Vikings abandon their North American colonies and never return again?
译文简介
历史上一个未解之谜：为什么维京人会放弃他们的北美殖民地？
正文翻译
The reasons are still debated by historians. Some of the most plausible are:
历史学家们对其原因仍有争议，以下是一些最合理的推测：
The climate
The climate in Greenland and North America was much warmer during the Viking Age than it is today. However, it began to cool in the late 1200s, making it more difficult for the Vikings to grow crops and raise livestock.
The distance
The Viking settlements in North America were very isolated from the Norse homelands in Iceland and Greenland. This made it difficult to maintain trade and communication between the two areas, and to get help if the settlements were in trouble.
气候方面，维京时代格陵兰岛和北美的气候比现在温暖得多，但在13世纪晚期气候开始变冷，这让维京人种植作物和饲养牲畜变得更加困难。
距离方面，北美的维京定居点与冰岛和格陵兰岛的北欧故土相距甚远，这使得两地难以维持贸易和通讯，定居点遇到困难时也难以获得援助。
The Native Americans
The Vikings may have come into conflict with the Native Americans who lived in North America. There is some evidence that the Vikings fought with the Native Americans, and it is possible that this conflict contributed to the decision to abandon the settlements.
The economics?
The Norse settlements in North America might not have been not very profitable. The land was not as good for farming as the land in Iceland or Greenland, and there were not many valuable resources to be found.
美洲原住民方面，维京人可能与居住在北美的美洲原住民发生了冲突，有部分证据表明双方曾发生战斗，这种冲突可能是导致他们决定放弃定居点的原因之一。
经济因素方面，北美的北欧定居点可能并非利润丰厚之地，这里的土地不如冰岛或格陵兰岛适合耕种，也没有太多有价值的资源可供发掘。
Some historians also believe that the Vikings may have been forced to leave North America due to a drought. A study published in the journal Science Advances in 2022 found that there was a prolonged drought in Greenland during the 13th century, which could have made it difficult for the Vikings to grow crops and support their settlements.[1]
Bonita Puercita I’ve read the Vinland Sagas in the original Old Norse language and translated one of them. So I’m something of an expert. And the answer is…we don’t really know what happened.
一些历史学家还认为，维京人可能因干旱而被迫离开北美。2022年发表在《科学进展》期刊上的一项研究发现，13世纪格陵兰岛曾发生长期干旱，这可能导致维京人难以种植作物和维持定居点的生存。
博妮塔·普尔西塔 我读过古诺尔斯语原版的《文兰萨迦》，还翻译过其中一篇，所以算是半个专家。而答案是……我们其实并不知道具体发生了什么。
However “abandon” implies they left willingly. We don’t know that, and the best guess is that they were pushed out rather than jumped. We do know enough to know that the Vikings were driven off Greenland by the Inuit due perhaps to the Inuit’s far better adaptation to the environment. The Vikings persisted, as Indo-Europeans did, in trying to raise grain and cattle…which is a big ask for an Arctic climate, while the Inuit relied on hunting marine mammals and fishing.
但“放弃”一词意味着他们是自愿离开的，我们并不确定这一点，最合理的猜测是他们是被驱逐而非主动离开。我们确切知道的是，维京人被因纽特人赶出了格陵兰岛，这可能是因为因纽特人对环境的适应能力要强得多。维京人像其他印欧人一样，坚持尝试种植谷物和饲养牲畜，这在北极气候条件下难度极大，而因纽特人则依靠捕猎海洋哺乳动物和捕鱼为生。
And “never return again” is simply untrue. Did you know there was a New Sweden in New Jersey for some time? It survives in popular culture in the name “Rambo” which was originally the name of a leading Swede of New Sweden, Peter Gunnarrson Rambo.
而且“再也没有返回”这一说法也完全不准确。你知道吗？新泽西州曾有过一个“新瑞典”殖民地，它在流行文化中留下了印记，“兰博”这个名字就源于此——它最初是新瑞典殖民地一位瑞典领袖彼得·冈纳森·兰博的名字。
And, of course, there are more people of Danish and Norwegian ancestry in the US than there are in Denmark and Norway.
So what happened to the Vikings in North America? We don’t know, again. The Vinland Sagas do tell of relations between the Vikings and the indigenous peoples breaking down. The story in Thorfins Saga Karlsefni IIRC is that the Vikings swapped milk for valuable items. Due to their lactose intolerance, this made the indigenous peoples sick. They assumed they had been poisoned and attacked.
当然，美国拥有丹麦和挪威血统的人数比丹麦和挪威本国的人口还要多。
那么北美的维京人究竟遭遇了什么？我们依然不得而知。《文兰萨迦》中确实记载了维京人与原住民的关系破裂，我记得《托尔芬·卡尔塞夫尼萨迦》里提到，维京人用牛奶换取贵重物品，而原住民由于乳糖不耐受，饮用牛奶后生病了，他们误以为自己被下了毒，于是发起了攻击。
Europeans were frequently defeated by indigenous peoples, though Europeans don’t talk about that much. These defeats we know of dated from the time of the Spanish GENOCIDE, and were suffered by people with guns and cavalry. The Vikings had neither. They would have been few in number. They could only stay in North America as long as the locals didn’t get together and exterminate them.
欧洲人常常被原住民击败，只是欧洲人很少提及这一点。我们已知的这类失败始于西班牙种族灭绝时期，当时拥有枪支和骑兵的欧洲人都遭遇了失败，而维京人两者都没有，且人数可能很少。他们之所以能在北美停留，完全是因为当地人没有联合起来将他们消灭。
The duration of the Viking settlement indicates they were able to keep the political situation from going completely south for centuries, however. If you ask me, the likeliest outcome is that at some point, those remaining were adopted into one or more indigenous nations. On the other hand, the idea that the remainder were wiped out in a military action is certainly a very plausible possibility. They were certainly forced out of Greenland.
不过，维京人定居点存在的时长表明，几个世纪以来他们一直能够维持政治局势不至于完全恶化。在我看来，最有可能的结果是，在某个时刻，剩余的维京人被一个或多个原住民部落接纳了。另一方面，剩余的人在军事行动中被消灭的说法也绝非不可能，他们确实是被赶出了格陵兰岛。
Matthew Robert Keen Has degrees in education & history, and visual arts.
马修·罗伯特·基恩
拥有教育学、历史学和视觉艺术学位
There are some great answers to this. I would like to add “what Vikings learnt from Ireland”.
Ireland was a really hard place for the Scandinavians to exploit and dominate. Technologically, they were far ahead of the Irish, but the Irish were experts in what we would now call asymmetric warfare and bled the Vikings any time they left the cities.
关于这个问题已有一些很棒的答案，我想补充一点——“维京人从爱尔兰学到的东西”。
爱尔兰对斯堪的纳维亚人来说是一个极难征服和掠夺的地方。在技术上，斯堪的纳维亚人远超爱尔兰人，但爱尔兰人是我们现在所说的非对称战争的专家，每当维京人离开城市，就会遭受爱尔兰人的持续打击。
Why? Because there were nae fekn roads mun. No Roman conquest of Ireland, no Roman roads, no easy or straight lines between loot and booty, lots of rough ground, bogs, fens and GIANT FORESTS. Ireland then was not the soft, tamed land it is now. And it was chockers with slingers, kerns, and other head hunting, liver eating, horse boiling, warrior poets.
为什么会这样？因为当时根本没有像样的道路。罗马人从未征服过爱尔兰，自然也就没有罗马式的道路，掠夺财物的途中没有平坦笔直的路线，到处都是崎岖的地形、沼泽、湿地和大片森林。那时的爱尔兰并不像现在这样温顺驯服，而是充斥着投石手、轻装步兵，以及其他猎头、食肝、煮马肉的战士诗人。
Additionally, the Irish had less lootable obxts for the Scandinavians to take. Ireland, for the Vikings, was essentially a base to raid from, not a source of loot itself, and its ability to thrive required access to France and Britain.
此外，爱尔兰可供斯堪的纳维亚人掠夺的财物并不多。对维京人来说，爱尔兰本质上只是一个突袭基地，而非掠夺财物的来源地，其繁荣与否依赖于与法国和英国的联系。
Over the generations, Irish and Scandinavian culture blended and eventually became essentially indiscernible. It is telling when we look at the patrilineal and matrilineal heritage of Icelanders and all the men descend from Norwegians and all the women from Irish.
经过几代人的融合，爱尔兰文化和斯堪的纳维亚文化逐渐变得难以区分。这一点从冰岛人的父系和母系血统中就能看出——所有男性的祖先都是挪威人，而所有女性的祖先都是爱尔兰人。
Let us look at Newfoundland, and the area around Lancey Meadows/L’anse Aux Meadows in particular: firstly, it ain't the Avalon Peninsula, it's cold and harsh. Second, it's remoterer than Ireland by a few degrees of magnitude, and the closest wealthyish people, the Mi'kmaq, are just as tough and canny as the Irish. And not a road in sight. Add to that the local people, the Skraelings, didn't like cheese. Something about zero tolerance for lactose.
再看看纽芬兰，尤其是兰西草地/安斯梅多周边地区：首先，这里不是阿瓦隆半岛，气候寒冷恶劣；其次，它比爱尔兰偏远得多，最近的相对富裕的族群——密克马克人，和爱尔兰人一样坚韧精明，而且这里同样没有任何道路。此外，当地的斯克拉林人不喜欢奶酪，原因与他们对乳糖完全不耐受有关。
So the Vikings learned that Ireland, in itself, wasn't really worth the effort, and Newfoundland was just another Ireland. Ironically pretty much what it ended up being a thousand years later. Ise the b’y, garn aboos.
因此，维京人意识到爱尔兰本身并不值得花费如此大的精力，而纽芬兰不过是另一个爱尔兰。具有讽刺意味的是，一千年后这里的情况也确实如此。小伙子，走吧（方言，意为“就这样吧”）。
历史学家们对其原因仍有争议，以下是一些最合理的推测：
The climate
The climate in Greenland and North America was much warmer during the Viking Age than it is today. However, it began to cool in the late 1200s, making it more difficult for the Vikings to grow crops and raise livestock.
The distance
The Viking settlements in North America were very isolated from the Norse homelands in Iceland and Greenland. This made it difficult to maintain trade and communication between the two areas, and to get help if the settlements were in trouble.
气候方面，维京时代格陵兰岛和北美的气候比现在温暖得多，但在13世纪晚期气候开始变冷，这让维京人种植作物和饲养牲畜变得更加困难。
距离方面，北美的维京定居点与冰岛和格陵兰岛的北欧故土相距甚远，这使得两地难以维持贸易和通讯，定居点遇到困难时也难以获得援助。
The Native Americans
The Vikings may have come into conflict with the Native Americans who lived in North America. There is some evidence that the Vikings fought with the Native Americans, and it is possible that this conflict contributed to the decision to abandon the settlements.
The economics?
The Norse settlements in North America might not have been not very profitable. The land was not as good for farming as the land in Iceland or Greenland, and there were not many valuable resources to be found.
美洲原住民方面，维京人可能与居住在北美的美洲原住民发生了冲突，有部分证据表明双方曾发生战斗，这种冲突可能是导致他们决定放弃定居点的原因之一。
经济因素方面，北美的北欧定居点可能并非利润丰厚之地，这里的土地不如冰岛或格陵兰岛适合耕种，也没有太多有价值的资源可供发掘。
Some historians also believe that the Vikings may have been forced to leave North America due to a drought. A study published in the journal Science Advances in 2022 found that there was a prolonged drought in Greenland during the 13th century, which could have made it difficult for the Vikings to grow crops and support their settlements.[1]
Bonita Puercita I’ve read the Vinland Sagas in the original Old Norse language and translated one of them. So I’m something of an expert. And the answer is…we don’t really know what happened.
一些历史学家还认为，维京人可能因干旱而被迫离开北美。2022年发表在《科学进展》期刊上的一项研究发现，13世纪格陵兰岛曾发生长期干旱，这可能导致维京人难以种植作物和维持定居点的生存。
博妮塔·普尔西塔 我读过古诺尔斯语原版的《文兰萨迦》，还翻译过其中一篇，所以算是半个专家。而答案是……我们其实并不知道具体发生了什么。
However “abandon” implies they left willingly. We don’t know that, and the best guess is that they were pushed out rather than jumped. We do know enough to know that the Vikings were driven off Greenland by the Inuit due perhaps to the Inuit’s far better adaptation to the environment. The Vikings persisted, as Indo-Europeans did, in trying to raise grain and cattle…which is a big ask for an Arctic climate, while the Inuit relied on hunting marine mammals and fishing.
但“放弃”一词意味着他们是自愿离开的，我们并不确定这一点，最合理的猜测是他们是被驱逐而非主动离开。我们确切知道的是，维京人被因纽特人赶出了格陵兰岛，这可能是因为因纽特人对环境的适应能力要强得多。维京人像其他印欧人一样，坚持尝试种植谷物和饲养牲畜，这在北极气候条件下难度极大，而因纽特人则依靠捕猎海洋哺乳动物和捕鱼为生。
And “never return again” is simply untrue. Did you know there was a New Sweden in New Jersey for some time? It survives in popular culture in the name “Rambo” which was originally the name of a leading Swede of New Sweden, Peter Gunnarrson Rambo.
而且“再也没有返回”这一说法也完全不准确。你知道吗？新泽西州曾有过一个“新瑞典”殖民地，它在流行文化中留下了印记，“兰博”这个名字就源于此——它最初是新瑞典殖民地一位瑞典领袖彼得·冈纳森·兰博的名字。
And, of course, there are more people of Danish and Norwegian ancestry in the US than there are in Denmark and Norway.
So what happened to the Vikings in North America? We don’t know, again. The Vinland Sagas do tell of relations between the Vikings and the indigenous peoples breaking down. The story in Thorfins Saga Karlsefni IIRC is that the Vikings swapped milk for valuable items. Due to their lactose intolerance, this made the indigenous peoples sick. They assumed they had been poisoned and attacked.
当然，美国拥有丹麦和挪威血统的人数比丹麦和挪威本国的人口还要多。
那么北美的维京人究竟遭遇了什么？我们依然不得而知。《文兰萨迦》中确实记载了维京人与原住民的关系破裂，我记得《托尔芬·卡尔塞夫尼萨迦》里提到，维京人用牛奶换取贵重物品，而原住民由于乳糖不耐受，饮用牛奶后生病了，他们误以为自己被下了毒，于是发起了攻击。
Europeans were frequently defeated by indigenous peoples, though Europeans don’t talk about that much. These defeats we know of dated from the time of the Spanish GENOCIDE, and were suffered by people with guns and cavalry. The Vikings had neither. They would have been few in number. They could only stay in North America as long as the locals didn’t get together and exterminate them.
欧洲人常常被原住民击败，只是欧洲人很少提及这一点。我们已知的这类失败始于西班牙种族灭绝时期，当时拥有枪支和骑兵的欧洲人都遭遇了失败，而维京人两者都没有，且人数可能很少。他们之所以能在北美停留，完全是因为当地人没有联合起来将他们消灭。
The duration of the Viking settlement indicates they were able to keep the political situation from going completely south for centuries, however. If you ask me, the likeliest outcome is that at some point, those remaining were adopted into one or more indigenous nations. On the other hand, the idea that the remainder were wiped out in a military action is certainly a very plausible possibility. They were certainly forced out of Greenland.
不过，维京人定居点存在的时长表明，几个世纪以来他们一直能够维持政治局势不至于完全恶化。在我看来，最有可能的结果是，在某个时刻，剩余的维京人被一个或多个原住民部落接纳了。另一方面，剩余的人在军事行动中被消灭的说法也绝非不可能，他们确实是被赶出了格陵兰岛。
Matthew Robert Keen Has degrees in education & history, and visual arts.
马修·罗伯特·基恩
拥有教育学、历史学和视觉艺术学位
There are some great answers to this. I would like to add “what Vikings learnt from Ireland”.
Ireland was a really hard place for the Scandinavians to exploit and dominate. Technologically, they were far ahead of the Irish, but the Irish were experts in what we would now call asymmetric warfare and bled the Vikings any time they left the cities.
关于这个问题已有一些很棒的答案，我想补充一点——“维京人从爱尔兰学到的东西”。
爱尔兰对斯堪的纳维亚人来说是一个极难征服和掠夺的地方。在技术上，斯堪的纳维亚人远超爱尔兰人，但爱尔兰人是我们现在所说的非对称战争的专家，每当维京人离开城市，就会遭受爱尔兰人的持续打击。
Why? Because there were nae fekn roads mun. No Roman conquest of Ireland, no Roman roads, no easy or straight lines between loot and booty, lots of rough ground, bogs, fens and GIANT FORESTS. Ireland then was not the soft, tamed land it is now. And it was chockers with slingers, kerns, and other head hunting, liver eating, horse boiling, warrior poets.
为什么会这样？因为当时根本没有像样的道路。罗马人从未征服过爱尔兰，自然也就没有罗马式的道路，掠夺财物的途中没有平坦笔直的路线，到处都是崎岖的地形、沼泽、湿地和大片森林。那时的爱尔兰并不像现在这样温顺驯服，而是充斥着投石手、轻装步兵，以及其他猎头、食肝、煮马肉的战士诗人。
Additionally, the Irish had less lootable obxts for the Scandinavians to take. Ireland, for the Vikings, was essentially a base to raid from, not a source of loot itself, and its ability to thrive required access to France and Britain.
此外，爱尔兰可供斯堪的纳维亚人掠夺的财物并不多。对维京人来说，爱尔兰本质上只是一个突袭基地，而非掠夺财物的来源地，其繁荣与否依赖于与法国和英国的联系。
Over the generations, Irish and Scandinavian culture blended and eventually became essentially indiscernible. It is telling when we look at the patrilineal and matrilineal heritage of Icelanders and all the men descend from Norwegians and all the women from Irish.
经过几代人的融合，爱尔兰文化和斯堪的纳维亚文化逐渐变得难以区分。这一点从冰岛人的父系和母系血统中就能看出——所有男性的祖先都是挪威人，而所有女性的祖先都是爱尔兰人。
Let us look at Newfoundland, and the area around Lancey Meadows/L’anse Aux Meadows in particular: firstly, it ain't the Avalon Peninsula, it's cold and harsh. Second, it's remoterer than Ireland by a few degrees of magnitude, and the closest wealthyish people, the Mi'kmaq, are just as tough and canny as the Irish. And not a road in sight. Add to that the local people, the Skraelings, didn't like cheese. Something about zero tolerance for lactose.
再看看纽芬兰，尤其是兰西草地/安斯梅多周边地区：首先，这里不是阿瓦隆半岛，气候寒冷恶劣；其次，它比爱尔兰偏远得多，最近的相对富裕的族群——密克马克人，和爱尔兰人一样坚韧精明，而且这里同样没有任何道路。此外，当地的斯克拉林人不喜欢奶酪，原因与他们对乳糖完全不耐受有关。
So the Vikings learned that Ireland, in itself, wasn't really worth the effort, and Newfoundland was just another Ireland. Ironically pretty much what it ended up being a thousand years later. Ise the b’y, garn aboos.
因此，维京人意识到爱尔兰本身并不值得花费如此大的精力，而纽芬兰不过是另一个爱尔兰。具有讽刺意味的是，一千年后这里的情况也确实如此。小伙子，走吧（方言，意为“就这样吧”）。
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