Archeologists have found artifacts dating back to more than 6,000 years and these articles are emerging from the ice in the mountains of Norway as a result of global warming.

Over the last decade, a team of international archeologists have been working in the Jotunheimen mountains of Oppland County in the south of Norway.  The team researchers who represent Norwegian and British universities have now recovered more than 2,000 articles including clothing from the Iron Age and the Bronze Age and ancient reindeer-hunting equipment.  The experts believe that some of their discoveries date back to 4,000 BC and report that the articles are perfectly preserved.

The new report which was created under the project name, “Secrets of the Ice” was published in the Royal Society Open Science journal. The research gave the project the name “Secrets of the Ice” as they believe that the ice has in a way acted as a “time machine” and preserved the artifacts perfectly.  The researchers are also surprised by the fact that the artifacts show a possible increase in activity in the period known as the Late Antique Little Ice Age (c. 536 to 660 AD) during which time population size had dropped due to lower temperatures (cooling) and agricultural activities had fallen as a result of it. However, it is quite plausible that mountain hunting increased to supplement failing agricultural harvests due to low temperatures.

The archeologists have also reported finding artifacts dating to the eighth to 10th centuries AD, probably reflecting increased population, mobility and trade – just before and during the Viking Age, when outward expansion was also characteristic of Scandinavia.

The researchers believe that the artifacts have been found because some of the ice in the high mountains of Oppland has now melted back to levels last seen 4,000 to 6,000 years ago. And this is obviously attributed to the impact of global warming.