After a week of fieldwork, we are now done at our new site. We rigged down our basecamp and packed up. Packhorses from Fjellrittet helped us transport the equipment down from the mountain.
Our large-scale fieldwork is over for now. We will continue to check for new sites with a smaller crew - until winter snow arrives. We just received an exciting report about such new site, including a rare find! We will check it out at the end of this week. Stay tuned!🙂 #glacialarchaeology #climatechange
So far the finds from this site appear to be medieval, but the history of our site just got a couple of millenia older - we have found a Stone Age arrow shaft😍
The shaft is 4000 years old! 😮 It is in three pieces now with both the front and the back end preserved, but a piece in the middle is missing. Traces of pitch are visible at the front end.
#glacialarchaeology #climatechange
This is great, we have found textile! ❤ It's just what we were waiting for. Why so excited?🙂 Well, textile rags are a regular feature on our transport sites. So finding them on our new site fits nicely with our idea that an ancient trail had crossed our ice patch. Now we have both stone markers and textile rags, so we're good. There IS a trail here and it makes the site so much more exciting! Sites with ancient trails can contain all kinds of stuff.😮 We still have several days of survey ahead of us🙂
#glacialarchaeology #climatechange
Yes, we have our first find, and it's a very interesting one as well!😍 It is a Medieval arrow (800-900 years old) with the front end broken off. The interesting part is at the other end though🙂 The hunter managed to break off part of the nock, and had to repair it by securing the broken piece with sinew lashings (second picture). Once ready for use again, the arrow missed its target and disappeared into the snow. Double bad luck for the hunter - an amazing find for us!❤ #glacialarchaeology #climatechange