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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.
(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.