This article was originally published on September 23, 2022.
Glaciers and ice patches can sometimes hold remains for thousands of years in a deep freeze, preserving even delicate materials like feathers, skin or sinew — materials that rarely stand the test of time. Ancient arrows, clothing, toys or even a whole mummified human body can rest in a perpetual limbo. In a sense, it’s an archaeologist’s dream.
“That’s the crazy thing about it — it’s actually a gigantic prehistoric deep freezer,” says Lars Pilø, co-director at Secrets of the Ice, the glacier archaeology program of Innlandet, a Norwegian county. “Normally when we find stuff you can see it’s old. But some of these artifacts haven’t really aged.”
But as some glaciers and ice patches are now melting at unprecedented rates due to climate change, these ancient time capsules are thawing out for the first time in millennia. As a result, archaeologists are scrambling to keep up with the wealth of information that may soon begin to deteriorate as it’s exposed once more to the elements.
