During the Viking period, Norse seafarers from Greenland attempted to plant a settlement on the North American continent. This Vinland settlement faltered in its early phases and was not successful. Its failure may be best understood from the broader perspective of the Scandinavian expansion across the North Atlantic islands which began ca. AD 800. Adaptive shifts in the older North Atlantic colonies, geographical factors, and the resistance of Native Americans may have combined to doom this Western-most medieval colony.
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