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Comment by johnyzee | Hacker News Reader

I always found it interesting that Iceland has no indigenous population (like the inuit), prior to Scandinavian and British immigration. Like, what if it's because it is regularly buried in lava or something.

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The 1783 Laki eruption killed roughly a quarter of Iceland's human population via famine & majority of its livestock via poisoning.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laki

Thanks for the mention. That was an interesting read!

Lava doesn't cover all of Iceland anywhere near enough to regularly bury things on that timescale. There was arable land and forest when the Norse came.

There is some evidence that Irish monks were on Iceland before the Norse: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Iceland#Irish_monks

Were there another non-European population earlier, they would need to get there by sea. I would expect archeological evidence of sea-worthy ships, which we do for the Norse.

It is a long way from Greenland to Iceland - far greater than the ~35 km from Ellesmere Island to Greenland, which is how we think the Dorset and Thule people got to Greenland. (And that was on the other side of Greenland.)

Not sure if it's cause & effect, but forests were mostly cut down. The largest "forest" nowadays is 740 hectares (7.4 km2) (2.86 mi2).

What makes the Icelandic people not indigenous?

Probably because they're Vikings who came from Scandinavia around the 8th-9th century, whereas the Inuit/other indigenous people have lived in their region since the BC times. Iceland seems to have only been habitable with the "modern" technology.

I also find it fascinating, it's a place where there's no "colonializers" and "colonized"...

Not strictly true as Iceland was ruled by Denmark for a long time and only became fully independent in 1944.

Not sure exactly which point you're refuting, but for a long time Vikings and Danes were synonymous, as preserved in terms like Danegeld or Danelaw.

That Denmark treated Iceland as a colony (and very poorly for a long time) isn’t exactly news despite there being common lineage all over Western Europe.

They’re living there not long enough compared to the rest of Europe? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Settlement_of_Iceland

I think the implication is, that like the Maoris in New Zealand, they're only faux indigenous, as they arrived on boats. Probably doesn't matter much as there is no grift to be had.

You could kind-of say the same thing about the Anglo-Saxons, it's interesting where we choose to draw the line sometimes

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