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MAPS OF HISTORY · IB HISTORY · PAPER 1 · CLIMATE AND INNOVATION

IB HISTORY · PAPER 1 · FOCUSED STUDY

Paper 1: Climate and Innovation — Norse world and Aztec Empire

Climate and Innovation is one of the five Paper 1 Focused Studies of the new IB History course, first examined in May 2028. Paper 1 is the source paper: its questions ask you to read primary sources closely, to judge what each can and cannot tell a historian, and to combine them with your own knowledge. This Focused Study pairs two case studies, Norse world and Aztec Empire, and our atlas Climate and Innovation covers both on linked maps, in 12 chapters with 46 primary sources.

In the warm centuries Norse farmers sailed to Greenland; they left as the cold returned. In another demanding climate, the Mexica made a city of 200,000 from a salty lake.

Map from Climate and Innovation: The Norse and the Aztecs, c. 790–1521, chapter 8
CLIMATE AND INNOVATION: THE NORSE AND THE AZTECS, C. 790–1521 · CHAPTER 8
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What this Focused Study asks

Each source set begins with an inquiry question. Together, the questions show the work this Focused Study asks you to do. Read the sources alongside the chapters: a good answer draws on both.

Norse world

Aztec Empire

Case study 1: Norse world

Chapters 2–6 of the atlas follow Norse world, from 790 to 1450. Read them in order: each chapter is a step in one argument, and the map moves with it.

Evidence to use

One point from the IB notes of each chapter, written as a sentence you could use in an answer. Every chapter in the atlas carries four to six.

  1. The Oseberg ship was built around 820 and buried in 834. It was 21.5 metres long, with fifteen pairs of oars. Its clinker hull, made from overlapping riveted planks, flexed with the waves and drew only about a metre of water. CH 2
  2. Ari Þorgilsson wrote Íslendingabók in the 1120s, long after settlement. He says the island was settled within sixty winters and describes it as wooded “between fell and fore-shore”, preserving an account of a landscape different from the later one. CH 3
  3. In 985 or 986, Erik the Red led 25 ships from Iceland toward Greenland; 14 arrived. Settlers built about 500 farms in the Eastern Settlement and 75–100 in the Western Settlement, using the warm inner fjords for pasture. CH 4
  4. What did the Greenlanders eat as conditions changed? Bone chemistry from 123 Norse skeletons suggests a marked shift: marine food rose from roughly 15–50 percent of the early colony’s diet to 50–80 percent by the fourteenth century. The Greenlanders were eating far more seal. CH 5
  5. Around the year 1000, fish bones at English sites show a sudden rise in sea fish. James Barrett calls this change the fish event horizon. Isotope studies trace much of the later cod to northern Norway, where the stockfish trade had its home. CH 6

Case study 2: Aztec Empire

Chapters 7–11 of the atlas follow Aztec Empire, from 1325 to 1521. Read them in order: each chapter is a step in one argument, and the map moves with it.

Evidence to use

One point from the IB notes of each chapter, written as a sentence you could use in an answer. Every chapter in the atlas carries four to six.

  1. The Basin of Mexico lies about 2,240 metres above sea level and covers roughly 7,500–9,600 square kilometres. At high water its linked lakes spread over some 1,000–1,500 square kilometres: the water was salty in the east at Texcoco and fresh in the south. CH 7
  2. After the flood usually dated to 1449, Nezahualcoyotl designed a dike to protect the city. Workers from Tlacopan, Culhuacan, Iztapalapa, Tenayuca and Xochimilco built the stone, clay and stake barrier, which ran some 12–16 kilometres from Atzacoalco to Iztapalapa. CH 8
  3. Chinampas began as plots staked out in shallow fresh water. Farmers piled lake mud and vegetation inside them and anchored their edges with ahuejote willows, making moist, fertile beds that could carry several crops a year. CH 9
  4. Tenochtitlan’s sacred precinct stood at the heart of the city and measured roughly 430–460 metres across. Sahagún’s informants listed 78 structures inside it; the twin shrines of the Templo Mayor, dedicated to Huitzilopochtli and Tlaloc, dominated the precinct. CH 10
  5. According to Alva Ixtlilxochitl, the Triple Alliance agreed in 1454 to fight Tlaxcala, Huexotzinco and Cholula in ritual flower wars to take captives. Ross Hassig interprets these wars as a form of attrition; Barry Isaac sees the ritual explanation as a cover for failure to conquer. CH 11

Comparing the two case studies

The atlas ends by setting the two case studies side by side in Two Answers to the Environment. Comparison is where the Focused Study pays off: the same question asked of two societies shows which explanations travel and which belong to one place.

PAPER 2 · CLIMATE AND INNOVATION · CHAPTER 12

Compare and contrast how the Norse in Greenland and the Mexica in the Basin of Mexico responded to the challenges of their environments.

THESIS

Both societies developed ways to make demanding environments productive, and both looked beyond their homelands for resources through trade or tribute. Their circumstances and responses differed in scale: the Norse combined mobility with adaptation across a scattered environment, while the Mexica used engineering and empire in a concentrated one. Those differences also shaped the pressures each society faced at its end.

THE THREE POINTS

  1. Both extended the possibilities of farming through innovation.

  2. Both drew resources from beyond their homelands.

  3. The societies differed greatly in scale and in the ways they ended.

The evidence for each point, the counter-argument and the judgement are in the IB notes of chapter 12 in the atlas. Read the chapter first: Two Answers to the Environment.

Key concepts

The course asks you to think with six concepts. Each chapter’s IB notes name the two or three it supports best; here they are across the atlas, most used first.

Source-analysis practice

This is one complete source set from the atlas, free to use. It is built around one inquiry question: Where do saga accounts and archaeology agree about Norse voyages to North America? As you read each source, ask who made it, when, and why. These details help you judge what it can tell you. Answer the questions in writing first; then open the guide under each one to see what a strong answer does.

TEXT · CHAPTER 4

The Saga of the Greenlanders on Leif’s winter in Vinland

CREATOR
Anonymous Icelandic author
DATE
Thirteenth century (copied in Flateyjarbók, 1387–94)
ORIGIN
Grænlendinga saga (The Saga of the Greenlanders)

Context. The Vinland sagas differ over the first arrival and the place of wintering. This account gives Leif Eriksson the leading role.

They afterwards determined to establish themselves there for the winter, and they accordingly built a large house. There was no lack of salmon there either in the river or in the lake, and larger salmon than they had ever seen before. The country thereabouts seemed to be possessed of such good qualities that cattle would need no fodder there during the winters. There was no frost there in the winters, and the grass withered but little. The days and nights there were of more nearly equal length than in Greenland or Iceland.

Translation: A.M. Reeves, The Finding of Wineland the Good (London: Henry Frowde, 1890), pp. 65–66. · original ↗

TEXT · CHAPTER 4

The Saga of the Greenlanders on trade with the Skrælings

CREATOR
Anonymous Icelandic author
DATE
Thirteenth century (copied in Flateyjarbók, 1387–94)
ORIGIN
Grænlendinga saga, the expedition of Thorfinn Karlsefni

Context. “Skrellings” is a Norse term for the Indigenous people encountered. The passage reports the exchange from the Norse perspective.

Neither [people] could understand the other’s language. The Skrellings put down their bundles then, and loosed them, and offered their wares [for barter], and were especially anxious to exchange these for weapons, but Karlsefni forbade his men to sell their weapons, and taking counsel with himself, he bade the women carry out milk to the Skrellings, which they no sooner saw, than they wanted to buy it, and nothing else. Now the outcome of the Skrellings’ trading was, that they carried their wares away in their stomachs, while they left their packs and peltries behind with Karlsefni and his companions.

Translation: A.M. Reeves, The Finding of Wineland the Good (London: Henry Frowde, 1890), p. 73. · original ↗

PICTURE · CHAPTER 4

Reconstructed Norse buildings at L’Anse aux Meadows

CREATOR
Photograph by Eric Titcombe
DATE
2013 (reconstructions built by Parks Canada)
ORIGIN
L’Anse aux Meadows National Historic Site, Newfoundland

Context. These modern reconstructions stand beside excavated remains, discovered in 1960 and investigated in 1961–68 and 1973–76.

Reconstructed low turf-walled halls with grass roofs stand on the open coast at L’Anse aux Meadows, Newfoundland.

Eric Titcombe, “L’Anse aux Meadows - Exterior of reconstructed Viking house”, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. · original ↗

PICTURE · CHAPTER 1

The opening of the Saga of the Greenlanders in Flateyjarbók

CREATOR
Scribes Jón Þórðarson and Magnús Þórhallsson
DATE
1387–1394
ORIGIN
Manuscript page, GKS 1005 fol., Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies, Reykjavík

Context. The saga describes voyages to Greenland and Vinland, but this manuscript was written in Iceland almost four centuries after them.

The opening of the Saga of the Greenlanders appears on a manuscript page, written in dense Old Norse script in two columns with a coloured initial.

Flateyjarbók, GKS 1005 fol., Árni Magnússon Institute; image via Wikimedia Commons (public domain). · original ↗

The questions

  1. QUESTION 1 · COMPREHENSION

    What attractions of the wintering place does Source A describe?

    What a strong answer does

    Leif’s crew found salmon in the river and lake larger than any they had seen. The winters seemed mild enough for cattle to go without fodder, with no frost, and day and night were more nearly equal in length. Choose three distinct attractions from the source and support them with brief quotation or close paraphrase.

    • Gives three separate points from the source
    • Uses brief quotation or close paraphrase
    • Stays within the source
  2. QUESTION 2 · ANALYSIS

    What can Source C tell us about the Norse site at L’Anse aux Meadows?

    What a strong answer does

    Look first at the low, turf-walled halls on open, treeless ground beside the sea. Their size and form suggest substantial winter shelter for a group, built with local turf in a tradition familiar from Iceland and Greenland. The buildings in the photograph are modern reconstructions beside the excavated remains, so they show an interpretation of the site.

    • Makes inferences from what is visible
    • Links the building style to the Norse homeland
    • Notes that the buildings are reconstructions
  3. QUESTION 3 · EVALUATION

    Assess Source D’s value and limitations for studying westward Norse voyages, using its origin, purpose and content.

    What a strong answer does

    Flateyjarbók preserves the Saga of the Greenlanders, the fuller of the two Vinland sagas, and offers evidence of how fourteenth-century Icelanders recorded their past. Yet it was written in Iceland in 1387–94, almost four centuries after the voyages. Oral transmission and the purpose of honoring Icelandic families descended from the explorers also bear on how directly it can tell us about those events.

    • Uses origin, purpose and content explicitly
    • Gives at least one value and one limitation
    • Links each point to the question
  4. QUESTION 4 · SYNTHESIS

    Using the sources and your own knowledge, how far does distance explain the end of the Norse presence in North America?

    What a strong answer does

    L’Anse aux Meadows was about 1,800 kilometers from Greenland’s Eastern Settlement, whose population may have been only 2,000–2,500. Distance and the small population could make a settlement difficult to sustain. Set these pressures beside the attractions and uneasy Indigenous encounters in A and B, the short-lived site reconstructed in C, and the 1021 tree-ring date before deciding how much weight distance deserves.

    • Uses at least three of the sources
    • Adds accurate own knowledge
    • Weighs distance against other factors
    • Reaches a clear judgement

More source sets in the atlas

The atlas holds 5 more source sets for this Focused Study. Their sources sit in the IB notes of the chapters named below: open a chapter in the atlas and turn on the IB notes switch to read them.

Practice questions and essay plans

Try planning your answers before looking at ours. Each outline states a thesis and shows what each paragraph would claim. The first plan comes from chapter 2, a free chapter, and is shown in full. In the atlas, the chapters’ IB notes give the full plans, with evidence, a counter-argument and a judgement. The atlas’s own page lists those notes: IB notes for The Norse and the Aztecs.

PAPER 2 · CLIMATE AND INNOVATION · CHAPTER 2

Evaluate the importance of technological innovation in causing the Viking expansion of the late eighth and ninth centuries.

THESIS

The longship was necessary for Viking expansion: it made the journeys possible. But the ability to travel does not by itself explain why people set out. Social pressures at home and opportunities for silver and trade abroad helped turn ships into instruments of a larger movement.

THE THREE POINTS

  1. The clinker-built ship made distant raids and settlement possible.

    EVIDENCEOseberg, buried in 834, and Gokstad, built around 890, were light and flexible vessels that drew only about a metre of water. Their crews could cross the North Sea, row up rivers and beach without a harbour.

    LINKThese capabilities made ventures such as the surprise raid on Lindisfarne in 793 and settlement on the islands possible.

  2. Pressures within Scandinavian society may explain the willingness to raid.

    EVIDENCEJames Barrett in 2008 and Raffield, Price and Collard in 2017 argued that a surplus of young men without land or the wealth owed to a bride’s family made risky raids attractive. In Norway, only about 3 percent of the land can be ploughed.

    LINKShips existed before 793. Social change may therefore help explain why raids began when they did, although the relative importance of these pressures remains debated.

  3. Silver and trade offered reasons to undertake voyages.

    EVIDENCEScandinavia has yielded hundreds of thousands of Islamic dirhams, while Kaupang and Hedeby were thriving trading towns. Around 890 Ohthere told King Alfred about walrus ivory and furs taken as tribute from the Sámi.

    LINKThe prospect of wealth gave chieftains reasons to send ships out year after year, for exchange as well as raiding.

COUNTER-ARGUMENT

Technology has a strong claim to be decisive. The sail reached Scandinavia only around the seventh or eighth century, transforming what ships could do shortly before the raids began. Lise Bender Jørgensen’s estimate that a warship’s woollen sail required more than 1.5 tonnes of wool and decades of women’s labour also shows how much had to be invested in it.

JUDGEMENT

Ships were indispensable, and the arrival of the sail helps explain the timing of expansion. Yet a sail also required a society willing to devote decades of labour to it. The social and economic forces behind that investment and the voyages were the deeper cause; innovation worked within a wider system of ambition, trade and status.

Read the chapter behind this plan: The Ship and the Sea Road.

PAPER 2 · CLIMATE AND INNOVATION · CHAPTER 5

To what extent was climate change the main reason Norse Greenland was abandoned?

THESIS

Climate change put pressure on Greenland’s farmers, but it cannot explain the departure by itself. Cooling and drying narrowed the margin for cattle farming; economic decline and isolation added to those pressures, while the Norse adapted and Inuit survived in the same cold. Climate acted through the vulnerabilities of the colony.

THE THREE POINTS

  1. Cooling and drying weakened the farming base.

  2. The Norse changed their diet, limiting a purely climatic explanation.

  3. Economic change and isolation weakened the colony’s ties to Europe.

The evidence for each point, the counter-argument and the judgement are in the IB notes of chapter 5 in the atlas. Read the chapter first: Living with the Cold.

PAPER 2 · CLIMATE AND INNOVATION · CHAPTER 9

Examine how important chinampas and the tribute system were in sustaining Tenochtitlan’s population.

THESIS

The city drew on several connected sources of supply. Chinampas produced fresh food near Tenochtitlan, tribute brought staples and goods from other climates, and markets helped distribute goods to households. Both farming and tribute were essential, though their relative shares are uncertain; neither alone could have fed a city of perhaps 200,000.

THE THREE POINTS

  1. Chinampas gave the city a productive source of food close at hand.

  2. Tribute linked the capital to supplies from regions with different climates.

  3. The market at Tlatelolco connected these supplies with households.

The evidence for each point, the counter-argument and the judgement are in the IB notes of chapter 9 in the atlas. Read the chapter first: Chinampas: Feeding a City.

PAPER 2 · CLIMATE AND INNOVATION · CHAPTER 11

To what extent was Indigenous opposition to the Mexica the main reason for the fall of Tenochtitlan in 1521?

THESIS

Indigenous opposition was the main reason Tenochtitlan fell: it gave the Spaniards an army, a base and local knowledge that their few hundred men lacked. Smallpox and the lake city’s vulnerability accelerated the outcome, while Spanish ships and steel mattered most in combination with allied manpower.

THE THREE POINTS

  1. Indigenous allies furnished both an army and a refuge.

  2. Smallpox weakened Tenochtitlan before the siege began.

  3. The lake city’s connections gave the besiegers targets.

The evidence for each point, the counter-argument and the judgement are in the IB notes of chapter 11 in the atlas. Read the chapter first: The Flower Wars and the End of the System.

Revision tools

The atlas ends with a map quiz that asks you to find places and moments on the map itself (part of every plan from Starter up). The quick quiz and the discussion questions with our answers are free pages on this site, and the printable study guide gathers every chapter’s notes into one document for revision.

CHAPTER 1 — CLIMATE AS A FORCE IN HISTORYMAP QUIZQUICK QUIZPRINTABLE STUDY GUIDEDISCUSSION QUESTIONSALL 12 CHAPTERS

The same atlas for other papers

Several chapters also carry IB notes for Papers 2 and 3, and for topics of the old course examined in 2027:

Maps of History is independent and is not affiliated with or endorsed by the International Baccalaureate Organization. IB course names describe alignment only; paper, theme and section names follow the new course outline and may change when the final guide is published.

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