Professor Tryggvi Julius Oleson FRSC | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1912 |
| Died | October 9, 1963 Winnipeg |
| Nationality | Canadian |
| Occupation | Professor of History |
| Years active | 1936 - 1963 |
| Title | Professor |
| Awards | Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada Guggenheim Fellowship, 1956 |
| Academic background | |
| Alma mater | University of Toronto - Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies |
| Thesis | The Witenagemot in the Reign of King Edward the Confessor |
| Doctoral advisor | Bertie Wilkinson |
| Academic work | |
| Discipline | History (European and North America) |
| Sub-discipline | Early Medieval and Norse history |
| Notable works | Early Voyages and Northern Approaches |
| Notable ideas | Thule culture was a merger of Norse culture and Dorset culture |
Tryggvi Julius Oleson, FRSC, (1912-1963) was a Canadian historian from Manitoba. Of Icelandic heritage, he specialised in the early medieval period and Norse history. He was the author of Early Voyages and Northern Approaches, the first volume in the Canadian Centenary Series, a collection of historical texts by leading historians to commemorate the centennial of Canada in 1967.
Early Voyages and Northern Approaches proved controversial because of Oleson's theory that the Thule culture, the predecessor of the Inuit, was the result of inter-mingling between Norse people from Greenland and Iceland, and Arctic inhabitants of the pre-existing Dorset culture. This thesis helped explain the origins of the Thule culture, and the contemporaneous gradual disappearance of the Norse settlements in Greenland. The book attracted considerable academic criticism, but Oleson was not able to publish any rebuttals as he died shortly after it was published.
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