It is even a bit too large to be a crossbow bolt (the largest one in my collection is 9 cm), though it could have come from a ballista or springald bolt. Posts navigationĪs a re-enactment archer and a student of medieval archery, this piece seems to me way too large to be an arrowhead. It will be stabilized so that it does not continue to corrode and experts will attempt to narrow down its date of manufacture. The arrowhead is now being conserved at the University Museum in Bergen. If the whole thing was encased ensconced in ice, on the other hand, we may have lost them very recently. If the arrow was trapped in soil, they may have decomposed over many centuries. The same goes for the wooden shaft and fletching which have not survived. It may also have oxidized very recently when the artifact was exposed to the air after the ice melted. The arrowhead is rusted and could have been so since shortly after the medieval reindeer hunter missed his quarry a thousand years ago. As with other endangered cold environments, archaeological finds that would otherwise be preserved indefinitely in the ice are being exposed by thaw. Norway’s glaciers have shrunk by 12% over the past 50 years, however, and the glacier retreat is rapidly increasing due to climate change. Even today the plateau is home to some of the largest herds of reindeer in the world who cross from their winter feeding grounds east of the plateau to their summer breeding grounds on the west side.Īrtifact finds are extremely rare in the area, with small objects destroyed by the glacier movement or covered in ice and snow. These are believed to have been nomadic settlements occupied temporarily by hunters following the migrating herds of reindeer. There is archaeological evidence of villages in the area going back to the Neolithic era. The plateau, the largest eroded plain plateau in Europe, has a cold alpine climate and is home to the Hardangerjøkulen glacier, one of Norway’s largest. Experts have estimated it to date to the early Middle Ages based on its design. Realizing the hunting tool had to predate the use of firearms, Hagen took the 12 cm (4.7 inches) iron arrowhead to the county council where archaeologist Tore Slinning confirmed it was a historic piece and no comparable finds had been reported in Hordaland county. (He’s in rarified company composer Edvard Grieg had a cabin there too.) Local resident Ernst Hagen found it lying casually on the ground when he was out for a walk outside his mountain cabin near the spectacular Vøringsfossen waterfall. A rare iron arrowhead estimated to be about 1,000 years old has been discovered in the mountains of the Hardanger Plateau in central southern Norway.
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