Melting Norwegian Ice Gives Up 48 Ancient Arrows, Some Over 6,000 Years Old
Archaeologists in Jotunheimen are racing to rescue hunting gear as the ice patches that preserved it disappear.
Archaeologists working in Norway's Jotunheimen mountains recovered 48 prehistoric arrows this season from melting ice, reported by the "Secrets of the Ice" glacier archaeology programme on September 23, 2026. The oldest are more than 6,000 years old.
What they found
The three-week fieldwork focused on the Kvitingskjølen area, at the ice patches of Langfonne, Storfonne and Handklefonne. Finds included:
- A slate-tipped arrow with a wooden shaft, about 5,000 to 6,000 years old and the oldest recovered this year
- A bone arrowhead found with shaft parts, about 5,000 years old
- A fragile freshwater-mussel-shell arrowhead, about 3,600 years old
- A complete arrow with a bone tip, about 1,800 years old
The programme is run by Innlandet County Municipality with partners including the Museum of Cultural History in Oslo and the Norwegian Mountain Museum in Lom. Since work began in 2006, it has recorded 73 archaeological sites and more than 5,000 artefacts, including bows, clothing, shoes and everyday objects.
Why it matters
Ice preserves organic materials such as wood, sinew and textiles that normally rot away. The team notes that early in the programme most finds were under 2,000 years old, many from the Viking Age. Increasingly, the objects emerging are older, giving a rare window into how people hunted in the mountains thousands of years ago. Recent finds are kept in a refrigerated "fresh finds" display in Lom while they await study.
The bittersweet part
The discoveries exist because the ice is retreating. The team says it is disappearing faster than expected, and the Langfonne ice will probably be gone within 20 years. Once artefacts emerge, they decay quickly, so the window for rescuing them is short. The project's careful, systematic surveys are a race to record this heritage before it is lost.
