Spade
The wooden construction implies that whatever its owner needed to move was not particularly hard or abrasive. Given the context of the dig, which revealed that “the Norse economy in Greenland was heavily dependent upon … fertilized soils,” the spade could have been used to spread manure or other fertilizer.[1] Greenland is, after all, a misnomer created to lure settlers to what was in fact a rather inhospitable island. The soil would have required a fair amount work to cultivate as farmland.
The dating for items from this project ranges from 985 to 1450 AD, which fits with accounts of Erik the Red traveling from Iceland to Greenland.[2] The strongest motivations for Greenland settlements would have been to repeat the success of those who snatched up profitable plots in Iceland. Nevertheless, settlements in Greenland would have given Norse seamen a base of operations from which to extend their journeys on to Newfoundland, where evidence has been found of brief settlement. The spade found in Greenland had its own part to play in helping the Norse achieve the peak of their exploration, stretching all the way to lands that would not be colonized again by Europeans for multiple centuries.
