A small 3,000-year-old Bronze Age leather shoe belonging to a woman or a young man is considered Norway’s oldest shoe. It was discovered among thousands of other artifacts found among the melting mountain glaciers over the past two decades. But now, climate change can put an end to all these findings. The post writes about it Life Science or as a reference statement Norwegian University of Science and Technology.
Unlike objects salvaged from acidic marshy soils or buried under giant glaciers, artifacts recovered from Norwegian ice are often in excellent condition, showing minimal degradation and deformation even after thousands of years of freezing. This is because the pieces of ice in this country are relatively stable, inert and do not contain aggressive compounds. Completely intact weapons, clothing, textiles, plant and animal remains all came out of the ice, helping to shed light on thousands of years of Norwegian history. In just a few decades, vast expanses of Norwegian Icelandic melted away, revealing all these wonderful artifacts and immediately exposing them to the elements. “An analysis based on satellite imagery taken in 2020 shows that more than 40% of the 10 previously known patches of ice have melted,” said archaeologist Birgitte Skar, co-author of the report. “These figures allow us to account for the threat of rapid disappearance of finds released from the ice, let alone the climatic consequences of all these processes.”
The 3,000-year-old shoe was discovered in 2007 in the Jotunheimen mountain region in southern Norway, along with several arrows and a wooden shovel. This indicates that the site was an important hunting ground. The shoe, dating from 1100 BC, is not only the oldest shoe in Norway, but possibly the oldest garment discovered in Scandinavia. Further exploration of the Jotunheimen site revealed even more ancient artifacts, including a 6,100-year-old arrow shaft, the only ancient object found in Norwegian glaciers. The presence of the shoe next to it indicates that this place has been used by people continuously for thousands of years.