Ancient artefacts found in melting snow in Norway

An archaeological treasure trove - including an Iron Age tunic and 6,000-year-old Neolithic arrows and bow fragments - have been found buried under melting snow on Norwegian mountains.
The snow on the Norwegian mountains, and elsewhere, is rapidly melting due to climate change, which is now unveiling a world of well preserved new discoveries.
The Iron Age tunic, found on the Norwegian Lendbreen glacier, was made between 230 and 390 AD and is one of only a handful of tunics that exists from this period, 'BBC News' reported.
It was partly bleached from sun and wind exposure. It showed hard wear and tear and had been repaired with two patches.

"The Lendbreen tunic is a first glimpse of the kind of warm clothing used by hunters frequenting the ice patches of Scandinavia in pursuit of reindeer. It had no buttons or fastenings, but was simply drawn over the head like a sweater," said Marianne Vedeler from the University of Oslo, Norway, who analysed the garment.
The arrows and bow fragments were much older and also found in snow patches - natural areas of snow which grow when it snows and melt in the sun.

The new discoveries are published in two papers in the journal Antiquity.
Martin Callanan of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, who authored the arrows and bow fragments paper, said: "These are unique finds, they are a signal that something is changing up there."

"As snow patches are starting to melt, people are finding archaeological artefacts in all sorts of different places and they are often quite well preserved," added Callanan.
The artefacts were extremely well preserved for their age and fragility, but as the changing weather increases the speed at which the snow melts, other artefacts may degenerate before they are found, researchers said.