CAMBRIDGE, ENGLAND—Newsweek reports that more than 2,000 artifacts dating back to as early as 4000 B.C. have been recovered from mountain passes in the glaciers of Oppland, Norway, by an international team of researchers. The artifacts include weapons and arrows, the remains of pack horses, and skis. Lars Pilø of the Glacier Archaeology Program at Oppland County Council said the skis are broader than modern skis, and may have been partly covered in fur. A tunic dating to the Iron Age, one Bronze-Age shoe, and the remains of sleds were also found. Pilø said that during the Late Antique Little Ice Age, a period stretching from A.D. 536 to 660, harvests failed and populations fell, but the number of artifacts from that time period suggests the survivors intensified other means of gathering food in the mountains. “This is sort of a dark archaeology, where we benefit from climate change that’s making this ice high in the mountains melt,” Pilø said. “There’s not much we can do to stop it, but at least we can be up there trying to find what we can.” For more on the relationship between archaeology and climate change, go to “Letter From Norway: The Big Melt.”
