Only two weeks ago a team of archeologists discovered an arrow made from a shell had survived 3,300 years in the ice in Norway. As the glaciers melt, the team has found some 4,000 items of clothes and hunting gear. Things that must have been precious to someone at the time — like hand-made leather bridles and Viking age knives — peeling away layers of history.
The director of the archeology team, Lars Holger Pilø, is very excited about finding a treasure trove of Early Bronze Age relics (as you would be). But he laments the cause — “the reason they are melting out is sad,” — he exclaims. The ice melt will lead to drastic changes in Norway’s landscape, he says, without seeming to notice he’s talking about warming the world back to what it was. Oh, the horror of a warmer climate that humans thrived in for thousands of years.
Today, some youngsters glue themselves to a road at the thought of another half a degree temperature rise, but imagine having to kill dinner with a shell strapped to a stick?
A 3,300 year old arrow made out of freshwater pearl mussel. | Secrets of the Ice.
If only we could ask the last owner if they’d rather our current colder climate?
Melting Glacial Ice in Norway Reveals Intact Bronze-Age Arrow
Maya Pontone, HyperAllergic
Archaeologists trekking through the Jotunheimen Mountains in Norway’s Innlandet County came across a remarkable find — an intact shell arrow dating back to the Early Bronze Age. Fastened with an arrowhead made of freshwater pearl mussel, the well-preserved hunting tool dates back 3,600 years and is one of eight shell arrows that have emerged from melting ice in Norway in recent years.
“The glaciers and ice patches are retreating and releasing artifacts that have been frozen in time by the ice,” Lars Holger Pilø, co-director of the archaeology program, told Hyperallergic.
It’s quaint the way they have to turn it into an ad for climate change, even though everything about this project screams “climate change is natural”
As global warming transforms Norway’s mountainous landscape, Finstad, Pilø and their fellow glacier archaeologists are rushing to collect the exposed artifacts, which continue to get older as the ice continues to melt.
There’s more photos at Secrets of the Ice. Archaeology is very cool, it’s just a shame when they have to talk about the climate religion.
Remember, none of the models can really explain why the Holocene was warmer than today, because CO2 was lower. It’s called “The Holocene temperature conundrum”.
Arrow heads shaped from shells by the sea,
Tied to shafts made of wood from a tree,
In the Bronze Age long ago,
When ‘carbon’ content was low,
And Norway’s green shores were ice free.
–Ruairi
h/t NetZeroWatch