This year, we have discovered and recovered 48 prehistoric arrows from melting mountain ice in Jotunheimen, Norway. But the arrows tell us more than a story about hunting in the past. They reveal a new pattern: the oldest ice is now melting, and with it, some of the oldest archaeological finds are emerging. For thousands …
Ötzi the iceman is the holy grail of glacial archaeology, nothing less. The discovery of the 5300-year-old mummified body and the associated artefacts created a media frenzy and great public interest. Today, 250,000 people visit the Ötzi Museum in Bolzano each year to get a glimpse of Ötzi and the exhibited artefacts. A wealth of …
We have published a new scientific paper, this time in the Journal of Field Archaeology! In earlier publications, we had focused on the radiocarbon dates of the finds and on two of our most interesting sites (Lendbreen and Langfonne). However, the mountain ice is now melting in many places around the world. The time has …
We have found the best-preserved pair of skis from prehistory! Back in 2014, the Secrets of the Ice programme found an exceptional pre-Viking ski, 1300 years old, at the Digervarden Ice Patch in Norway. The ski was complete, including the binding – one of only two skis from prehistory in this condition. Ever since, we …
The lost Viking mountain pass that melted out of the Lendbreen ice patch was a fantastic and baffling discovery. The discovery made headlines around the world, but it also raised questions. Who were the travellers going through this high mountain pass and where were they going? To gain an answer, we realised that we would …
For years, we kept the identity of one of our ice sites hidden, referring to it as our “secret arrow site.” 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 the most arrows, and by a large margin. Doing …
Mountain glaciers are retreating due to global warming. Surprisingly, this creates a boon for archaeology. Incredibly well preserved and rare artefacts emerge from melting glaciers and ice patches in North America, the Alps and Scandinavia. A new archaeological field has opened up – glacial archaeology. The archaeological finds from the ice show that humans utilised …
One member of the Secrets of the Ice team is not a professional archaeologist. Reidar Marstein is a hobby archaeologist from Lom. Why is he a core member of the team? Well, there are a number of reasons for that, but the main reason is that without him, glacier archaeology here in Innlandet would have …
«He’s there, he’s right there”. The archaeologists stood back in shock and awe. Nothing had prepared them for the encounter with the Victorian seaman from the lost Franklin expedition, buried in the frozen ground in the Canadian High Arctic. It was like he had just died. We take a closer look at the investigation of …
The ice in the high mountains is melting due to climate change. Archaeological finds, mostly from reindeer hunting and mountain travel, are melting out of the glacial ice in Scandinavia, the Alps and North America. The artefacts are remarkably well preserved. The ice has acted like a time machine, preserving the finds through millenia like a giant prehistoric deep-freezer. This is …