has a youth hostel and a small store. More extensive facilities exist in Narsarsuaq across the fjord. Assembly Brattahlíð hosted the first Greenlandic Þing (parliament), based on the Icelandic Althing. Its exact location remains unknown. The exact causes of the disappearance of the Norse settlements toward the end of the 15th century remain unverified, but probably resulted from a combination of the Little Ice Age's cooling temperatures, soil erosion, abandonment by Norway after the Black Plague and political turmoils, more convenient ways for Europeans to procure furs and a mercantile eclipsing by the Hanseatic League, and competition from the Inuit moving southward. See also Qassiarsuk about the present settlement on the location Garðar, a bishopric seat founded in the 12th century close to Brattahlíð References Diamond, Jared, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed (New York: Viking, 2005) Ingstad, Helge (tr. Naomi Walford), Land under the Pole Star (New York: St. Martin's, 1966) Jones, Gwyn, The Norse Atlantic Saga (Oxford University Press, 1986) External links "Brattahlid, Norse Greenland", Earth Observatory Picture of the Day (June 2, 2005), NASA. An Old Captivity (1940) by Nevil Shute is a fictional account of an early aerial investigation of the old Norse settlement at Brattalid and of Leif Ericson's journey to North America in c 1000 AD. Populated places established in the 10th century Norse settlements in Greenland Sources of Norse mythology Sagas of Icelanders