When the storm broke and the temperature dropped, the six men and their packhorses were exposed to the full force of winter in the high mountains. They had no chance. What were they doing in the high mountains in the middle of the winter? Surely, they must have known that it was risky? Sources tell …
I am in my office. The phone rings. I answer the call. It is Elling on a bad cellphone line. All I can hear are bits of excited words, with shouts of joy in the background. Then the line clears: “There are hundreds of them. Hundreds!” The field crew had found a new site with a large number …
Finally, the time has come. We are off to Innsbruck, Austria, to meet our colleagues at Frozen Pasts, the world conference of frozen archaeology. We are so excited to hear news about new finds and methods in this developing field. What is going on in North America and the Alps? And are finds from the …
Climate science denial is often found in the comment section to news on archaeological finds from the ice. Paraphrasing one typical argument: “This proves that there was no ice here, when the artefact was lost. So the Earth must have been warmer in the past. How is this possible when the current warming is attributed to humans? …
How do glacial archaeologists know the dating of artefacts found in the ice? There are a number of dating techniques available to archaeologists. We use two main dating techniques in glacier archaeology – typological dating (the shape of the artefact) and radiocarbon dating. Typological dating Typological dating used to be the only available absolute …
We are back at the office in Lillehammer after a week of great fieldwork at our favourite site in Jotunheimen. This site just never ceases to amaze us. The number of arrows recovered here is simply staggering. This must be a world record for ice sites! The first arrows were found here in 2006, but there was …
We just got excited texts from the field! They have found what appears to be the remains of an ancient wooden sledge. The discovery was made not far from where the 1300 year old ski was found two years ago. It is broken into pieces, but maybe it is possible to put it back together …
Welcome to our new website. Ever since we started working with glacial archaeology in Oppland, our work has been met with great interest, both from media and the general public. This is not surprising. Glacial archaeology combines exciting archaeological finds with the greatest challenge of our time – anthropogenic climate change. The ice in the …
The Reinheimen ski is one of the most important finds made by the Glacier Archaeology Program in Oppland so far. Archaeologist Runar Hole from Lesja was hired by the Glacier Archaeology Program in 2014. His task was to visit potential sites at ice patches in the Dovre and Lesja municipalities. One of the places with …
An interesting project on the reconstruction of the Lendbreen tunic was undertaken in 2015, directed by Marianne Vedeler at the Museum of Cultural History. The reconstruction of the tunic demonstrated that the processes involved in making such a tunic are very time-consuming. The tunic must have been an item of high value. A short video …