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Greenland (Kalaallisut Kalaallit Nunaat, meaning "Land of the Greenlanders"; Danish Grønland) is a member country of the Kingdom of Denmark located between the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Though physiographically and ethnically an Arctic island country and geographically a part of the continent of North America, politically and historically Greenland is associated with Europe, specifically Iceland, Norway, and Denmark. In 1979, Denmark granted home rule to Greenland, with a relationship described by the Rigsfællesskabet, and in 2008 Greenland voted to become a separate country within the Kingdom of Denmark, effective June 2009. Greenland is, by area, the world's largest island that is not a continent in its own right.^[3]

In prehistoric times, Greenland was home to a number of Paleo-Eskimo cultures. From AD 984, it was colonized by Icelanders in two settlements on fjords near the southwesternmost tip of the island. The settlements, such as Brattahlid, thrived for centuries but disappeared sometime in the 1400s, at the time of one given date for the outbreak of the Little Ice Age.^[4]

Data from ice cores indicate that between AD 800 and 1300 the regions around the fjords of southern Greenland experienced a mild climate, with trees and herbaceous plants growing and livestock being farmed.^{[citation needed]}

These Icelandic settlements vanished during the 14th and 15th centuries, likely due to famine and increasing conflicts with the Inuit.^[5] The condition of human bones from this period indicates that the Norse population was malnourished, probably because of soil erosion resulting from the Norsemen's destruction of natural vegetation to allow for farming, turf-cutting, and wood-cutting, because of a decline in temperatures during the Little Ice Age, and because of armed conflicts with the Inuit.^[4] Jared Diamond suggests that cultural practices, such as rejecting fish as a source of food and relying solely on livestock ill-adapted to Greenland's climate, changed by the so-called "little ice age", resulted in recurring famine which, with environmental degradation, led to abandonment of the colony.^[4] However, isotope analysis of the bones of inhabitants shows that marine food sources supplied more and more of the diet of the Norse Greenlanders, making up between 50% and 80% of their diet by the 1300s.^[6]

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