In an Exciting but ‘Brutal’ Find, a 5,000-Year-Old Arrow Emerges From Norway’s Rapidly Melting Mountain Ice

Archaeologists have recovered 48 prehistoric arrows from melting ice in Norway, including one that’s estimated to be 5,000 to 6,000 years old. Researchers made the discoveries during a recent three-week expedition in Jotunheimen, a mountainous region in southern Norway about 200 miles from Oslo. For the past 20 years, they’ve been conducting excavations in the region as part of Secrets of the Ice, the largest glacial archaeology program in the world.

So far, the team has recovered more than 5,000 artifacts from 73 archaeological sites, from reindeer-hunting equipment and the remains of packhorses to clothing and other objects from everyday life. The project, which is a collaboration between the Innlandet County Council and Oslo’s Museum of Cultural History, has also uncovered a 3,400-year-old leather shoe and the world’s oldest intact pair of wooden skis. Left exposed to the elements, organic materials typically break down.

However, “ice pauses the process of decay,” Anna Fiorentino wrote in May for Smithsonian magazine. Archaeologists have unearthed a complete tunic from 300 C.E. and a complete mitten from 1000 C.E. When Secrets of the Ice archaeologists first started excavating back in 2006, they unearthed relatively recent artifacts, most of which dated back less than 2,000 years.

Now, however, the “picture has changed dramatically,” the researchers write in a recent update. As more of the glaciers and adjacent ice patches melt because of human-caused climate change, much older objects are starting to emerge. And this is where we see the connection: The oldest ice contains the oldest finds.” This summer, researchers focused on ice patches next to the Langfonne, Storfonne and Handklefonne glaciers in the Kvitingskjølen mountain area.

The oldest find is an arrowhead made of fine slate, along with two parts of its shaft, that archaeologists think is 5,000 to 6,000 years old. They also found a 3,600-year-old complete arrow with a wooden shaft and an arrowhead made from a freshwater mussel shell. Several other discovered arrowheads are made of bone, while one is made of iron.

The revelations are exciting. But they’re also a painful reminder of how much the world is changing. This year, there was a much deeper sense of seriousness and sadness ...