Melting glaciers
in Norway
revealed ancient
artifacts dropped
by the side
of a road more than
1,000 years ago.
Clothes, tools,
equipment
and animal bone
have been found
by a team at a
lost mountain pass
at Lendbreen
in Norway’s
mountainous
region.
A haul of more than
100 artifacts at the site
includes horseshoes,
a wooden whisk,
a walking stick,
a wooden needle,
a mitten and a
small iron knife.
The team also found
the frozen skull
of an unlucky horse
used to carry loads
that did not make it
over the ice.
The objects that were
contained in ice
reveal that the pass
was used in the Iron Age,
from around AD 300
until the 14th century.
Activity on the pass
peaked around
AD 1,000
and declined after
the black death
in the 1300s.
Existence of the
Medieval Warm Period
in Norway, is supported
by the 100 artifacts
Followed by glacial
growth in the
Little Ice Age,
Receding
Swiss glaciers
have revealed
4,000 year old
forests.
Alaska’s
Mendenhall Glacier
is melting and retreating,
exposing the trunks
of ancient trees.
Carbon dating
has revealed
that some
of the trees
were growing
1,000 years ago,
and some about
2,000 years ago.
They are evidence the
Medieval Warm Period
and the Roman Warm Period
were both warmer than our
Modern Warm Period
( they were warm for
long enough for forests
to flourish where there
has recently been a glacier ).
That earlier warmth
was natural, with
no human CO2 emissions,
and the current warming
may be too.