Mysterious and fascinating artifacts are surfacing on melting glaciers across the planet.
From ancient human remains to strange wooden tools and statues, these objects are drawing archaeologists into the high, frozen mountains each year.
Norway is at the forefront of this emerging field of research, called glacial archaeology. With about 4,500 artifacts discovered, the country claims more than half of the planet’s glacial archaeology findings, according to Espen Finstad, who co-leads the Norwegian program, called Secrets of the Ice.
Archaeologists there are piecing together clues about ancient industries and trade routes across the glaciers.
They just had one of their best field seasons yet. Here’s what they found.
People have trekked over Norway’s glaciers for thousands of years to sell and buy goods.
Ancient hunting, travel, and trade routes crossed the mountains between the Norwegian coast and inland areas since the Stone Age.
“We are lucky that some of these trade routes have gone over ice,” Finstad told Business Insider.
Objects that ancient travelers left behind were frozen into the ice for centuries – until recent decades.
As humans have burned fossil fuels for energy, releasing heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere, global temperatures have been rising for decades. Glaciers everywhere are melting, releasing the ancient artifacts preserved inside them.
Some of these objects look familiar, like this mitten.
Others, like this whisk, are quite different from what we know today.
The Lendbreen ice patch is the most fruitful site the archaeologists visit.
“There are so many treasures in the ice there,” Finstad said.
Lendbreen was a common travel route during the Viking and Medieval eras. The archaeologists go there almost every year.
In the summer of 2024, heavy melting meant lots of new discoveries.
“The melting really came rapidly at the end of the season,” Finstad said.
Finstad’s team of about seven archaeologists visited nearly a dozen sites across the mountains to search for artifacts.
At Lendbreen, they used pack horses to bring gear up to the site and set up their camp.
One of them was just lying on top of the ice, waiting to be found. Usually there’s a little excavation involved, but the archaeologists simply picked this arrow up.
“It’s very seldom to find them that well preserved on the ice. So it was kind of a gift. It was very beautiful,” Finstad said.
Arrows are abundant in the glaciers because reindeer hunting was “almost like an industry” in the Iron and Medieval Ages, Finstad said.
People hunted for their own food, of course, but also to sell in a market.
Arrows can hold clues about past societies.
For example, some arrowheads found on the glaciers have tips made from river mussels that must have come from far away, cluing researchers in to just how far people were traveling and trading over the ages.
Some of the prehistoric arrows Finstad’s team found last season were so well-preserved they still had fletching.
Fletching is delicate and doesn’t usually last thousands of years. These were rare findings.
Some items they find are just “strange,” Finstad said.
Small bits of wood, leather, and textile are often impossible to identify.
Finstad estimated they had found about 50 such mysterious, small objects at Lendbreen in 2024.
“It’s all kind of small things, daily life things from the Viking Age or older, which you don’t find in other archaeology contexts at least in Norway, because it’s gone. It degrades,” Finstad said.
Heavy snow cut off the archaeologists’ efforts – but now they know where to look this summer.
“We are excited to go back,” Finstad said.
This article was originally published by Business Insider.
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