How global warming is aiding – and frustrating – archaeologists

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Guardian

How global warming is aiding – and frustrating – archaeologists
From hunting gear to shoes, ancient artefacts once covered by ice are being unearthed in Norway. Now scientists face a race against time to preserve them
Robin McKie The Observer, Sunday 26 September 2010

http://static.guim.co.uk.nyud.net:8090/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/Gallery_Images/2010/9/24/1285350135938/Norwegian-archaeologists-006.jpg

Norwegian archaeologists Trond Vihovde, left, and Elling Utvik
Wammer use a GPS marker to register the location of sticks used
in reindeer hunting from before the Viking Age.
Photograph: Alister Doyle/Reuters

Archaeologists have gained an unexpected benefit from global warming. They have discovered melting ice sheets and glaciers are exposing ancient artefacts that had been covered with thick layers of ice for millennia.

The discoveries are providing new insights into the behaviour of our ancestors – but they come at a price. So rapid is the rise in global temperatures, and so great is the rate of disintegration of the world's glaciers, that archaeologists risk losing precious relics freed from the icy tombs. Wood rots in a few years once freed from ice while rarer feathers used on arrows, wool or leather, crumble to dust in days unless stored in a freezer. As a result, archaeologists are racing against time to find and save these newly exposed wonders.

A perfect example is provided at Juvfonna in Norway, where reindeer hunting gear used by the Vikings' ancestors has been found littering the ground as the front edge of Juvfonna's ice sheet has retreated. A section more than 60ft wide has disappeared over the course of 12 months, exposing several hundred artefacts. "It's like a time machine... the ice has not been this small for many, many centuries," says Lars Piloe, the Dane heading a team of "snow patch archaeologists".

Bows and arrows, specialised hunting sticks – used to drive reindeer towards archers – and even a 3,400-year-old leather shoe have been found at the site in the Jotunheimen mountains, home of the "ice giants" of Norse mythology. These finds have been logged with a GPS satellite marker before being taken for examination. From these measurements, archaeologists reckon people using hunting sticks – each about a metre long with a flapping piece of wood attached by connecting thread – were set up about two metres apart. They then drove reindeer toward hunters who needed to get within 60ft of an animal to have a chance of hitting one with an iron-tipped arrow.


Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/sep/26/global-warming-ancient-artefacts

[hendo]

1. Pretty cool finds, sucks that they were only found because the ice is melting though nt

[alfredo]

2. Love to see images of the finds.

[Uncle Joe]

3. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, Judi Lynn.