3-bladed arrowhead ‘last touched by Vikings’ revealed by melting ice patch

A melting ice patch within the mountains of Norway has revealed an archaeological shock: a uncommon, three-bladed arrowhead utilized by Vikings greater than a millennium in the past.

The researchers unearthed the metallic weapon whereas surveying a brand new website within the Jotunheimen Mountains, a millennium-old Viking hotspot for reindeer looking positioned excessive above the treeline and punctuated by ice and stone. The group, which included archaeologists from the Museum of Cultural Historical past in Oslo and Secrets and techniques of the Ice, an archaeological group primarily based in Innlandet County, Norway, shared the findings a day later through an Aug. 25 Fb publish (opens in new tab).

“Oh, have a look at this little magnificence,” they wrote within the publish. “The final one who touched it was a Viking.”

The 4-inch-long (10 centimeters) iron arrowhead got here as a shock and marked the primary time the group had discovered such weaponry buried on this area of the nation.

Associated: Iron Age skis buried below ice reunited after 1,300 years aside

“Now we have by no means discovered an arrowhead like this earlier than [in that location],” Lars Pilø, a glacial archaeologist and the editor of the Secrets and techniques of the Ice web site (opens in new tab), informed Reside Science in an electronic mail. “Three-bladed arrowheads are identified from the Viking Age in Norway, however they’re very uncommon in comparison with the conventional two-bladed ones.

“Three-bladed arrowheads are used to inflict a bigger flesh wound within the recreation that was hunted — on this case, reindeer,” he added. “Early on, we did ponder whether this was a struggle arrow, initially made to penetrate chain mail, however consultants inform us that the arrowhead is just too vast for that.”

An image of the three-sided arrowhead.

The three-sided iron arrowhead is believed to be greater than 1,000 years outdated. (Picture credit score: Secrets and techniques of the Ice)

Whereas it is too quickly for researchers to connect a definitive date to the rust-speckled arrowhead, they consider it is “very more likely to be Viking Age, so about 1,000 to 1,200 years outdated.”

4 comparable arrowheads had been present in a burial mound in Sparbu, a village in Trøndelag, positioned about 200 miles north of the mountain vary, in addition to in Leirtjønnkollen in Oppdal, a unique glacial archaeological website, in keeping with the information website Science Norway (opens in new tab).

“The Viking Age arrowhead provides additional proof to our concept that the hunt for reindeer was at its most [intense] through the Viking Age,” Pilø wrote within the electronic mail. “This was a time when markets for reindeer pelts and antlers developed within the North Sea area. This led to an unsustainable hunt on reindeer — who practically went extinct then. The ice patch hunt that we’re investigating is a part of that image.”

In recent times, the group has unearthed a variety of objects associated to the Vikings, together with 1,300-year-old skis, which the group described in a paper revealed on-line within the Journal of Subject Archaeology (opens in new tab) in 2021.

“The explanation that each one these finds are showing now is because of local weather change,” Pilø wrote in an electronic mail. “The excessive mountain ice is melting and retreating as a result of rising temperatures attributable to human actions, particularly the emission of greenhouse gases. The prognosis right here in Norway is that 90% of our mountain ice will disappear on this century.”

Initially revealed on Reside Science.

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