The two major Norse settlement zones did not necessarily fail at the same moment.

The Western Settlement, located farther north than the Eastern Settlement, appears to have ended earlier.

Archaeologists generally place its abandonment in the later fourteenth century.

That earlier ending provides an important clue.

If the entire Norse society had been destroyed by one sudden catastrophe, we might expect the settlements to disappear together.

Instead, the evidence suggests a sequence.

One settlement fails.

The other survives longer.