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Melting Ice in Norway Reveals Treasure Trove of Ancient Artifacts



Archeologists in Norway have recently revealed a spectacular discovery. Lars Pilø, now a researcher at the Innlandet County Council Cultural Heritage Department, stated that they have recovered a record-breaking sixty-eight (68) arrows dating from the Stone Age to the Medieval Period. Pilø wrote in the Secrets of the Ice that the earliest arrows are c.6000 years old.

They found the ancient arrows in the Langfonne ice patch, in the Jotunheimen Mountains, Norway; a location that was not made public until fieldwork was completed. “For years, we kept the identity of one of our ice sites hidden, referring to it as our secret arrow site,” the researcher wrote.

The front of a 1300-eyar-old arrow.

Source: Glacier Archaeology Program

“The reason for the secrecy was that it contained a treasure trove of arrows. In fact, it is the ice site in the world with most arrows, and by a large margin.” 

– Lars Pilø, a researcher at the Innlandet County Council Cultural Heritage Department, co-author of the study

Pilø and his team have recorded the position of each find via a high-precision GPS. Nearly all the arrows which they have found were also radiocarbon dated. As a result of their efforts, they have made a very detailed archaeological record which has revealed mysterious patterns on the site.

“We discovered many artefacts in front of the lower ice edge. These finds are mostly poorly preserved, while finds along the sides of the ice and above the upper ice edge are better preserved. In addition, the Stone Age finds appear on the surface of the ice or very close to the present-day ice edge.”

– Lars Pilø, a researcher at the Innlandet County Council Cultural Heritage Department, co-author of the study

It was revealed in their study that the archaeological record has been seriously damaged by natural processes. However, Pilø stated that “it is still possible to gather historical information beyond the individual finds.”

Pilø believes that information of considerable value can be provided by the artifacts and the biological material from ice patches. According to him, ice is like a time machine, in a way that “anything that lands on it stays there and is protected.”

On November 25, 2020, the team archeologists/researchers have finally published a study of the site in the scientific journal The Holocene and it is called “Interpreting archaeological site-formation processes at a mountain ice patch: A case study from Langfonne, Norway.”

The 2014 field team

Source: secretsoftheice.com

For More News and Updates

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Source: Secrets of the Ice| Innlandet Fylkeskommune, Science Alert, Sage Journals| The Holocene, National Geographic

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