Glacial archaeology: Viking-era artifacts emerge in Norway
Glacial archaeology: Viking-era artifacts emerge in Norway
Retreating ice in Norwegian mountains is paving the way for а new type of archeology, which is glacial archeology.
Climate change is causing ice patches in mountains around the world to melt, including in Norway where glaciers are abundant enough. The melting has helped archeologists retrieve some “spectacular” artifacts in pristine shape, left behind by Vikings that once roamed their ways through the country’s mountains.
Archeologists searched a high pass in the Norwegian mountains called Lendbreen, which “was an important route from the Roman era until the late Middle Ages,” notes the Smithsonian.
Archeologists first surveyed Lendbreen in 2011, during what would be an exceptionally warm summer. Some of their early finds included ancient horse dung as well as a 1,700-year-old tunic, now deemed the oldest piece of clothing ever discovered in Norway.
After 2011, a couple of other explorations of the area followed, and over 1,000 new artifacts such as wool clothes, leather shoes, animal bones, sled fragments, walking sticks, needles, stylos, and other items reappeared from the ice. An analysis of the amassed artifacts was consequently published in the journal Antiquity.
According to the study, the oldest artifacts exposed by the melting ice date back to the 3rd century A.D., and the latest artifacts date back to the 15th-century. The route appears to have been most heavily used during around the 10th century A.D., a time when northern European cities increasingly started to flourish, develop and urbanize.
In those days, the mountain passes may have played an important role in increasing trade capacities and stockpiling Norwegian cities and villages with products such as raw wool, reindeer fur, or dairy products. Archeologists do not exclude the possibility these trade routes connected also to regions outside of Norway.
The pass was likely utilized also for local travel from permanent farms in valleys to summer farms at higher altitudes where livestock could graze for fraction of the year, say the researchers.
“This remarkable peak in use shows just how connected even a very remote location was to wider economic and demographic happenings,” comments study co-author James Barrett, an archeologist at the University of Cambridge, reports the Smithsonian.
Farmers, herders, and merchants were more likely to frequent the Lendbreen route from late winter until early summer periods when the terrain appeared not as rough as during the rest of the year.
The pass, which elevates to an altitude of almost 2,000 kilometers, has so far revealed the most archeological finds of any patch in Scandinavia and possibly the world. While a vast number of ice-patches around northern Europe are predominantly seen as hunting sites, Landbreen appears to be unique as it essentially promoted trade and travel.
As climate change speeds up the melting of ice in the high mountains, archeologists are suddenly enabled to dig out troves of artifacts that had remained frozen for centuries. The ice has helped these artifacts to preserve, but collecting them as soon as possible is critical. Delicate items made from wood or cloth may easily deteriorate if they are not collected on time.
Another challenge of glacial archeology, which is an archeological branch in its inception, is the difficulty of interpreting objects. Meltwater and strong winds contribute to detaching objects from their original location and context. For instance, the archeologists report on the littered remnants of Bronze Age ski; different pieces of the ski were detached at a great distance.
The Lendbreen archeological mission is so far the greatest glacial archeology survey conducted in the world. A lot of items have been discovered during the summer of 2019 when ice levels plummeted globally, and these are due to be carbon-dated and included in a future scientific article. Unfortunately, the current pandemic outbreak of COVID-19 may postpone archeological activities for the summer of 2020.
Glacial archeology is a new field of discovery. Find out more by visiting the official page of Secrets of the Ice.
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