Norwegian mountains are full of time capsules. Thousands of years of human and ecological history are preserved in remnant patches of ice. Now this treasure trove of information threatens to melt away, unless we take action
NORWEGIAN UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
One day more than 3000 years ago, someone lost a shoe at the place we today call Langfonne in the Jotunheimen mountains. The shoe is 28 cm long, which roughly corresponds to a modern size 36 or 37. The owner probably considered the shoe to be lost for good, but on 17 September 2007 it was found again – virtually intact.
Sometime around 2000 BCE, a red-wing thrush died at Skirådalskollen in the Dovrefjell mountain range. Its small body quickly became buried under an ice patch. Upon emerging again 4 000 years later, its internal organs are still intact.
In recent years, hundreds of such discoveries have been made in ice patches, revealing traces of hunting, trapping, traffic, animals and plant life – small, frozen moments of the past.
Exceptional discoveries every year
Norway has soil that is consistently quite acidic, which means that organic material from the past is poorly preserved in the soil. Glaciers often move – and crush – what they hide below the surface. Ice patches, on the other hand, are relatively stable and therefore create exceptional conditions for preserving organic material.
“Objects and remains of animals and human activity have been found that we didn’t even know existed. They include everything from horse tack and clothing to arrows with tips made of shells, wooden shafts and feathers. Not a year goes by without surprising finds that shift the boundaries of our understanding,” says Birgitte Skar, an archaeologist and associate professor at the NTNU (the Norwegian University of Science and Technology) University Museum. She is one of the researchers behind a new report (in Norwegian with an English summary) that summarizes the state of knowledge in Norway’s glacial archaeology.
The report describes a variety of fabulous findings but also paints a gloomy picture.
Only a few ice patches containing potential discoveries have been investigated systematically over time, and they have hardly been studied at all in northern Norway.
Short-term financing results in a lack of continuity in monitoring and securing artefacts from the ice patches. Some research has been done on finds, but it barely scratches the surface. All the while, all this knowledge is melting away at record speed.
The most recent surveys from the Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate (NVE) show that 364 square kilometres of Norwegian snow patches and glaciers have melted away since 2006.
Monitoring programme is overdue
“A survey based on satellite images taken in 2020 shows that more than 40 per cent of 10 selected ice patches with known finds have melted away. These figures suggest a significant threat for preserving discoveries from the ice, not to mention the ice as a climate archive,” says Skar.
“The time is ripe for establishing a national monitoring programme using remote sensing and systematically securing archaeological finds and biological remains from ice patches. We should also use this programme to collect glaciological data from different parts of the country, since the ice patches can provide detailed data on how the climate has evolved over the last 7500 years,” she said.
Unimaginable possibilities
The oldest find that has emerged from the ice in Norway is a 6100-year-old arrow shaft. Like the shoe, it was also found at Langfonne in the Jotunheimen mountain range.
Finds from here and several other places indicate that these areas were in continuous use as hunting grounds for as long as the ice has been there. This means that they offer an unparalleled archaeological source of information.
“We’re beginning to assess whether the ice in some places might have survived the warm period following the last ice age, which would mean that the bottom layer of the ice could be remnants from the ice sheet from that period. This possibility offers unprecedented opportunities to trace climate history and activity on these hunting grounds even further back in time,” Skar says.
“We have to remember that the oldest population group in Norway descended from reindeer hunters who hunted in Northern Europe and Southern Scandinavia close to the edge of the ice sheet, in the later part of the ice age. In other words, these are people who would have known how to hunt large cloven-hoofed animals and would understand the animals’ behaviour patterns,” Skar adds.
Reindeer seek out ice patches during hot and buggy summer weather, and the Sami population has also used these areas for a wide range of purposes, including calf marking, milking and separating the animals. However, the Sami use of inland ice has hardly been surveyed.
“The Sami uses would probably expand the known range of uses and significance of the snow patches. Obtaining information from these tradition bearers is urgent,” says Skar.
Mummified birds and animals
Human activity through the millennia are not the only stories revealed by the ice patch finds. Animal and plant remains also provide new insights into the ice as an ecosystem, such as reindeer bones from 4200 years ago that still contain intact bone marrow, as well as several whole mummified mammals and birds.
According to Jørgen Rosvold, the findings are often very well preserved and can provide genetic information about several species far back in time. They can show how species have responded to climate change and human disturbances in the past.
Rosvold was also involved in the report. He is a biologist and assistant research director at the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research (NINA). He explains that ice is one of the world’s least studied and understood ecosystems, so that we know very little about ice as a habitat.
“Our finds show that the ice in the mountains has provided important habitats for many mountain species for thousands of years through to the present day. The fauna finds also provide background information for the archaeological finds, for example by showing which species people might have hunted on the snow patches,” says Rosvold.
“We used to think of the ice as desolate and lifeless and therefore not very important. That’s changing now, but it’s urgent. Large amounts of unique material are melting out and disappearing forever. Finds can provide important information about the history of both people and nature,” he said.
METHOD OF RESEARCH
Literature review
SUBJECT OF RESEARCH
Not applicable
ARTICLE TITLE
Glasialarkeologi i Norge (Glacialarchaeology in Norway)
ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE
25-Feb-2022
As the climate returns to what it was in an era prior to modern industrial society due to cycles we do not completely understand, many artifacts long preserved in ice during a naturally occurring cold period are being revealed…….
If one listens closely, the arctic isn’t screaming but is rather whispering, sea ice extent wants to kiss the 1981 to 2010
median.http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/icecover.uk.php
Indeed.
Arctic ice, The annual maximum extent in millions of square kilometres. Year, area, date.
2016………………… 14.52……..March 2 (altered down several years later)
2017…down to……..14.43……..March 7 (altered down several years later)
2018……up to……… 14.48……..March 17
2019……up to……… 14.78……..March 3
2020……up to……… 15.05……..March 5 – this was extraordinary, should have been the lead item on every newscast!
2021…down to…../.. 14.77……..March 21
2022….up to…………14.88………Feb 25
And these “scientists” want to develop an entire ecology of the ice habitat instead of coming to the obvious conclusion that the Earth goes through warm and cool periods.
What is far more likely is that traces of hunting, trapping, traffic, animals and plant life – small, frozen moments of the past recovered today in melting ice indicate that humans and animals back then were walking / hunting/ foraging on ground that was NOT covered in ice – when the climate was as warm or warmer than today – and as the climate got colder, it buried these artifacts under the ice.
If you are a hunter, where will you seek game?
Atop a frozen mass of ice or in those areas where animals can graze?
How does this relate to the major warming and molten glaciers in Spitzbergen described in detail by George Nicolas in “The Changing Arctic” (Monhly Weather Review, Nov. 1922)?
They probably lost the shoe during a severe winter storm that would be named today and used as political cannon fodder for the climate crusades. My how times have changed.
Lost the shoe while running away from “climate change”!
lost the shoe …?
According to archaeologists, the shoe will be noted as a relic of a not yet understood religious rite.
🙂
archaeology: The spinning of tales on minimal evidence to prove people in the past conform to the researchers preconceived notions and conceits.
So you’re saying climate science is a branch of archaeology?
In that it involves lots of guesswork you could be right.
Motel of the Mysteries.
Pictured: Archaeologists celebrate the shoe’s discovery. Temperatures have warmed so much at the site that Middle Eastern climatic conditions are now the norm.
Brilliant. 🙂
If the shoe’s 3000 years old, that means that it was at least this warm 3000 years ago before humans were burning fossil fuels in any significant amount.
The original Cinderella?
The only thing for sure you can say about the shoe that it was long past the time it needed a new heel put on.
I am sure the sole reason people are responding to this thread is to lace shoe puns together.
Make sure you don’t get booted over it.
Well, if the shoe fits….
Only a heel would do that.
Or just toeing the line.
Was that the sole reason for your comment?
“Climate change” (as defined by the vast majority of the news media, e.g., https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/top-10-ways-you-can-stop-climate-change/ )
means: shifts in climate caused mainly by human CO2.
Why promote the human CO2 conjecture by using a title which assumes “climate change” is a bona fide phenomenon?
At least, put the term “climate change” in quotes.
Top ten ways Man can stop the climate from changing
10) You Can’t
9) You Can’t
8) You Can’t
–
–
–
1) You Can’t
There are only 4 things the climate can do over time. It can get warmer, it can get cooler, it can stay constant or it can cycle between warming and cooling. There is evidence that clearly shows it has never remained constant. It’s also clear that it does not continuously warm over long periods (or it would be much hotter) and it does not continually cool over long periods (or it would be much colder). Therefore, the climate must surely cycle between warming and cooling periods which we see in the paleontological record of past warm and cool periods. So my bet is we are experiencing a nearly entirely natural warming cycle and those who think otherwise should be required to produce extraordinary evidence to support their extraordinary claim. And no – computer climate models are not evidence of anything but the programmer’s beliefs.
Climate models are nothing more than an extension of a linear regression trend line, a y = mx + b linear line. This gives past data equal weighting with current data which is a sure fire way to miss cyclical processes.
That definition of “climate change” shows how language is being corrupted by the new religion.
“Renewable Energy” has been corrupted in a similar way:
Renewable energy comes from sources that will not be used up in our lifetimes, such as the sun and wind.
renewable-energy
Extracting energy from the wind is not renewable. The devices to extract and store the energy require more energy to make than can be extracted.
“The devices to extract and store the energy require more energy to make than can be extracted.” Can you point me to some studies/calculations supporting that statement? I’ve repeated that statement in the past but could not support it with facts. I did put some tables together that clearly showed you could make money with solar panels and wind turbines, but that is a different issue. Some of my friends have requested the same info.
The only discovery missing from the article is the gradual uncovering of Tree Stumps still rooted in the ground
Like this 5k yr old one near the Mackenzie R. in N Canada?
Well since the climate scientologists have long declared their science/witchcraft settled, that will free up billions of dollars for worthwhile science, like investigating all the ice patches.
This will also be good for the health of scientists, since this kind of work requires lots of healthy outdoor work, lots of physicality and working directly with others. Much healthier than the “work” climate scientologists do, which involves too much sitting, whether in their office chairs while they tweak their computer models to give the ‘right’ result, or in jet planes for hours as they travel to far-flung resort towns for COPxx conferences, or on deck chairs around the pool and beaches at said conferences.
Go thing the science was settled! The scientists’ weight were reaching a tipping point.
Our current system is too much locked into certain contractual research. When an event, maybe this one, including hurricanes, freezes and other such non-contracted happen, many questions, perhaps some less answerable under normal conditions need to be jumped into. Some of these occur during fixed research objectives, but my experience suggests that we need more flexibility, less top-down control.
They’ll need lots of those extra $Bs to create models on how to walk, work, direct others, …
Hey now! They get out…to Sharm El Sheikh and other exotic places for conferences every year or two. Where they try to get physical with the groupies as much as possible…
Gropies and groupies.
What a gold mine of discoveries!
Just think. If not for Man’s increased CO2 causing Global Warming these things might been frozen forever!
Mann should lead an investigation into just which paid Big Oil Shill planted all those things decades ago under the ice to make him look bad!
This article is ninety percent bull scat. The only informative parts are that they are finding proof that mankind inhabited places that have been covered in ice for who knows how long. Now that the ice is gone we can enjoy the same locations those who lived thousands of years before us enjoyed. It’s a win win. We better hurry though because you know the ice will return.
YouReekAlot! yet again.
And the elephant in the room is….It’s happened before.
Hurry! Send gobs of money!
It’s M E L T I N G ! !
O H M Y G O D ! !
https://youtu.be/aopdD9Cu-So
“One day more than 3000 years ago, someone lost a shoe at the place we today call Langfonne in the Jotunheimen mountains.”
“a red-wing thrush died at Skirådalskollen in the Dovrefjell mountain range. Its small body quickly became buried under an ice patch. Upon emerging again 4 000 years later, its internal organs are still intact.”
Sorry, but this stuff all gets very confusing.. which of these events occurred in the Minoan warm period that never happened, and which was in the Egyptian warm period that never happened?
Let’s let the glaciers keep on melting until Jimmy Hoffa shows up.
Hasn’t Jimmy Hoffa been pulled out of Lake Mead yet?
I heard Jimmy Hoffa was found in Richard Dahmer’s stomach.
Jeffrey Dahmer?
“The shoe is 28 cm long, which roughly corresponds to a modern size 36 or 37.”
*sigh*
A size 38 shoe == “Carry Bag”
But
28 cm == 11 inches.
11 inches == size 10!! Yes, I bothered to look it up.
YouReekAlert!!!!!!!
Ah, you guys could be some European size, does that sound right???
Well Euro 44/45 is just under 28cm. I take a 42/43 on one foot and 43/44 on the other. My feet are a traditional UK half size different 9 & 9.5. When reading I thought small male average female = good excuse to get a new pair for the lady owner.
Maybe the guy losing the shoe was eaten by a hungry animal. Wonder what animal the shoe came from.
Lots of things in this story trouble me, its not consistent…
1/ Quote:”areas were in continuous use as hunting grounds for as long as the ice has been there
How could the hunting have been continuous?
Because if the ice was continuous, there’s have been nothing there to hunt, not even reindeer can survive on a diet of ice
2/ Quote:”Norway has soil that is consistently quite acidic, which means that organic material from the past is poorly preserved in the soil.
This is especially puzzling because typically where things are reasonably well preserved itis in soils that are very acidic.
Classically in peat bogs. Such places being very acidic but its not that which preserves (or does not preserve) anything that falls in, it is a lack of Oxygen that does the preserving.
Whether the particular place is frozen or not is irrelevant.
In fact if you want to preserve ‘organic stuff’ – isn’t dousing it in acid a good way to do it?
e.g. pickled foodstuffs we enjoy to this very day
The worst bit, for me, is this:
Quote:”Large amounts of unique material are melting out and disappearing forever
…in conjunction with:
Quote:“These figures suggest a significant threat for preserving discoveries from the ice, not to mention the ice as a climate archive,” says Skar.
It’s one of those “If a tree in a forest fell over with a crash and nobody heard it, does that mean the tree did or did not fall over?
If the ice remained intact and frozen and had been since forever, there would have been no discoveries – it is only that the ice is melting that is ‘causing’ the discoveries.
But the same, in reverse would have applied when the things were being laid down in the ice. If the ice had been ancient and continuous at the time of deposition, there’s have been no deposition – because there’d have been nothing there to deposit. No redwing thrush, no reindeer and no hunters with shoes and no broken arrows
Continuous Ice Places are deserts just as much as Continuous Sandy/Stony/Rocky Places are deserts = nobody and nothing lives there of ever goes there. much.
Skar is witnessing ‘change’ and the only thing allowing her to see that change, is yet more change.
And there goes the cliche = The only constant, is change.
The only things that don’t change are ‘Dead Things’
Thus Skar is witnessing ‘Life In Action’ – and she thinks it is wrong and bad and wants money so she can witness more.
What really has gone, is going, wrong on this world?
Ignorance is epidemic.
1/- you did read further down to the point where it mentions about reindeer in the Sami lands of northern Europe? The way that, in hot summer weather, reindeer actively seek out these ice patches? Presumably it’s an oasis of meltwater and cooler temperatures on the ice and the Sami have learned to use these patches when herding and hunting reindeer.
2/- might I suggest that you research the subject before you post? Acidic soils and anaerobic (usually waterlogged) do preserve some organic material, mainly skin, leather, pollen and grains, but not others – bone is especially vulnerable. In aerobic soils, such as in the mountainous areas of Norway, there is little to no chance of waterlogging and most, if not all, organic material will degrade and dissolve.
The rest of your post indicates that you really haven’t understood the article and certainly haven’t understood the difference between an ice patch and a glacier. Again, to reiterate, please research before posting – it’ll save your embarrassment.
“might I suggest that you research the subject before you post? “
Can’t, too much sugar.
Reindeer/Caribou stay on snow patches in the summer to escape biting insects. The swarms of bugs that attack any mammal on the tundra is a misery I have never come close to seeing in any other environment.
Where’s MGC? I’m sure he will put everything into proper context.
Something like ”yeah but the co2 is an existential threat to humans – look at the news!”
If items are appearing as ice melts it means it was once at least as warm as today when the item was placed there, then it cooled and the ice formed, then it warmed again and the ice melted. In other words, the appearance of the items in the ice proves CO2 caused climate change is false.
Maybe – do remember that this is a different process than things being revealed by retreating glaciers. These ice patches form slightly differently, may melt and refreeze in the same spot over and over, with the items sinking deeper into them. The appearance of the items in the ice does not, on its own, prove the CAGW theory is false but together with items revealed by glaciers and other evidence, it just might. Aging the ice in the ice patch might be a good step.
The shoe’s measurement corresponds to about 11.5 (US). Men with that shoe size average about 6′ 1″.in height.
That’s probably racist.
“One day more than 3000 years ago, someone lost a shoe at the place we today call Langfonne in the Jotunheimen mountains…. The owner probably considered the shoe to be lost for good, but on 17 September 2007 it was found again – virtually intact.”
I certainly hope that it was put in the Langfonne Lost and Found!
If it weren’t melting, we wouldn’t know that the “treasure trove” existed. We should be thankful that this melting didn’t happen several hundred years ago when the technology didn’t exist to conserve and study the finds. This should be seen as a gift — a one time opportunity occurring at a fortuitous time. The government of Norway should allocate some of their oil wealth to study these things before they are gone.
Why is it that everything related to climate change is seen as being negative?
Because that’s where lies the power to control.
One has to wonder if their rutting around in the ice patches to find artefacts has anything to do with them disappearing.
Good to see this article which clearly demonstrates it has been much warmer than today many times in human history.
Which most on here already know
Can this be posted to Mickey Piltdown Mann for learnings accumulation?
If all the ice melts away, won’t the debris it contained just wind up in one nice, easy to retrieve pile on the bare ground some day?
If the artifcts now exposd by melting had been buried in snow/ice, doesn’t that mean snow/ice had been accumulating over them lo these many years, and now we are returning to the warmer climate of the day in which they were lost? Doesn’t that mean present temps are just returning to normal by warming?
These items are in ice, somewhere around a fairly neutral ph. If the ice melts away they’ll end up sinking into a wet (not waterlogged) aerobic and acidic soil which will dissolve them.
As to the rest, maybe.
I’d be more impressed had they found a pair of stilettos.
Hmmm, finding artifacts in melting ice patches? But, but ,but they told us these times are the hottest ever. Now my whole day is ruined.
Wait until they get to Sharm El Sheikh!
Someone will be squeezing the Sharmin!
So the main point is these were ice free areas thousands of years ago (before SUV’s!) and we are only now returning to the warmth of those past times.
Apparently we haven’t even scratched the surface of previous global warming periods. Why is Greenland called Greenland when it’s mostly buried in ice,? Hmmmm
Marketing.
No. These were icy areas thousands of years ago which froze over trapped items. As the ice has melted a little way it’s revealing some of them but not melting the whole thing (yet?). These are not glaciers retreating and revealing past ice-free areas.