Melting glaciers in Norway have revealed ancient artefacts dropped by the side of a road more than 1,000 years ago.
Clothes, tools, equipment and animal bone have been found by a team at a lost mountain pass at Lendbreen in Norway’s mountainous region.
A haul of more than 100 artefacts at the site includes horseshoes, a wooden whisk, a walking stick, a wooden needle, a mitten and a small iron knife.
The team also found the frozen skull of an unlucky horse used to carry loads that did not make it over the ice.
The objects that were contained in ice reveal that the pass was used in the Iron Age, from around AD 300 until the 14th century.
The researchers say the melting of mountain glaciers due to climate change has revealed the historical objects, with many more to come.
This climate-induced retreat of mountain glaciers has caused a new field of science called glacial archaeology.
The resulting findings are a snapshot of high-altitude travel in the Roman Iron Age and the Viking Age.
‘A lost mountain pass melting out of the ice is a dream discovery for us glacial archaeologists,’ said Lars Pilø, first author and co-director for the Glacier Archaeology Program.
‘In such passes, past travellers left behind lots of artefacts, frozen in time by the ice.
‘These incredibly well-preserved artefacts of organic material have great historical value.
Some of the objects are from the means of transportation through the mountain, such as horseshoes, bones from packhorses, remains of sleds and a walking stick with a runic inscription.
Other items are the remnants of daily life, such as a knife with a wooden handle, a wooden distaff – used to hold wool during hand spinning – and a wooden whisk.
Remains of clothing, such as shoes, a Roman Iron Age tunic and a Viking Age mitten, have also been found.
‘The preservation of the objects emerging from the ice is just stunning,’ said Espen Finstad, co-author and co-director of the Glacier Archology program.
‘It is like they were lost a short time ago, not centuries or millennia ago.’
Radiocarbon dating was used on 60 of the finds from Lendbreen to tell the team exactly when the pass was in operation.
It was likely used for local traffic to and from summer farms at high elevations and for long-distance travel and trade.
The route was also mainly used in late winter or early summer when the rough terrain was covered in snow.
The survey at Lendbreen now covers about 2.6 million square feet, or 250,000 square metres, which is the size of 35 football fields.
The total space of the site includes 30-degree slopes and a combination of loose scree, bedrock and ice, which often made the recovery of the artefacts difficult.
Archaeological ice sites in the high mountains also differ from those in the lowlands, as artefacts are more likely to become displaced by meltwater, ice movement and wind.
The new findings are detailed in the journal Antiquity
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