Home of "Ice Giants" thaws, shows pre-Viking hunts

Reuters on Yahoo ^ | 9/14/10 | Alister Doyle

[NormsRevenge]

JUVFONNA, Norway (Reuters) – Climate change is exposing reindeer hunting gear used by the Vikings' ancestors faster than archaeologists can collect it from ice thawing in northern Europe's highest mountains.

"It's like a time machine...the ice has not been this small for many, many centuries," said Lars Piloe, a Danish scientist heading a team of "snow patch archaeologists" on newly bare ground 1,850 meters (6,070 ft) above sea level in mid-Norway.

Specialized hunting sticks, bows and arrows and even a 3,400-year-old leather shoe have been among finds since 2006 from a melt in the Jotunheimen mountains, the home of the "Ice Giants" of Norse mythology.

As water streams off the Juvfonna ice field, Piloe and two other archaeologists -- working in a science opening up due to climate change -- collect "scare sticks" they reckon were set up 1,500 years ago in rows to drive reindeer toward archers.

But time is short as the Ice Giants' stronghold shrinks.

"Our main focus is the rescue part," Piloe said on newly exposed rocks by the ice. "There are many ice patches. We can only cover a few...We know we are losing artefacts everywhere."

Freed from an ancient freeze, wood rots in a few years. And rarer feathers used on arrows, wool or leather crumble to dust in days unless taken to a laboratory and stored in a freezer.

Jotunheimen is unusual because so many finds are turning up at the same time -- 600 artefacts at Juvfonna alone.

Other finds have been made in glaciers or permafrost from Alaska to Siberia. Italy's iceman "Otzi," killed by an arrow wound 5,000 years ago, was found in an Alpine glacier in 1991. "Ice Mummies" have been discovered in the Andes.

[squarebarb]

Odd; Oetzi had the same kind of shoe. Like a slipper that was laced across the instep. The kind of slipper with laces that you always see in fairy-tale illustrations of princesses.

so it was sort of the same culture from the Alps to the mountains of Norway?

I think most all polar peoples made and wore the high bootlike Kamiks, and the riders of the Kazakhastan steppes also wore knee-high boots.

Maybe this slipper design is a European Mesolithic thing.

[reagan_fanatic]

At first glance, I thought that might be a picture of Helen Thomas’s foot.

[FlyVet]

It was all those dirty camp fires that they built to cook their food. There were so many camp fires, they caused greenhouse gas, and that sealed their fate. It caused global warming....oh, wait, it caused global cooling, didn’t it...yeah, that’s it.

[agere_contra]

the ice has not been this small for many, many centuries

Not to beat a dead horse, but this means that the ice was 'this small' some centuries ago.

Which - means - evidently - that this part of Norway was as warm or warmer than today 'some centuries ago'

What kind of SUVs did the Vikings drive?

[agere_contra]

Ok, same point made by everybody on the thread already. I’ll shut up now, LOL.

[norwaypinesavage]

Why, it hasn’t been this warm for 3,400 years! Actually, doesn’t it mean that it was this warm 3,400 years ago? One could argue, then, that the temperatures have held about the same for at least 3,400 years.

[SunkenCiv]

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[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Fractal Trader, a two-list topic.

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[Pilsner]

I wonder if they will find a 3,400 year old tablet, with runes showing how a shaman explained to the ancient Nords that the smoke from their fires was blotting out the sun, and causing the climate change that made the ice fields grow, and the crops fail.

[colorado tanker]

This area is farther south than I thought from the picture.

[ConservativeMind]

So they had gasoline engines before these huts ever went under the ice?