Melting ice reveals an ancient, once-thriving trade route:
Earlier this year, Antiquity published an article about an ancient mountain pass uncovered on Lendbreen, a melting ice patch in the central mountain range of the Loomseggen Ridge in Norway. This retreating ice patch exposed lichen-free areas of bedrock where artifacts have been found simply lying on the bare ground. The dated artifacts indicate that the mountain pass was used from around AD 300-1500, but that its usage increased around AD 1000 during the Viking Age. This was a time of elevated travel, trade, and urbanization in Northern Europe.
[...] The findings on Lendbreen are varied and contain numerous types of transportation-related items including the remains of sleds, walking sticks, horse-snowshoes, and horse bones. They also contain many everyday items, including a woven tunic and a mitten, textile rags, and a collection of shoes made from hide. Most notably, archaeologists found ruins of a stone shelter near the top of the ice patch, indicating that this was a significant travel route.
Journal Reference
Lars Pilø , Espen Finstad, James H. Barrett. Crossing the ice: an Iron Age to medieval mountain pass at Lendbreen, Norway [open], Antiquity (DOI: 10.15184/aqy.2020.2)
Also at: columbia.edu.
Melting glaciers have been a boon for high-elevation archaeology, because artifacts have been well preserved in the ice.
Related Stories
The New York Times has written about study results published recently in Nature which show rather precisely when Vikings had been living in what is now Canada, specifically at L’Anse aux Meadows.
But in results published Wednesday in Nature, scientists presented what they think are new answers to this mystery. By analyzing the imprint of a rare solar storm in tree rings from wood found at the Canadian site, scientists have decisively pinned down when Norse explorers were in Newfoundland: the year A.D. 1021, or exactly 1,000 years ago.
The date was calculated from a combination of dendrochronology and astrophysics.
Journal Reference:
Margot Kuitems, Birgitta L. Wallace, Charles Lindsay, et al. Evidence for European presence in the Americas in ad 1021 [open], Nature (DOI: 10.1038/s41586-021-03972-8)
Previously:
(2020) Archaeologists in Norway Find Rare Viking Ship Burial Using Only Radar
(2020) Melting Ice Reveals an Ancient, Once-Thriving Trade Route
(2018) 8-Year-Old Girl Pulls Ancient Sword From Lake, is Our Ruler Now
(2016) Vikings, Crystal 'Sunstones,' and the Discovery of America
(2015) 1,200-year-old Viking Sword Discovered by Hiker
(2014) The Vikings' Navigational Mystery: Calcite
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 28 2020, @04:00AM (14 children)
I found my keys!
(Score: 2, Informative) by qzm on Thursday May 28 2020, @04:18AM (13 children)
Impossible.
Everyone knows the receding ice levels is unprecedented and a global catastrophe, it is simply impossible that such a path was open only 1000 years ago!
The science is decided, remember? This is obviously a plant by oil gushing evil corps who are working together to destroy humanity.
(Score: 3, Informative) by ChrisMaple on Thursday May 28 2020, @05:02AM
Nonsense! It's obviously an encampment of space aliens, who used .. uh .. horses to get here and stayed in .. um .. stone shelters.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 28 2020, @07:18AM (5 children)
We're blazing on through that local maximum! Wooh1! Fuck yeah!!
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 28 2020, @09:28AM (4 children)
It was vastly hotter in times prior. You're looking at a sort of local max on a short time scale of a local min on a long time scale.
And this is really the problem. I think it's likely that we're contributing to the current increasing trend in temps, but determining exactly how much is impossible. The assumption is that the baseline is no change, but that's obviously wrong given that the planet goes through regular cooling and heating cycles and we are currently in a heating cycle that started long before industry even existed.
So even if there were literally no humans in existence, Earth would still be heating up today. The only question, of course, is how much - and to what degree are we changing that. Even the rapidity of the change does not provide much insight since, once again, it's hardly unprecedented. This is kind of the interesting but unfortunate things about being such a relatively new species. People tens of thousands of years from now will have no real difficulty knowing what's going on, not only because of what would be unimaginably better technology, but also because even in cases where they can't resolve things they'd have extensive longterm information to draw on without having the rely on the rather imprecise measurements we use in working out what happened in the past.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 28 2020, @10:40AM
>> The only question, of course, is how much - and to what degree are we changing that.
According to the Gospel of St Greta: not at all and 100%, so it's entirely your fault and you have to stop stealing her future.
(Score: 5, Informative) by lentilla on Thursday May 28 2020, @05:13PM (2 children)
It is the rate of change that is concerns us.
This annotated graph [xkcd.com] sums the situation up beautifully.
There is no argument that Earth has experienced cycles of hotter periods and colder periods. The rapid warming coinciding with the Industrial Revolution is definitely abnormal.
It's certain that humans are making a significant and rapid change to Earth's climate.
I categorically disagree.
We already have pretty good information. Not perfect; that is true; but enough to clearly say: "the Earth is warming up much faster than ever before in geologic history, and it's our fault". As to whether this is good or bad may be a topic for debate but it is already causing problems for this generation and will most certainly be front and centre for the following generations.
Anthropomorphic global warming is not something to panic about - but we do need to accept responsibility, and wind back our worst excesses to give future generations a fighting chance of coping with the inevitable physical and geo-political changes that are going to happen.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 28 2020, @06:04PM
Here [wikipedia.org] is the geologic temperature record. Humanity has lived through *vastly* warmer and colder periods. Note the warming trend in the natural cycles, literally before humans even existed as well. Since that graph uses a non-linear record on the times, it can be unclear on exactly how rapid things happen. Here [wikipedia.org] is a graph with a linear time scale. Here [nasa.gov] is one where the temperatures are normalized but nonetheless still end up with periods of stupid fast warming that is still not well understood.
You have, in the geologic record, things like 12C changes over *extremely* brief periods of time. And humans were alive, and obviously thrived. And this was during a time when our technology amounted to smashing rocks together to get pointy things to go kill other things and each other with. Now a days atmospheric scrubbing is already a viable solution. Recent research [digitaljournal.com] puts a total cost of atmospheric scrubbing at $94-$232 per ton. Fossil CO2 emissions in 2017 were 37 megatons. That's a total cost of about 4% of the world economy - likely far less than what we'll have spent on corona after all is said and done.
But the cool thing is that it gets cheaper each year not only because of technology innovations but because the economy is growing far faster than our emissions are which results in a reduced relative cost each year. Within a few decades, you're going to be looking at like a 0.1% tax to pay for scrubbing, if necessary. And that's assuming no technological innovations, which there will be - and it's necessary, which it probably won't be.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Thursday May 28 2020, @11:29PM
There is no point in presenting evidence to these sorts of A/Cs, they have absorbed the message that climate change is a hoax, and there is no point arguing with them about it.
Their beliefs trump your science.
(Score: 5, Informative) by PiMuNu on Thursday May 28 2020, @12:29PM
> such a path was open
FTFS:
> sleds, walking sticks, horse-snowshoes
I guess it was pretty cold 1000 years ago.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by bradley13 on Thursday May 28 2020, @12:52PM (4 children)
Yep, we are re-approaching the warmth of the Medieval Climate Optimum, and eventually may reach the level of the Roman Warm Period. Of course, one is not allowed to note the name of the Medieval period, nor shall we notice that civilization bloomed worldwide during those two warm periods.
Which isn't to say that throwing masses of CO2 into the atmosphere is a good idea. But, no, we aren't all gonna die as a result of it...
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by PiMuNu on Thursday May 28 2020, @01:13PM (3 children)
Just being dumb, but wikipedia says world is much warmer than medieval... probably the plot is naive or wrong?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_Warm_Period#/media/File:2000+_year_global_temperature_including_Medieval_Warm_Period_and_Little_Ice_Age_-_Ed_Hawkins.svg [wikipedia.org]
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 28 2020, @01:31PM
plus those paid for time they spend there. All the rest, with normal jobs to do and lives to live, have not a single chance in any edit war.
Anyhow, all the wikiediting on the planet does not have power to unmake even one observable fact. Only to hide it from the unobservant.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Aegis on Thursday May 28 2020, @02:34PM (1 child)
The medieval warm period only affected certain regions, as your link notes. The global average temperature is absolutely hotter now than it was then.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 28 2020, @03:44PM
Say, it gets 35 degrees Celsius colder where you live, and 40 degrees hotter around the Vostok station. The global average goes way up, while you freeze into an icicle and a glacier grows over your final resting place.
This, children, is why you apply your brain first, and averaging second.
(Score: -1, Troll) by bart on Thursday May 28 2020, @12:43PM
This cannot possibly be true!
Al Gore told us that now is the warmest time on earth since the dinosaurs, so It can't possibly be that it iron age people walked on rock that was below the ice.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 29 2020, @06:03AM (3 children)
The climate is growing warmer.
There really isn't a question as to why, even though some folks want to make the answer a political issue.
Regardless, *everyone* agrees that in the past, the climate of the Earth has been warmer. Sometimes much warmer.
The difference is that now ~40% (2.5 billion or so) of humans live within 100km of a coastline [oceansatlas.org]. Among those folks, more than half a billion people [npr.org] live *at low elevations* (10m or less) above sea level.
As sea levels rise, coastal flooding will become more common [ucsusa.org], land area will need to be abandoned to the sea, and some places will just disappear beneath the waves. [wikipedia.org]
Regardless of cause, should sea levels rise significantly, the dislocation of such huge numbers of people would be massively destabilizing all over the world. In the US, for example, almost 40% of Americans [noaa.gov] (~120 million) live within 100km of a coast.
If even a fourth (30 million) of those are dislocated, they'd have to go somewhere. Which means toward the interior of the US. and in huge numbers.
Some folks might be joking when they say they've got their AR-15s and those librul scum better stay off their property.
That's all well and good (do some target shooting today. Don't want to miss later!), but those additional 30,000,000 people will require housing, food, health services and a raft of other goods and services. Not to mention the huge knock-on economic effects that could cripple the economy for decades.
The details are unclear, but it is clear that the results would be disastrous.
As such, it shouldn't really matter what you think about climate change. It's here and a large chunk of our civilization is at risk.
Can we stop all of the pain of rising sea levels? Nope. Too late. But maybe we can mitigate the impact?
I'm for saving civilization. How about you?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuvalu [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 30 2020, @03:17AM (2 children)
People are constantly rebuilding. If the sea rises a meter or two, you build your new house a meter or two up the slope. No big deal.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 01 2020, @04:20PM (1 child)
Tell that to the residents of Key West or Tuvalu.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 01 2020, @04:47PM
Key West pop. 24,649
Tuvalu pop. 11,192
Yep. Lets spend trillions trying to stop the planet warming up slightly. It would be better to give them a million dollars each and tell them to move somewhere higher.