Russia (bbabo.net), - In Norway, the archaeological mission of the "Secrets of Ice" project has released information about new finds made during the survey of a melting glacier at the lost mountain pass in Lendbreen. Archaeologists have found ancient arrowheads, traces of reindeer hunting and a long-forgotten mountain path.
Science Norway talks about new finds. The Secrets of Ice project has been running for four years, and the first artifacts were discovered on the glacier back in 2013. In general, melting ice has recently exposed about 800 different artifacts from different eras, including a pair of well-preserved skis.
The next finds are connected with hunting. So, the collection of archaeologists was replenished with five iron arrowheads, and three of them were stuck in bones. The remains belong to reindeer. Apparently, this pass was a traditional hunting ground for these animals.
One of the tips belongs to a very rare type of such a weapon. Only one such arrowhead has previously been found, excavated from a tomb dated to 550-600 AD. Two other points recovered from animal bones are well known to experts. Weapons of this type have been found many times in Iron Age burials.
Two more tips were crowned with very long arrows. According to experts, the length of such arrows could reach one meter. Judging by their shape, they were made around 800 BC. Scientists will conduct a more accurate dating a little later, when the analysis of DNA extracted from deer bones is ready.
Among other interesting finds, archaeologists include sticks that were specially made to scare away animals. Experts explain that such items were used by hunters to drive deer into traps made of stones. These sticks usually reached a meter in length. Some movable object was attached to their top, for example, a flag, which fluttered in the wind.
The hunters stuck them into the ground and built a kind of path out of them, along which the deer ran straight into the corral. The flags frightened them, forcing them to keep their course exactly between two rows of sticks. It was a kind of hunting fence.
By the way, a little earlier, archaeologists found one of these stone traps. It was neatly complex of large stones. Hunters armed with bows and spears waited there for deer, which were directed by a group of beaters. Scientists explain that this was the only effective way to get a deer, since these animals did not let a person close to them and rushed to run at the slightest sound.
To shoot an arrow accurately at a moving target with maximum effect, it was necessary to get close to a distance of 10-20 meters. Since there were no natural shelters that could be used as an ambush on the pass, people had to build them from improvised material. The trap, which was exposed by the melting glacier, was a stone wall in the shape of a semicircle, behind which the hunters hid.
It was probably also provided with a canopy, made in order to hide the hunters and not scare away the reindeer. Among other interesting recent finds, the participants of the research project also name the mountain path that led through the pass. Apparently, people actively used it until the ice covered this pass.
bbabo.Net