It started with an 1,year-old shirt. Archaeologist Lars Holger Pilø had watched his colleagues discover the ancient wool tunic that had emerged from a melting ice patch on Lomseggen, a mountain in southern Norway. Now Pilø wondered what else was out there.
As the rest of the team packed up the precious find, he and another archaeologist wandered away from the group, tracing the edge of the melting ice shrouded in mountain fog. Broken sleds, tools, and other traces of daily life going back nearly 2, years lay strewn across the surface of the Lendbreen ice patch, which was melting rapidly due to global warming.
Now, research published in the journal Antiquity documents what came next—the discovery of more than 1, artifacts literally frozen in time. Dating from around to A. And as they travelled across the rough terrain, these bygone travellers left behind everything from horseshoes to kitchen tools to items of clothing.
As snow collected over the centuries, those forgotten objects were preserved in what eventually became the Lendbreen ice patch. Objects frozen in glaciers are eventually pulverised inside the moving mass of ice.
But ice patches, which do not move, preserve artefacts in place—and in excellent condition—until the ice melts. Pilø, the first author on the Antiquity paper, and his colleagues have radiocarbon dated 60 of the 1, Lendbreen artifacts so far, revealing that human activity on the pass began around A.
Travel during the Viking Age peaked around the yearand, owing to economic and climactic changes, had begun to decline even before the Black Death swept through Norway in the s. The objects found at Lendbreen include everyday items such as sleds, a rare complete third-century wool tunica mitten and shoes, and a whisk.
The woman, who had lived on a summer farm during the s, said that her family used bits fashioned from hard juniper wood that looked almost identical to the 11th-century artifact. The thousand-year-old bit turned out to be made from juniper, too.
The Lendbreen ice patch is melting rapidy, as shown by photos taken in above and below. Albert Hafner, a Vattenrelaterat archaeologist at the University of Bern who was not involved with the current research, agrees. InHafner discovered hundreds of artifacts dating as far back as B.
The current paper focuses on objects uncovered bywhich leaves hundreds more artifacts to date and describe—as well as unanswered questions about why the pass was abandoned by travelers. But the peak years of the pass line up with a time of increased trade and urbanisation in the area—prosperous days that explain the need for a quick way to get through the mountains.
It transports the artifacts to our times. But for that to happen, the ice must melt. National Geographic National Geographic. By Erin Blakemore. Published 16 AprBST.