Norways Melting Glaciers Release Over 2,000 Artifacts

[Judi Lynn]

Iron Age arrow from Trollsteinhøe (James H. Barrett)


Spanning 6,000 years, the well-preserved items hint at the history of mountain dwellers
By Jason Daley
smithsonian.com
2 hours ago











Picture of an arrow shaft, radiocarbon-dated to c. 2000 BC. Found lying on the ice on a high altitude reindeer-hunting site. (Øystein Rønning-Andersen, Secrets of the Ice/Oppland County Council.)

Norway’s Melting Glaciers Release Over 2,000 Artifacts
Spanning 6,000 years, the well-preserved items hint at the history of mountain dwellers
By Jason Daley
SMITHSONIAN.COM
2 HOURS AGO



There’s a reason history museums are packed with stone statues, pottery and arrow heads—these things resist decay while exposed to hundreds (or even thousands) of years in the sun, wind and rain. It’s rare to find organic materials, like a woven shawl or a leather shoe, but there’s at least one circumstance when these types of artifacts survive: when they’re frozen in ice.

Glaciers and permafrost hold many of these treasures, but as climate changes they’re releasing their haul to the elements. And as Kastalia Medrano at Newsweek reports, this is exactly what’s happening in Norway. A group of glacial archaeologists have recovered over 2,000 artifacts from the edges of Norway’s glaciers, and the find promises to help researchers better understand the history of mountain populations.

Archaeologists from the United Kingdom and Norway have surveyed the edges of glaciers in Norway’s highest mountains in Oppland since 2011 as part of the Glacier Archaeology Program and its Secrets of the Ice Project. They’ve uncovered thousands of objects that date as far back as 4,000 B.C., including wooden skis, near complete bronze-age arrows and wooden shafts, Viking swords, clothing and the skulls of pack horses.

″[In] the glaciated mountain passes, you can find basically anything,” Lars Pilø, co-director of the Glacier Archaeology Program tells Medrano. “Obviously because of the fantastic artifacts there’s a lot of focus on the individual finds. But I think what is more important, perhaps, is the bigger picture.”

Read more: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/2000-artifacts-pulled-edge-norways-melting-glaciers-180967949/#iRQif0ktF6PvYC22.99