When the skeletons from Herjólfsnes were examined after excavation in Greenland, it was hoped that they might shed light on the fate of the Norse colonies there. They were examined at a time when biological anthropology was very much concerned with issues such as race, racial intermixture, and racial degeneration. For the examining scientists, the skeletons from Herjólfsnes did seem to support theories of an isolated, degenerate, and sickly population, doomed to extinction. Indeed, some of the results of these analyses still crop up in present-day publications.