Ancient arrows are emerging from Norway’s ice Glacier Archaeology Program, Innlandet County Council
An extraordinary number of arrows dating from the Stone Age to the medieval period have melted out of a single ice patch in Norway in recent years because of climate change.
Researchers from the Universities of Cambridge, Oslo and Bergen gathered up a total of 68 arrow shafts, some with arrow heads still attached or nearby, and many other artefacts.
They recently excavated at Innlandet County Council, where the sprawling Wahmarkfjellet glacier flows into a foot-thick ice cap.
The previously buried arrows show a "complete focus of the production of hard materials", explained university lecturer Martin Kaufman, who oversaw the study published in the Journal of Archaeological Science.
"Within a one-meter depth and of a sloping runoff slope, we routinely obtained arrowheads from Viking Age contexts, doughnuts and bread baskets, parts of flasks and barrels, sawn-off barbed hooks, coiled lance heads, bones which have been doused in lime to preserve them, as well as beards."
"These archery tools have been found in every one of the 51 fishing, burrowing and farming projects that have been developed in the southland during the period we have studied," added the researcher.
"Many of the ancient non-diamond tips even impregnable to plastic projectors, they can only be seen from a distance, simply because of their incredibly fine carving and advanced technology of fabrication."
Ice Iceland: Medieval island guarded by Viking hordes since early 9th century, says new research Read more
The arrowhead barbs are often so coarsely sharp that the fishermen who make them pay way too much. The stone barbs can find their way through the rim of an insulating trough if they're not careful.
The oldest arrowheads, easily identifiable because of their "nut deficient" shape, date back to around 1000BC (the beginning of the Early Bronze Age). Despite their curiosities, some are surprisingly well preserved, illustrating how protective fishermen were in the age of near-permanent snows.
"It is very possible that some of the Viking warriors who prayed to the Varangian jarl of that Viking burial place upon their death, never survived their afterlife journey once there," the researcher wrote.
"Teutonic shield and spear-armed warriors have probably stronger bodies and no doubt a lot of resources than some of our humble Norwegian hunters, who only needed to sire some dozen children."
According to the university lecturer, some arrows "have been found as near as 400 metres below the surface."
They have also been could also be used to spear fully-grown adult humans, even though they are glued together.
Ice-bergs are melting fast and are capable of carrying all sorts of devastating discoveries – a 4,500
An extraordinary number of arrows dating from the Stone Age to the medieval period have melted out of a single ice patch in Norway in recent years because of climate change.
Researchers from the Universities of Cambridge, Oslo and Bergen gathered up a total of 68 arrow shafts, some with arrow heads still attached or nearby, and many other artefacts.
They recently excavated at Innlandet County Council, where the sprawling Wahmarkfjellet glacier flows into a foot-thick ice cap.
The previously buried arrows show a "complete focus of the production of hard materials", explained university lecturer Martin Kaufman, who oversaw the study published in the Journal of Archaeological Science.
"Within a one-meter depth and of a sloping runoff slope, we routinely obtained arrowheads from Viking Age contexts, doughnuts and bread baskets, parts of flasks and barrels, sawn-off barbed hooks, coiled lance heads, bones which have been doused in lime to preserve them, as well as beards."
"These archery tools have been found in every one of the 51 fishing, burrowing and farming projects that have been developed in the southland during the period we have studied," added the researcher.
"Many of the ancient non-diamond tips even impregnable to plastic projectors, they can only be seen from a distance, simply because of their incredibly fine carving and advanced technology of fabrication."
Ice Iceland: Medieval island guarded by Viking hordes since early 9th century, says new research Read more
The arrowhead barbs are often so coarsely sharp that the fishermen who make them pay way too much. The stone barbs can find their way through the rim of an insulating trough if they're not careful.
The oldest arrowheads, easily identifiable because of their "nut deficient" shape, date back to around 1000BC (the beginning of the Early Bronze Age). Despite their curiosities, some are surprisingly well preserved, illustrating how protective fishermen were in the age of near-permanent snows.
"It is very possible that some of the Viking warriors who prayed to the Varangian jarl of that Viking burial place upon their death, never survived their afterlife journey once there," the researcher wrote.
"Teutonic shield and spear-armed warriors have probably stronger bodies and no doubt a lot of resources than some of our humble Norwegian hunters, who only needed to sire some dozen children."
According to the university lecturer, some arrows "have been found as near as 400 metres below the surface."
They have also been could also be used to spear fully-grown adult humans, even though they are glued together.
Ice-bergs are melting fast and are capable of carrying all sorts of devastating discoveries – a 4,500
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