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, 250000 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! Earlier, we have focused on the radiocarbon dates of the finds and on two of our most interesting sites (Lendbreen and Langfonne). However, the mountain ice now melting in many places around the world. The time has come to tell …
We have found the best-preserved pair of skis from prehistory! Back in 2014, the Secrets of the Ice program 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 travelers 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 most arrows, and by a large margin. Doing fieldwork …
Global warming is leading to the retreat of mountain glaciers. Surprisingly, this has created a boon for archaeology. Incredibly well preserved and rare artifacts have emerged 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 …
Human remains from the ice have always received a lot of public interest. Almost everyone has heard about Ötzi, the 5200-year-old iceman from the Tyrolean Alps. But have you heard about Kwäday Dän Ts’inchi – the Iceman from British Columbia? If not, you are seriously missing out on one of the most fascinating finds from …
«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 use of skis for wintertime transport and hunting goes back into the mists of prehistory. The further we go back, the more uncertain and intriguing the story becomes. Mysteries abound. Where did skiing start? Siberia, the Altai Mountains, Scandinavia or somewhere else? The experts disagree. Were skis invented independently in more than one place …
We recently published a study of our ice finds in Oppland. The story made its way into major news media, including National Geographic. A number of posts in the comment sections to the news stories observed that the artefacts were found lying on the ground. The commenters somehow inferred that this means that global warming is fake news. This is …