Hidden Viking Treasures Emerge as Norway’s Ice Surrenders Secrets After Centuries
According to Smithsonian, the historic spot is about 200 miles northwest of Oslo.
In the summer of 2011, archaeologists found horse dung dating back centuries all over the area. Warm temperatures also exposed prehistoric artifacts, such as a 1700-year-old tunic, out of the melting ice.
While it was a remarkable find — the oldest piece of clothing ever unearthed in Norway — the ice has only continued to melt. A new study published in Antiquity journal detailed all the finds this thaw has yielded: more than 1,000 additional artifacts.
Antiquity JournalRecovered artifacts ranged from horseshoes and preserved horse dung to animal remains and Bronze Age arrows.
According to Science, the collected items were retrieved between 2011 and 2015 and date back to the Bronze Age between 1750 B.C. and 300 A.D. The oldest are largely hunting-related, such as arrows likely used to kill deer. The rest range from wool clothing and leather shoes to sled fragments.
Lars Holger Pilø, who led the new research and serves as co-director of the Glacier Archaeology Program in Norway’s Innlandet County carbon-dated 60 of the recovered items. It was this analysis that confirmed the pass was used from the Roman Iron Age all the way through the Middle Ages.
At the time, while the Roman Empire didn’t extend to what is now Norway, it did have enormous influence in Northern Europe. The Lendbreen ice patch was unlike most others which were used for hunting and was instead a hub for travel and trading.
Merchants, sheepherders, and farmers would cross the 6,300-foot-tall Lomseggen mountain ridge to get to summer pastures and trading posts. Lendbreen hasn’t just provided the most archaeological finds of any ice patch in the region — but possibly the world.
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