Climate Change: Melting Glaciers Expose Ancient Artifacts In Nothern Europe Faster Than Archaeologists Can Collect Them (VIDEO)

In this video from Reuters, Lars Piloe and his team of archaeologists race against the clock to collect ancient artifacts exposed from the rapidly melting ice in northern Europe's highest mountains.

Hunting sticks, bows and arrows, and a 3,400-year-old leather shoe are some of the discoveries thawing out in Norway's Jotunheimen mountains. In one area, the Juvfonna ice field, 600 artifacts have turned up simultaneously, making the job very difficult for Piloe and his team, as feathers, wool, and leather can turn to dust within days if not collected and stored in a freezer.

"There are many ice patches. We can only cover a few...We know we are losing artifacts everywhere," Piloe tells Reuters.

According to Reuters, most international climate experts agree that glaciers diminishing from the Andes to the Alps is a result of man-made global warming. The front edge of the Juvfonna ice field has retreated almost 60 feet in the last year alone.

WATCH:

Comments

[MAX1]

01:20 AM on 11/11/2010

.

Meanwhile the US Republican House would prefer to dither while we melt...
.

[sycodon]

12:19 AM on 10/21/2010

All those SUVs they had back then.

[idyl]

03:13 PM on 10/09/2010

More of the same from northern Canada: "Hunters of the Alpine Ice: The NWT Ice Patch Study" (by Thomas D. Andrews, Glen MacKay & Leon Andrew)

http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/1178945

[plan-uts]

11:08 AM on 09/22/2010

So 3400 years ago there was no ice in these mountains. Why?

[StephenBP]

07:10 PM on 09/25/2010

The earth has been in the cooling phase of a natural Milankovitch cycle, or at least it was until the unholy alliance between Detroit vehicle makers and petroleum giants helped build a mega-fleet of gas guzzlers to helped burn oxygen and pump gigatons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

Of course if one believes that Rush Limbaugh's high school diploma is worth more than a Ph.D in climatology on this debate, it will be nearly impossilbe to grasp that idea.

[DocSkull]

07:14 PM on 10/12/2010

"So 3400 years ago there was no ice in these mountains. Why?"

The archeologist explains in the video that the artifacts were in the ice. But it is important to remember that the weather in any one location isn't the same as the global pattern. Also, glaciers are so large that they affect the local weather and their movements and growth are not always in keeping with temperature. For example, a melting glacier puts more water into the local atmosphere and can cause the middle of the glacier to thicken. A melting glacier can lose cohesion and advance down a mountain.

[Ashley Rozenberg]

12:18 PM on 09/20/2010

How are you losing artifacts if you never had them in the first place? I mean, I feel for the archaeologists, but those same artifacts would have been locked in the ice and wouldn't have been found anyway.

[Forester]

12:32 PM on 10/03/2010

When they become exposed, they become available for collection and study. If they are not collected quickly they are lost to decomposition for ever. If they were to remain in the ice, there is still a possibility of collecting them - thus the need to freeze the items. Not real complicated! In fact there are many known sites around the world that are left unexcavated so that future technologies might be applied that may be less invasive and provide more information.

[maxwells]

11:27 AM on 09/20/2010

I've a question: why do so many people think that what they (7 billion) collectively do can't possibly affect the planet?

[Proper Gander]

05:12 PM on 09/20/2010

It's a matter of scale. 7 billion is just a number. The earth is very big.

[gallon]

11:27 PM on 09/21/2010

You can see our collective effects from space.

[Forester]

12:35 PM on 10/03/2010

As someone who writes cumulative effects documents, it is indisputable that everything humans do has an effect on the assessment area. What is relevant is whether those effects are measurable and significant. The fact that the earth is "very big" did not make acid rain an insignificant impact to eastern lakes.

[Reyeshawk13]

10:52 AM on 10/05/2010

That's easy, it's more convenient and less worrisome that way. When faced with facts the acceptance of which may force a person to completely change his/her worldview, many people will choose to ignore the facts.

[lkgilles]

10:49 AM on 09/20/2010

Thats pretty cool.

[iblogleft]

04:48 PM on 09/18/2010

We all know it is from the teabagger hot air...

[vetxcl]

03:52 PM on 09/18/2010

the article, while in a sidebar, doesn't belong in any greeen section. no mention of the carbon emitting rot beneath melting glaciers (fortunately pbs did a better job.) yes, the old fossils just aren't getting enough attention - never mind the people living on the planet now. if this were a true green article it would have spent more type relating the ways people and institutions can remediate this occurance.

[AdamKidabra]

10:36 PM on 09/18/2010

There doesn't seem to be a general section for scientific developments, so each noteworthy news piece is either pushed to Tech or Green. Or.. idk.. living? :-/

[Forester]

12:37 PM on 10/03/2010

After nagging HP for literally years for a Sports tab, I am know nagging for a History tab.

Anyone else with me?

[Spazoid-droid]

08:34 PM on 09/17/2010

global warming cant be stoped! why are all you guys fighting bout it? theres 7 billion of us on the planet. we gota stay warm in the winter dont we? even if we was still neanderthals just making all those fires to stay warm be helping global warming. my point is we gota adapt to it and find ways to slow it down. forget about stoping it. but wont clean energy make it easier for us?

[mountainweb]

08:46 PM on 09/18/2010

The climate has been changing for 100,000's of thousands of years with out mans help, "man-made" global warming is a hoax, we could cut emissions by 50% and the world would never know it....

[StephenBP]

08:15 PM on 09/19/2010

Trying to reason with a frightened, right-wing- authoritarian-maimed-mind is, IMO, nearly impossible. They react to what they are told to be afraid of, what they are told to hate and,and the geologically rapid destruction of the Earth’s current climate is just not something they are allowed to get excited about. If right wingers were to get excited about climate, their RWA keepers would lose their hold on them. They might consume less fossil fuel.Can't have that.

It will probably take a few more years, a few major climate hits to world agricultural production. Then you may see some thawing of the frozen minds of the right wing. When it is no longer easy or even possible for the average right winger to afford a Big Mac, maybe then some light bulbs will start to turn on in their darkened minds. Until then, this it is far more convenient to think that global warming is a hoax perpetrated by "arrogant" target groups out to get them (scientists).

"The climate has been changing for 100,000's of thousands of years with out mans help"... that would be hundreds of millions of years if you were trying to write in English, and the reason that you would know this is because of the work of scientists, the same people who tend to concur that humans are contributing a large portion of the current climate heating trend AND you lost the apostropher between n and s in man's.

[Forester]

12:39 PM on 10/03/2010

Why would you choose to ignore what science is telling us?
Are you religious or corporate, or just ignorant?

[MAX1]

01:23 AM on 11/11/2010

To elaborate upon your thesis might I add...
... Why do you care about living, you're gonna die anyway?

[StephenBP]

05:21 PM on 09/17/2010

Congratulations fellow humans! We have, through our wasteful and foolish consumption of fossil fuel resources ( thank you Neanderthal genes!!!) managed to reverse the effects of the natural Milankovitch cycle that would have kept those 5000 year old glaciers nice and frozen!

Nice work!!

The epitaph of the human race will be written by SUV salesmen, NASCAR fans, truck lovers, and that jerky kid up the street who has to prove that his over powered idiot-mobile can leave tire marks....... over and over and over and over again!

Again.... Nice Work, Clowns!

[vetxcl]

03:58 PM on 09/18/2010

but you forgot that we'll leave behind beautiful exibits of fossils taken from glacial remains. isn't that fulfilling enough? (rhetorical irony)

[sycodon]

12:31 AM on 10/21/2010

I suggest you help out and remove your own carbon foot print. Stop breathing.

[StephenBP]

05:06 PM on 09/17/2010

Recent DNA evidence suggests that modern humans have some Neanderthal DNA.....

And some, no doubt, have more than others.

[gallon]

01:49 AM on 09/19/2010

I take the DNA evidence as scientific proof that Republicans have been here longer than 6000 years.

[PartyOfMaybe]

12:12 PM on 09/17/2010

wait a minute... WAIT A MINUTE!! So the snow melts to reveal artifacts in the rocks. Now unless the old human inhabitants dug tunnels through the snow to get to the soft and cozy rocks below, this would indicate that, at least at some point in time, those same mountains had NO snow on them.

Conclusion of the Day. Cave People drove Hummers and melted the glaciers and killed the wooly mammoths. Them and G.W. Bush.

[Con Heartist]

01:04 PM on 09/17/2010

Science has shown, in conjunction with archaeology, that the world has frozen and thawed over and over again.
Politics aside, it's a fascinating study which you can find on the internet.

[PartyOfMaybe]

01:13 PM on 09/17/2010

I can also use the internet look at pictures of that faux-reporter from the locker room. Now which will I be more likely to do?

[AdamKidabra]

10:42 PM on 09/18/2010

.... in a natural, (roughly) sinusoidal pattern whose bounds and slopes have changed beyond the realm of chance variance in the past several decades.

It's not that climate scientists are claiming things have been static until JUST NOW; it's that things are changing more than they *ought* to be because there's a whole mess of nasty junk messing up the equilibrium of the beautifully heterogenous solution that is the environment.

[Publicola]

01:43 PM on 09/17/2010

Conclusion of the Day:

Science deniers somehow can't understand the very simple concept that more than one thing can cause global warming.

[PartyOfMaybe]

04:37 PM on 09/17/2010

but only one thing will make my truck run... maybe we could legislate sunspots and cattle stomach gas if we're dead set on new laws

[PartyOfMaybe]

04:43 PM on 09/17/2010

And besides.... your comment represents a HUUUUUGE shift in the rhetoric coming from the alarmists' camp in the past year or so. Before, it was ALL anthropogenic or whatever the million dollar word we assigned it, but now, well, there might be two or three factors. No one can quantify the share from a Hummer or a sunspot or a cow's arse, but it's much easier to blame people and cars. More class warfare. More using a sensitive subject like clean air to advance an agenda that is harmful to middle class people. More bringing the top down instead of the bottom up. More mediocrity. Typical.

[Just4theHalibut]

11:46 PM on 09/16/2010

Fascinating story! I am surprised Lars is having trouble keeping up with retrieving the artifacts,
I would think every anthropology grad student in the world would want to be up there, helping out.

[mlaiuppa]

01:12 AM on 09/17/2010

They should also offer a bounty to climber and hikers that come upon them.

[keepemguessing]

11:41 AM on 09/18/2010

If not for the smell of the ancient reindeer droppings, Lars would have no problem at all ;p

[fumes]

05:24 PM on 09/16/2010

so it was once warmer..

w/o our SUV'S..

[joshmcdonald]

06:57 PM on 09/16/2010

Yes, of course it was. In fact it has been warmer during the existence of human kind (as is evidenced by this article).

But that isn't the point. The point is that when it was warmer it was a natural process which was not impacted by the emissions of humans which it is now. AND, the current dilemma is that we have created the conditions for a massive feedback loops which will likely warm the planet past the point where humans have ever existed. It was MUCH warmer during the period of the dinosaurs...but there weren't any large mammals back then because they couldn't survive.

[MikeWebster]

10:19 PM on 09/16/2010

There is nothing to suggest it was warmer when these artifacts were laid down in this article or the accompanying video. You drop something on top of the ice, or snow, and many years later it is covered by more ice and snow.

I think the main reason mammals evolved and became dominant after the dinosaurs, was the absence of dinosaurs keeping them in check.

[MikeWebster]

10:16 PM on 09/16/2010

I don't see any evidence in this article that it was once warmer during human habitation.

[WFC]

12:16 AM on 09/17/2010

Water levels have been much,much higher and much much lower than they are today. Common sense should tell you man cannot effect the climate/weather.

[Publicola]

06:45 PM on 09/17/2010

WFC: "Water levels have been much,much higher and much much lower than they are today. Common sense should tell you man cannot effect the climate/weather."

That's not common sense - it's senselessness.

Why can't science deniers use real common sense to understand that more than one thing causes global warming?