Category Archives: EUROPE

EUROPE, FRANCE, WORLD

Evidence of Europe’s first Homo sapiens was found in a French cave

Evidence of Europe’s first Homo sapiens was found in a French cave

Stone artefacts and tooth pre-date the earliest known evidence of the species in Europe by more than 10,000 years.

Evidence of Europe’s first Homo sapiens was found in a French cave
Excavations at the Grotte Mandrin rock shelter uncovered stone tools, animal bones and hominin teeth.

Archaeologists have found evidence that Europe’s first Homo sapiens lived briefly in a rock shelter in southern France — before mysteriously vanishing.

A study published on 9 February in Science Advances1 argues that distinctive stone tools and a lone child’s tooth were left by Homo sapiens during a short stay, some 54,000 years ago — and not by Neanderthals, who lived in the rock shelter for thousands of years before and after that time.

The Homo sapiens occupation, which researchers estimate lasted for just a few decades, pre-dates the previous earliest known evidence of the species in Europe by around 10,000 years.

But some researchers are not so sure that the stone tools or teeth were left by Homo sapiens. “I find the evidence less than convincing,” says William Banks, a paleolithic archaeologist at the French national research agency CNRS and the University of Bordeaux.

Tools, bones, and teeth

A team co-led by Ludovic Slimak, a cultural anthropologist at CNRS and the University of Toulouse-Jean Jaurès, has spent the past three decades excavating the Grotte Mandrin rock shelter in the Rhône Valley.

The researchers have uncovered tens of thousands of stone tools and animal bones, as well as 9 hominin teeth, all dating from around 70,000 to 40,000 years ago.

Most of the stone tools resemble artifacts categorized as ‘Mousterian technology’ that are found at Neanderthal sites across Eurasia, says Slimak. But one of the shelter’s archaeological levels — known as layer E and dated to between 56,800 and 51,700 years ago — contains tools such as sharpened points and small blades that are more typical of early Homo sapiens technology. Slimak says the layer E stone tools resemble those found at much younger sites in southern France, left by makers unknown, as well as those from similarly aged sites in the Middle East that are linked to Homo sapiens.

These sharpened stones — which might have been the tips of spears or other tools — have been linked to Homo sapiens

An analysis led by Clément Zanolli, a palaeoanthropologist at the University of Bordeaux who, found that the only hominin tooth in layer E, a molar probably from a child, is similar in shape to those of Homo sapiens who lived in Eurasia during the last Ice Age. Other teeth found in Grotte Mandrin resemble those of Neanderthals.

The researchers have not attempted to extract DNA from the layer E tooth to confirm whether it belongs to Homo sapiens or a Neanderthal.

Slimak says that in an unpublished analysis, other researchers have found Neanderthal DNA in sediments older than layer E, as well as in a tooth from Grotte Mandrin’s younger layers.

But the team was unable to extract much well-preserved DNA from horse teeth found in the rock shelter, including layer E. So they have decided to hold off on the destructive process of taking samples from the layer E hominin tooth until they have access to technology that will give them a good chance of getting genetic material out intact. “This tooth is very precious. There’s some chance there’s preserved DNA in it,” Slimak says.

If Homo sapiens left the tools and tooth in layer E, they weren’t in Grotte Mandrin for long. Slimak estimates that the residency lasted for around 40 years, on the basis of an analysis of fragments of the shelter’s ceiling that had broken off and been deposited alongside other archaeological material.

New layers of the white mineral calcite accrued on the ceiling twice each year, during wet periods, and soot from fires in the shelter left black marks, creating a sort of ‘barcode’ that can pinpoint hominin occupations to within a year. The researchers concluded that the last Homo sapiens fire went out no more than a year before the next Neanderthal one. “The populations must have in some way met each other,” Slimak adds. Yet the researchers found no obvious signs of cultural exchanges, such as similarities in stone tools, between the two groups.

Early settlers

If layer E was occupied by Homo sapiens, however fleetingly, it would put the species in Europe thousands of years earlier than other records suggest. The region’s oldest definitive Homo sapiens remains — confirmed with DNA — come from Bacho Kiro cave in Bulgaria, and are around 44,000 years old2.

“It is exciting to see that Homo sapiens was in western Europe several thousand years earlier than previously thought,” says Marie Soressi, an archaeologist at Leiden University in the Netherlands. “It shows that the peopling of Europe by Homo sapiens was likely a long and hazardous process.”

But Banks is not yet convinced that Grotte Mandrin was once home to Europe’s earliest known Homo sapiens. He says that the layer E tools are more likely to be local inventions than imports from people in the Middle East.

There can also be substantial overlap in the shapes of the teeth of Homo sapiens and Neanderthals. “It is not a stretch to think that a single Neanderthal tooth could have dental characteristics that resemble moderns,” he says.

EUROPE, FRANCE, WORLD

Have France’s First Arrows Been Found?

Have France’s First Arrows Been Found?

Have France’s First Arrows Been Found?
The researchers made replicas of the stone points using local flint, and incorporated them into spears and arrows.

A 54,000-year-old cave site in southern France holds hundreds of tiny stone points, which researchers say closely resemble other known arrowheads — including replicas that they tested on dead goats.

The discovery, reported on 22 February in Science Advances1, suggests that the first Homo sapiens to reach Europe hunted with bows and arrows. But it also raises the question of why Neanderthals — which occupied the Grotte Mandrin rock shelter in the Rhône Valley before and after Homo sapiens — never adopted these superior weapons.

Last year, researchers excavating Grotte Mandrin claimed that the site held the earliest known evidence of Homo sapiens in Europe2. In one of the cave’s archaeological levels, known as layer E, researchers co-led by cultural anthropologist Ludovic Slimak at the University of Toulouse-Jean Jaurès in France identified a child’s tooth and thousands of stone tools. They concluded that the child had been a Homo sapiens.

Among the tools were hundreds of tiny points, many of which were as small as 1 centimetre wide, weighed only a few grams and were nearly identical in shape and size.

The smallest points were similar to other arrowheads made by ancient and modern humans, and some contained similar fractures and other damage at their tips, which could have been created by high-velocity impact.

Spears and arrows

The researchers made dozens of replica points from flint found near the rock shelter, and fashioned them into bows and arrows using wood and other materials. They also made thrusting spears and spear-thrower darts. They used the weapons to stab or shoot at dead goats.

Some of the larger points could have been used effectively with spears or darts. But only a bow and arrow could have generated the force needed to wound or kill an animal with the smallest points, says Laure Metz, an archaeologist at Aix-Marseille University in France who co-led the latest study with Slimak. “It’s not possible to use these tiny points with something other than a bow and arrow.”

Some archaeologists think the Grotte Mandrin shelter contains the earliest known evidence for Homo sapiens in Europe.

Grotte Mandrin contains many horse bones, and Metz suspects that humans sheltering in the cave hunted these animals as well as bison migrating through the Rhône Valley.

The team has found a horse femur with damage consistent with a stone point, and Metz dreams of finding an arrow point embedded in an animal bone.

“This is as solid as it gets,” says John Shea, an archaeologist at Stony Brook University in New York. “They’ve made a more convincing case that these things are arrows, than cases have been made for arrows in data from the last 12,000 years.”

Neanderthal puzzle

Above and below Grotte Mandrin’s layer E, researchers have found Neanderthal teeth and DNA, along with stone tools characteristic of the extinct group.

Slimak’s team contends that layer E represents an early but short-lived incursion of Homo sapiens into Neanderthal territory, more than 10,000 years before the species permanently settled in Europe. Not all archaeologists agree.

If Homo sapiens did make the stone points in layer E, it’s not clear why Neanderthals in the region and elsewhere did not pick up bow-and-arrow technology, as far as anyone can tell. Some researchers have speculated that Neanderthals lacked the cognitive capacity to use projectiles, a difference that might have helped humans to out-compete Neanderthals for scarce game.

But Metz doubts that that is the reason. She wonders whether cultural traditions explain why Neanderthals seem never to have used bows and arrows.

Marie Soressi, an archaeologist at the University of Leiden, the Netherlands, agrees that the Neanderthals living at Grotte Mandrin didn’t leave arrow points behind. But she wonders whether evidence for bow and arrow use might be found elsewhere. “I would find it very strange if Neanderthals were so conservative that they would not copy mechanically propelled weapons used by other humans.”

EUROPE, ITALY, WORLD

New Thoughts on an Unusual Burial in Sardinia

New Thoughts on an Unusual Burial in Sardinia

New Thoughts on an Unusual Burial in Sardinia
Archaeologists have dated the unusual face-down burial of the young woman at the Monte Luna necropolis in Sardinia to late in the third century B.C. or early in the second century B.C.

The strange facedown burial of a young woman, who likely had a nail driven into her skull around the time she died in Sardinia more than 2,000 years ago, could be the result of ancient beliefs about epilepsy, according to new research.

The facedown burial may indicate that the individual suffered from a disease, while an unusual nail-shaped hole in the woman’s skull may be the result of a remedy that sought to prevent epilepsy from spreading to others — a medical belief at the time, according to a study coming out in the April issue of the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports.

Epilepsy is now known to be a brain condition that can’t be transmitted to other people, but at the time the woman died, “The idea was that the disease that killed the person in the grave could be a problem for the entire community,” said study co-author Dario D’Orlando, an archaeologist and historian at the University of Cagliari in Sardinia.

The tomb is one of more than 120 Punic tombs at the Monte Luna necropolis in southern Sardinia, which was established after the sixth century B.C. and was used until the second century B.C.

The unusual burial was found in a tomb in the Necropolis of Monte Luna, a hill located about 20 miles (30 kilometers) north of Cagliari in the southern part of Sardinia. The burial ground was first used by Punic people after the sixth century B.C. and continued in use until the second century B.C.

Punic necropolis

The latest study found evidence of blunt-force trauma to the woman’s head, possibly from falling, and a square hole that appears to have been made by an ancient nail.

The Monte Luna necropolis was excavated in the 1970s, and the latest study is based on photographs of the tomb and a new examination of the woman’s skeleton.

Pottery in the tomb suggests she was buried in the last decade of the third century B.C. or the first decades of the second century B.C. — a time when Sardinia, a center of Punic or Phoenician culture for hundreds of years, had come under Roman rule since the end of the First Punic War against Carthage, which took place from 264 B.C. to 241 B.C. 

And a new analysis of the young woman’s skeleton — based on her pelvis, teeth and other bones — confirmed an earlier estimate that she was between 18 and 22 years old when she died.

It also showed she had suffered trauma to her skull shortly before or around the time she died. The archaeologists found evidence of two types of trauma: blunt-force trauma, which could have occurred during an accidental fall — possibly during an epileptic seizure — and a sharp-force injury in the form of a square hole in her skull consistent with an impact by an ancient Roman nail; such nails have been found at several archaeological sites in Sardinia.

D’Orlando said the sharp-force injury by a nail may have been inflicted after the woman’s death to prevent the perceived “contagion” of her epilepsy.

The authors suggest the woman’s skull may have been pierced by an ancient nail with a square cross-section, like this one, to prevent the spread of the perceived “contagion” of epilepsy.

Medical beliefs in ancient Sardinia

Such treatment may have been based on a Greek belief that certain diseases were caused by “miasma” — bad air — that would have been known throughout the Mediterranean at that time, D’Orlando said.

The same remedy is described in the first century A.D. by the Roman general and natural historian Gaius Plinius Secundus — known as Pliny the Elder — who recommended nailing body parts after a death from epileptic seizures to prevent the spread of the condition, the authors reported.

D’Orlando suggested that this practice of nailing the skull, and perhaps the woman’s unusual facedown burial, could be explained by the introduction of new Roman ideas, which were heavily influenced by ancient Greek ideas, into rural Sardinia.

The tomb was excavated in the 1970s and the latest study is based on photographs and a new analysis of the bones it contained, in particular the young woman’s skull.

But Peter van Dommelen, an archaeologist at Brown University who wasn’t involved in the study, said the culture in Sardinia stayed resolutely Punic in spite of Roman rule.

“Culturally speaking, and particularly in rural places like here, the island remains Punic,” he said. “There’s no reason to look at the Roman world for affinities — what people were doing was entirely guided by Punic traditions.”

Van Dommelen has not heard of similar burials in Sardinia, but “it’s interesting,” he said. “It fits with a broader pattern that you can see across the world and across cultures.”

EUROPE, WORLD

Archaeologists Discover Homes Of The Builders Of Europe’s First Monuments Made 6,400 Years Ago

Archaeologists Discover Homes Of The Builders Of Europe’s First Monuments Made 6,400 Years Ago

Archaeologists in France have found one of the first residential sites belonging to the prehistoric builders of some of Europe’s first monumental stone structures.

During the Neolithic, people in west-central France built many impressive megalithic monuments such as barrows and dolmens.

While these peoples’ tombs stood the test of time, archaeologists have been searching for their homes for more than a century.

“It has been known for a long time that the oldest European megaliths appeared on the Atlantic coast, but the habitats of their builders remained unknown,” said Dr. Vincent Ard from the French National Center for Scientific Research.

Now, Dr. Ard and a team of researchers working in the Charente department have identified the first known residential site belonging to some of Europe’s first megalithic builders.

The Le Peu enclosure was discovered during an aerial survey in 2011 and has since been the subject of intense research.

The results of this work, published in the journal Antiquity, revealed a palisade encircling several timber buildings built during the fifth millennium BC.

This makes them the oldest wooden structures in the region and the first residential site contemporary with the Neolithic monument makers. At least three homes were found, each around 13 meters long, clustered together near the top of a small hill enclosed by the palisade.

From his hill, the nearby Tusson megalithic cemetery would be visible. This raised the possibility that the inhabitants of Le Peu built the site’s five long mounds. To test this, the archaeologists carried out radiocarbon dating that revealed these monuments are contemporary with Le Peu, suggesting the two sites are linked.

While the people of Le Peu may have built monuments to the dead, they also invested a lot of time and effort in protecting the living. Analysis of the paleosol recovered from the site revealed it was located on a promontory bordered by a marsh. These natural defenses were enhanced by a ditch palisade wall which extended around the site.

The entrance had particularly heavy defenses, guarded by two monumental structures.

These appear to have been later additions, requiring part of the defensive ditch to be filled in.

“The site reveals the existence of unique monumental architectures, probably defensive. This demonstrates a rise in Neolithic social tensions,” said Dr. Ard.

However, these impressive defenses may have proved insufficient as all the buildings at Le Peu appear to have been burnt down around 4400 BC. However, such destruction helped preserve the site.

As such, Dr. Ard and the team hope further research at Le Peu will continue to shed light on the lives of people only known from their monuments to the dead. Already it shows how their residential sites had a monumental scale, never before seen in prehistoric Atlantic society.

EUROPE, NORWAY, WORLD

Archaeologists surprised when 3,500 year old arrowheads made of shells melted out of the ice in the Norwegian mountains

Archaeologists surprised when 3,500 year old arrowheads made of shells melted out of the ice in the Norwegian mountains

Archaeologists surprised when 3,500 year old arrowheads made of shells melted out of the ice in the Norwegian mountains
The arrowheads of freshwater pearl mussel were found together with shafts and sinew. The scale at the bottom of the photo shows millimeters.

Unique arrowheads made of freshwater pearl mussel have melted out of the ice in the mountains in Jotunheimen in Norway. Arrowheads like this have not been found anywhere else in the world, according to archaeologist.

They were in use only a couple of hundred years, and nobody knows why.

“Why they chose to use shells to make arrowheads is something to ponder,” says archaeologist Lars Pilø.

“Folks at the time did have access to stone which can be used to make arrowheads, and they also used bone and antlers,” he says.

Melting out of the ice

Pilø is an archaeologist in Innlandet County Municipality where he heads the renowned glacier archaeological program Secrets of the Ice. Archaeologists have collected several thousands of finds from glaciers and ice patches in the Norwegian mountains since the onset of the program in 2011.

Arrowheads made of shell is breaking news, according to glacial archaeologist Lars Pilø.

“Our glacial archaeologists were very surprised when the first arrowhead made from mussel shells melted out the ice. Now they have found a total of three,” Pilø tells sciencenorway.no.

In addition, some such arrowheads have been found in two other locations in mid-Norway.

“We have also found arrow shafts with the same type of fixing. These have most likely also had shell arrowheads,” Pilø says.

The archaeologists have also found the sinew used to bind the arrowheads. At the other end of the arrow, the shaft has been fitted with feathers. The arrowheads are probably made out of freshwater pearl mussels – Margaritifera margaritifera.

Short time period

The finds were made in a small area, and stem from a short time period.

“This has been a short-lived tradition, from the Early Bronze Age around 3,700 to 3,500 years ago,” Pilø says.

The freshwater pearl mussels have probably not existed in the areas where the arrowheads were found. The arrows have apparently been made in the lowlands, and then hunters have brought them up in the mountains to go hunting.

When several thousands of years old ice melts, archaeologists are finding incredibly well-preserved items.

“Objects that have been encapsulated in the ice have in a way become frozen in time. They don’t age. This way also the organic material is preserved,” Pilø explains.

A different kind of find

Professor of archaeology Christopher Prescott at the University of Oslo also talks about these unique conditions of preservation:

Archaeologist Christopher Prescott does not know of other finds of arrows made of shell.

“Mountain archaeology has a long history in Norway. The interesting things is that they can find these organic components,” he says.

Usually, when archaeologists excavate an open area, they only find the hardest materials.

“We know that human culture also consists of many other things. I have myself found pearls made from mother of pearl which were more than 4,000 years old. Shells are a part of this type of find, but as far as I know this is one of few or perhaps the first time that such arrowheads made from shells have been found,” Prescott says.

Going hunting

And in keeping with this, Lars Pilø talks about the find as breaking news.

“Arrowheads made from mussels were completely unknown in Norway before the melting started, and they have not been found anywhere else in the world,” he says.

What archaeologists do not know yet, however, is what it was like to go hunting with shell arrowheads.

“The only way to find out is to do experimental archaeology, meaning we will make and try to shoot with a few different types of arrowheads,” Pilø says.

“For the hunter this was about needing the arrowhead to penetrate the animal and create a proper wound. I would imagine that sharp mussels are quite well suited to do so,” he says.

EUROPE, ITALY, WORLD

This Wooden Phallus Might Be a Rare 2,000-Year-Old Dildo

This Wooden Phallus Might Be a Rare 2,000-Year-Old Dildo

The lifesize wooden phallus.

Archaeologists have uncovered what could be a rare example of an ancient sex toy carved from wood, found in a Roman fort known for a plethora of phallic motifs. The ruins of Vindolanda fort sit near Hadrian’s Wall in England on the borderlands of what was once the great Roman Empire.

On this politically tense frontier, where Roman soldiers faced off with ‘barbarians’ to the north, symbols representing penises were a ubiquitous sign of protection. Imagery of male genitalia can be found on just about anything, it seems; stone walls, the lids of boxes, even horse riding gear.

Yet the wooden phallus mentioned above is unlike any other penis unearthed at the site. Or at any other Roman dig for that matter. The object was initially discovered in 1992 and rather innocently assumed to be a darning tool. But researchers are now pretty sure that it is actually a disembodied penis.

Apart from a carved line at the tip that looks suspiciously like the appendage’s glans, the wooden object is quite smooth, which suggests it made routine, rubbing contact with another surface.

The wooden penis found at Vindolanda, with A and B arrows pointing to tool marks. (R Sands)

Archaeologists have put forward three possible explanations for what that surface might have been. The 160-millimeter (6.3 inch) long implement could have been used as a grinding pestle, specially designed to ‘infuse’ food, cosmetics, or medicine with spiritual properties.

While the tool does look like it could crush soft materials, an absence of staining or discoloration on the object’s blunt end means there’s no easy way to confirm this particular hypothesis.

It’s also possible the wooden object was in fact a penis, one adorning a statue, or put on display outside of a building; a common feature in ancient Greece and Rome. People walking by might then have rubbed the penis for good luck. With no signs of outdoor weathering or of being removed or reinserted into an abrasive notch, this is also an unlikely purpose.

The third and final explanation put forward by researchers is the most interesting to consider: the ancient penis could be a uniquely preserved dildo from the second century CE.

“We know that the ancient Romans and Greeks used sexual implements – this object from Vindolanda could be an example of one,” says archaeologist Rob Collins from Newcastle University in England.

The wooden phallus from Vindolanda. (R Sands)

Today, we might be tempted to call it a sex toy, but archaeologists working on the artifact think that that term may not have applied in Roman times.

“Use may not have been exclusively sexual or for the pleasure of the user,” they explain.

“Such implements may have been used in acts that perpetuated power imbalances, such as between an enslaved person and his or her owner, as attested in the recurrence of sexual violence in Roman literature.”

The ancient dildo may not have even been used for penetration. In fact, the signs of wear on the object’s exterior might support clitoral stimulation better.

Researchers say the artifact shows “perceptibly greater wear at either end compared to its middle”.

This seems to align with signs of wear on a 2,000-year-old bronze dildo found in China, although experts say it’s hard to compare the patterns between such old artifacts.

Although the wooden phallus from ancient Rome is “simple in form”, researchers suspect it was created by the hand of a confident artist, a practiced practitioner of penises, if you will.

In a Roman fort like Vindolanda, that would have been quite the skill.

“The Vindolanda phallus is an extremely rare survival,” says archaeologist Rob Sands from University College Dublin.

“It survived for nearly 2000 years to be recovered by the Vindolanda Trust… “

Interpreting the wooden phallus as a pestle or a good luck charm might be less problematic and uncomfortable explanations, but archaeologists argue we need to “accept the presence of dildos and the manifestation of sexual practices in the material culture of the past.”

The oldest suspected dildo ever found in archaeology dates back 28,000 years.

In all likelihood, these sexual instruments are a part of human history, whether we acknowledge them or not.

EUROPE, NORWAY, WORLD

Oldest shoe in Norway, dating to 3,000 years ago, recovered from melting ice patch

Oldest shoe in Norway, dating to 3,000 years ago, recovered from melting ice patch

The oldest shoe in Norway — a 3,000-year-old bootie from the Bronze Age — is just one of thousands of ancient artifacts that were recovered from the country’s melting mountain ice patches in the past two decades, according to a new report from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU).

Oldest shoe in Norway, dating to 3,000 years ago, recovered from melting ice patch
3,000 years ago, someone lost a shoe in the mountains of Norway.

Unlike objects trapped in acidic soil or beneath gargantuan glaciers, the artifacts recovered from Norwegian ice patches are often found in impeccable condition, showing minimal decomposition and deformation, even after thousands of years of frozen slumber. That’s because ice patches are relatively stable, unmoving and free from corrosive compounds.

Perfectly intact weapons, clothing, textiles, and plant and animal remains have all emerged from the ice, helping to bring thousands of years of Norwegian history to light.

But now, the report authors said, climate change could bring that all to an end.

Within just a few decades, vast swaths of Norway’s ice patches have begun to melt, exposing undiscovered artifacts to the elements and almost certain deterioration, the authors wrote.

“A survey based on satellite images taken in 2020 shows that more than 40 percent of 10 selected ice patches with known finds have melted away,” report co-author Birgitte Skar, an archaeologist and associate professor at the NTNU University Museum, said in a statement. “These figures suggest a significant threat for preserving discoveries from the ice, not to mention the ice as a climate archive.”

Exceptionally well-preserved arrows from the Bronze Age have melted out of the Løpesfonna ice patch in Oppdal municipality in central Norway. They have intact lashing and projectiles made from shells.

The melting past

Ice patches form at high elevations, where snow and ice deposits accumulate and don’t completely melt in the summer. Unlike glaciers, ice patches don’t move, so objects deposited in ice patches can remain stable for hundreds or thousands of years.

When the ice begins to melt, those objects return to the light of day, preserved just as they were when the ice swallowed them up. However, if scientists aren’t able to recover these objects soon after the melting begins, then they run the risk of losing the artifacts to the elements.

Ice patch archaeology has been a tremendous boon to researchers studying the ancient cultures, plants and animals in frosty, elevated regions around the world. In Norway, researchers have uncovered thousands of artifacts belonging to the Bronze Age hunting tribes who hunted reindeer across Northern Europe and southern Scandinavia.

According to the new report, reindeer are drawn to the region’s mountainous ice patches in summer months to seek relief from biting insects and the heat. Where the reindeer went, hunters followed, leaving troves of artifacts behind.

The 3,000-year-old shoe, which was discovered in 2007 in the mountainous region of Jotunheimen in southern Norway, remains a standout find. The small leather shoe would be a size 4 or 5 in today’s U.S. sizes, suggesting it belonged either to a woman or a youth.

The shoe was discovered alongside several arrows and a wooden spade, suggesting the site was an important hunting ground. Dated to approximately 1100 B.C., the shoe is not only the oldest shoe in Norway, but possibly the oldest article of clothing discovered in Scandinavia, according to the researchers who discovered it.

Further surveys of the Jotunheimen site revealed even older artifacts, including a 6,100-year-old arrow shaft — the single oldest object discovered in a Norwegian ice patch, according to the researchers. Its presence near the shoe, suggests that the site was continuously used by humans over many millennia.

Despite these remarkable finds, the report authors worry that countless other cultural artifacts could disappear before they are recovered, thanks to the effects of climate change. A 2022 report from the Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate estimates that 140 square miles (364 square kilometers) of ice patches — an area roughly half the size of New York City — have melted since 2006. If artifacts are not recovered from these patches soon after they are exposed, they risk being lost, damaged or destroyed forever.

Few ice patches in Norway have been systematically surveyed, especially in northern Norway, which remains mostly unstudied. To mitigate this, the researchers suggest launching a national ice patch monitoring program, using remote sensors to systematically survey ice patches and secure any objects that emerge from the melt.

“We used to think of the ice as desolate and lifeless and therefore not very important. That’s changing now, but it’s urgent,” report co-author Jørgen Rosvold, a biologist and assistant research director at the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research, said in the statement. “Large amounts of unique material are melting out and disappearing forever.”

EUROPE, NORWAY, WORLD

Reconstruction Shows Teen Who Died in Norway 8,300 Years Ago

Reconstruction Shows Teen Who Died in Norway 8,300 Years Ago

About 8,300 years ago, a teenage boy with an unusual skull and short stature may have scampered along the rocky coast of what is now Norway, pausing to regain his balance as he clutched a fishing rod. Now, a new full-body reconstruction of the Stone Age teenager — nicknamed Vistegutten, Norwegian for “the boy from Viste” — is on display at the Hå Gamle Prestegard museum in southern Norway.

The boy’s reconstruction was a months-long project, but researchers have known about Vistegutten since 1907, when archaeologists found his remains in a Mesolithic, or Middle Stone Age, cave in Randaberg, along Norway’s western coast. 

A few things stand out about the 15-year-old boy: At 4 feet, 1 inch (1.25 meters) tall, he was short for his age, even by Mesolithic standards; a condition known as scaphocephaly meant that his skull had fused too early, forcing his head to grow backward instead of sideways; and he may have died alone, as his remains were found as if he had been leaning against a cave wall. 

“Either he was placed like this after his death, or he actually died in this position,” Oscar Nilsson, a forensic artist based in Sweden who created the boy’s likeness, told Live Science in an email. “This can give the impression of a lonely boy, waiting in vain for his friends and family to show up … but we know nothing about how he died.”

Reconstruction Shows Teen Who Died in Norway 8,300 Years Ago
The boy from Viste lived along the windy Norwegian coast, “so I worked quite a lot to make it look as if the wind blows in his hair and clothes,” Nilsson said.

Scaphocephaly occurs when the sagittal suture on the top of the skull fuses too early, giving the skull a ridged appearance. But “it is not associated with any developmental problems or intellectual disabilities,” Sean Dexter Denham, an osteologist at the Museum of Archaeology at the University of Stavanger in Norway who helped analyze the skeleton, told Live Science in an email. And while the boy’s unusual skull and short stature may have given him a unique appearance, his remains suggest he was well-fed and healthy. 

“The sheer volume of animal remains found at the site also attests to a plentiful food supply,” Denham said. The cave, which is about 30 feet (9 m) deep and 16 feet (5 m) wide, is filled with kitchen waste; ornaments, such as decorated bone pendants; and fishing tools, including hooks, harpoons and barbed bone points, suggesting that ancient “people lived, worked, cooked and slept at the Viste site,” Nilsson said. 

“The fishing hook that the reconstruction of the boy from Viste holds in his hand is a replica of one of these findings,” Nilsson noted. 

The preserved skull of Vistegutten, Norwegian for “the boy from Viste.”

To make the reconstruction, two computed tomography (CT) scans were taken of the skull, allowing Nilsson to create a 3D-printed plastic replica. Because he wasn’t sure about the boy’s facial tissue thickness, Nilsson relied on measurements of modern Northern European 15-year-old boys. “Of course, we don’t know how transferable these measurements are to someone who lived 8,000 years ago,” Nilsson said. “But it’s the best we can guess.”

He noticed that the forehead was “quite childish in appearance, rounded and projecting from the face a bit. This is most probably coming from the scaphocephaly,” Nilsson said, adding that the teenager also had a thin nasal ridge but a nose that was “rather broad at the lower parts.” 

The reconstruction depicts the boy from Viste wearing a necklace made of a broken shell and salmon vertebrae.

An analysis of the boy’s DNA showed that his skin tone, hair, and eye color “likely would be close to the other ‘Norwegian’ findings from the period,” including mostly brown eyes, dark hair, and intermediate skin tone, Nilsson added. 

He intended to give the teenager a subtle smile, “but as I got deeper into the project, I could not get rid of a feeling of a lonely boy,” Nilsson said. “I imagine him on his way to the sea (which at his time was extremely near the cave) to catch some fish. It is very windy in this part of Norway, so I worked quite a lot to make it look as if the wind blows in his hair and clothes.”

The teenager’s skeletal remains were found inside a cave used by Mesolithic hunter-gatherers. It’s unclear if the boy died there or if he was placed in the cave after death.

Stone Age wardrobe

The boy’s clothes are made by Helena Gjaerum, a Sweden-based independent archaeologist who uses prehistoric techniques for tanning leather. “Oscar wanted a summer outfit and that the boy would be barefoot, standing on the beach,” Gjaerum told Live Science in an email. “Therefore, a tunic was decided from the beginning.”

She made the tunic from de-haired and fat-tanned elk skin, and put two bark-tanned salmon skins around his waist. A bag that hangs off his belt was sewn from deerskin. All of these animals’ remains were found at the archaeological site. To add to the authenticity, “The suit is sewn with both sinew thread and leather straps,” Gjaerum explained. “It is smeared with ash and grease to look believable.”

The boy’s necklace was crafted from salmon vertebrae and a broken seashell. His remains are “one of the oldest skeletons ever found in Norway,” Kristine Orestad Sørgaard, an archaeologist at the Museum of Archaeology at the University of Stavanger who helped Nilsson understand the archaeological context, told Live Science in an email. “It’s a great reminder that people in the past were very much like us, despite living in a world very different from our own.”