Product Details

• Actors: Liev Schreiber, Fawzi Gaballah, Joann Fletcher, Addison Bain, Martin Biddle
• Format: NTSC
• Language: English
• Rated: Unrated
• Studio: Pbs (Direct)
• VHS Release Date: August 1, 2000
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00004U550
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #331,253 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

The west coast of Greenland was the site of a thriving Viking colony for hundreds of years. Originally settled by explorers who had bravely sailed across the treacherous North Atlantic from their homes in Scandinavia, the Greenland outpost grew into a farming community of thousands. And then something went terribly wrong. Visitors in the 1400s reported that the inhabitants had simply vanished, leaving no bodies and few clues about what could have happened.

Speculation has long centered on suddenly adverse weather conditions or possibly a war with local Inuit people, but in this documentary, an installment of PBS's Secrets of the Dead set, a team of archaeologists, forensic anthropologists, and botanists visit a desolate and remote stretch of the Greenland coast and solve the mystery of the lost Vikings. The archaeological record, combined with the scant written accounts of how the settlers lived, begin to reveal some surprising evidence. And a complicated story involving a "mini ice age" emerges. The compelling theory indicates that worsening conditions, coupled with strict religious beliefs that kept the Greenland Vikings from adapting by learning the ways of the natives, sealed their fate. This is a captivating look at a little-known mystery. --Robert J. McNamara

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Definitely interesting tv., September 18, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Secrets of the Dead - The Lost Vikings (vol. 2) [VHS] (VHS Tape)

While the video will take a bit of attention to follow, I'd recommend it to anyone interested in anthropology and archaeology. This would make a wonderful educational video for the classroom, especially senior high school students would appreciate this. The video does a great job of connecting the facts to make them easy to follow without patronizing the audience and it does leave a few openings for the viewer to draw his own conclusions about the facts. This is one of the more conclusive of the "Secrets of the Dead" titles, where speculation is replaced with more certianty about the events of the past.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Scientific investigation at its' best, September 3, 2002

By 

Charles Ashbacher (Marion, Iowa United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Secrets of the Dead - The Lost Vikings (vol. 2) [VHS] (VHS Tape)

In the middle ages, the Vikings established extensive colonies on Greenland made of up an estimated five to six thousand people. Those colonies thrived for approximately four hundred years, even communicating with the Pope and having their own bishop. There was extensive trade with other colonies and they even built cathedrals with stained glass. However, over a short period of time, the colony declined and the people vanished. What happened to them is a mystery, but thanks to some dedicated scientists using state of the art technology, many of the questions are answered.
What I loved about the tape is the descriptions of the technology used to extract clues about how the Vikings lived. Ice core samples from the Greenland ice cap are used to create an accurate record of the temperature variance over the years. The human remains are used to determine their health, diet and activities. Finally, even the number of preserved blowflies is used to calculate the amount of carrion that was present, which determines the amount of excess food.
Like so many civilizations that have died out, it is clear that the Viking colonies had a long period of decline before there was a dramatic event that ended it completely, after it grew too small to be self-supporting. The only unanswered question is what happened to the last people, as there are very few unburied corpses that would indicate a final mass dying. The experts speculate that the last people attempted to migrate to another location, but either did not make it or landed somewhere where they were absorbed without being recorded.
This is a tape that is fascinating in the descriptions of the quality of anthropological science. Civilizations that vanish hold a special historical appeal and in this tape you can learn about one of the most interesting instances where a large group of people vanished with no historical record to explain it.