Melting glaciers in a remote mountain in Norway have revealed hundreds of ancient Viking artefacts strewn along a lost mountain pass, according to a new study. These age-old relics throw light and provide new insight into the life and times of hunters, travellers, and traders from a bygone era. By Amitha Ameen
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A Norwegian archaeologist, Lars Holger, working on the project said, “The findings are rich. The mountains have been more active in use than previously believed. Although covered in ice, they have used them to pass, from farms in the area, or from one side of the mountains to the other.”
According to the scientific journal Antiquity where the findings were published, these discoveries were made somewhere on the central mountain range in Norway’s Innlandet County. The pass was first discovered in 2011. But researchers continue to examine it as more and more ice melts revealing the artefacts.
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Some items remain unidentifiable as researchers have not yet seen anything like it. Tunics, woollen mittens, feather-adorned arrows, and snowshoes are some of the other items that have been discovered in the melting glaciers of Norway.
Dr James Barrett, a medieval and environmental archaeologist at the University of Cambridge, who has been working with Norwegian archaeologists on the project since 2012 said, “You can literally walk in the footsteps of the past. It really is showing that in what would seem to be the most remote possible place, the highest elevation is caught up in broader world trends.”
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According to history, The Viking Age was between 700 to 1100 AD. The new findings that have revealed these historical objects will play an important role in understanding the history of these different periods from a thousand years ago.
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