Melting glacier in the Alps reveals artifacts over 9,000 years old
Archaeologists have discovered artifacts in the Swiss Alps that were left by hunters and gatherers more than nine thousand years ago. They emerged from under the melting Brunifirm glacier at an altitude of 2800 meters, AFP reports.
The retreat of the ice sheets gave scientists a unique opportunity to “look” into the past many centuries ago. It turned out that some ideas about the life of the ancient tribes were wrong.
Until the 1990s, it was believed that people in prehistoric times avoided high and rugged mountains. But since the glaciers began to melt, numerous tools, and sometimes human remains, began to appear from under them. They testify that people were actively exploring mountain ranges, looking for minerals there and grazing livestock.
A pass in the Bernese Alps attracted the attention of scientists back in 2003, when they found a birch bark quiver dated 3000 BC, and later – leather pants and shoes.
The list of new finds includes a thread made of bast or plant fibers, which is believed to be more than 6,000 years old. It resembles the blackened remains of a wicker basket.
“This is very interesting, because we find things that are usually not found during excavations,” the archaeologists noted.
Organic materials such as leather, wood, birch bark and textiles are preserved for millennia due to low temperatures. Although global warming, destroying glaciers, gives scientists the opportunity to detect them, it also poses a threat to their existence – left without an ice cover, organic matter will begin to collapse.
If the trend towards rising temperatures does not change, 95% of the approximately 4,000 glaciers scattered across the Alps could be completely gone by the end of this century. According to researchers, they have no more than 20 years to find “glacial” artifacts.
Earlier it was reported that a melting glacier opened an ancient pass in Norway. Hundreds of Viking artifacts have been preserved there.
