In a mountainous region of southern Norway, scientists are in their 20th year of surveying glaciers for ancient artifacts entombed therein.
The most recent chapter of this long-running saga was the recovery of 48 arrow heads and shafts from different eras and made from different materials, some of which appear like they could have been crafted yesterday.
Organized and conducted in partnership between Innlandet County of Norway and the Oslo Cultural Museum, “Secrets of the Ice” has already yielded 5,000 artifacts, but this season’s fieldwork saw teams recover some of the oldest objects yet.
Arrowheads, crafted from slate, bone, and even a freshwater mussel shell, date from as late as 2,000 years ago to as early as 5,000. The slate arrowhead could be 6,000 years old, while the mussel shell arrowhead was found with an intact wooden shaft, and is believed to be around 3,600 years old.
The work focused around the 3 glaciers of Langfonne, Storfonne and Handklefonne, in the Jotunheimen mountains. Here, the glacier ice formed a longer time ago than any others that remain. The ice is older, therefore the artifacts it contains are older too.
“When we began our work in 2006, most of the artifacts we recovered were less than 2,000 years old, with particularly large numbers dating to the Viking Age,” the Secrets of the Ice researchers wrote in a blog post.
While stuck in the ice, the wood and other carbon-based material rots at a glacial pace—pun intended. The lack of oxygen prevents the formation of bacteria, and can mean that some of the objects can appear almost new.
That can change, however, extremely quickly, so many of the finds are placed in frigid, anoxic display cases at a nearby museum while they wait to be catalogued, studied, and perhaps moved 200 miles southwest to the capital of Oslo.
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“Now the picture has changed dramatically. Increasingly, the artifacts melting out of the ice are more than 2,000 years old. Many date to the Stone Age and Bronze Age. The oldest are more than 6,000 years old.”
Since the project began in 2006, it has recorded 73 archeological sites and recovered more than 5,000 artifacts from the ice, notably the world’s oldest ski, and a leather shoe from the time of Ancient Babylon.
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