Sheep, cattle, goats, and horses were important.

Some crops could be grown in limited quantities, but Greenland could never reproduce the agricultural landscape of southern Scandinavia.

Hay became particularly important because animals could not simply graze outside through the winter.

This is where the story becomes more subtle.

The Norse did not arrive in an empty wilderness.

Greenland already had human history before and around the period of Norse settlement, and Inuit societies later became the dominant human presence in regions where the Norse had lived.

The island was not a blank page waiting for Europeans.