| Title | Melting Ice Reveals an Ancient, Once-Thriving Trade Route | |
| Date | Thursday May 28 2020, @03:42AM | |
| Author | martyb | |
| Topic | ||
| from the take-a-hike! dept. | ||
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.
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printed from SoylentNews, Melting Ice Reveals an Ancient, Once-Thriving Trade Route on 2024-04-24 02:39:49