40,000-Year-Old Chamber Of Secrets Discovered At Gorham’s Cave Complex
A cave chamber sealed off by sand for some 40,000 years has been discovered in Vanguard Cave in Gibraltar — a finding that could reveal more about the Neanderthals who lived in the area around that time.
Entrance to Vanguard Cave, Rock of Gibraltar
“Given that the sand sealing the chamber was [40,000] years old, and that the chamber was, therefore, older, it must have been Neanderthals,” who lived in Eurasia from about 200,000 to 40,000 years ago and were likely using the cave, Clive Finlayson, director of the Gibraltar National Museum, told Live Science in an email.
While Finlayson’s team was studying the cave last month, they discovered the hollow area. After climbing through it, they found it is 43 feet (13 meters) in length, with stalactites hanging like eerie icicles from the chamber ceiling.
Along the surface of the cave chamber, the researchers found the remains of lynx, hyenas and griffon vultures, as well as a large whelk, a type of sea snail that was likely carried into the chamber by a Neanderthal, the archaeologists, said in a statement.
The researchers are eager to see what they will find once they start excavating. One possibility is that the team will discover Neanderthal burials, Finlayson said.
“We found the milk tooth of a 4-year-old Neanderthal close to the chamber four years ago,” he said. The tooth “was associated with hyenas, and we suspect the hyenas brought the child [who was likely dead] into the cave.”
Researchers have discovered plenty of evidence of Neanderthals’ presence in the cave system, called the Gorham’s Cave Complex, including a carving that may have been early Neanderthal artwork.
In addition, findings have suggested that, at this cave system, our closest extinct relatives butchered seals, plucked feathers off birds of prey to wear as ornaments and used tools, Live Science previously reported.
Scientists have speculated that this cave system may have been one of the last places Neanderthals lived before they went extinct around 40,000 years ago.
18,000 Years Ago, Humans Raised World’s Most Dangerous Bird as Pets: Study
As early as 18,000 years ago, humans in New Guinea may have collected cassowary eggs near maturity and then raised the birds to adulthood, according to an international team of scientists, who used eggshells to determine the developmental stage of the ancient embryos/chicks when the eggs cracked.
“This behaviour that we are seeing is coming thousands of years before the domestication of the chicken,” said Kristina Douglass, assistant professor of anthropology and African studies, Penn State. “And this is not some small fowl, it is a huge, ornery, flightless bird that can eviscerate you. Most likely the dwarf variety that weighs 20 kilos (44 pounds).”
The researchers report today (Sept. 27) in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that “the data presented here may represent the earliest indication of human management of the breeding of an avian taxon anywhere in the world, preceding the early domestication of chicken and geese by several millennia.”
Cassowaries are not chickens; in fact, they bear more resemblance to velociraptors than most domesticated birds. “However, cassowary chicks imprint readily to humans and are easy to maintain and raise up to adult size,” the researchers report.
Imprinting occurs when a newly hatched bird decides that the first thing it sees is its mother. If that first glance happens to catch sight of a human, the bird will follow the human anywhere. According to the researchers, cassowary chicks are still traded as a commodity in New Guinea.
Importance of eggshells
Eggshells are part of the assemblage of many archaeological sites, but according to Douglass, archaeologists do not often study them. The researchers developed a new method to determine how old a chick embryo was when an egg was harvested. They reported this work in a recent issue of the Journal of Archaeological Science.
A captive, modern adult cassowary.
“I’ve worked on eggshells from archaeological sites for many years,” said Douglass. “I discovered research on turkey eggshells that showed changes in the eggshells over the course of development that was an indication of age. I decided this would be a useful approach.”
The age assignment of the embryos/chicks depends on the 3-dimensional features of the inside of the shell. To develop the method needed to determine the eggs’ developmental age when the shells broke, the researchers used ostrich eggs from a study done to improve ostrich reproduction.
Researchers at the Oudtshoorn Research Farm, part of the Western Cape Government of South Africa, harvested three eggs every day of incubation for 42 days for their study and supplied Douglass and her team with samples from 126 ostrich eggs.
They took four samples from each of these eggs for a total of 504 shell samples, each having a specific age. They created high-resolution, 3D images of the shell samples. By inspecting the inside of these eggs, the researcher created a statistical assessment of what the eggs looked like during stages of incubation.
The researchers then tested their model with modern ostrich and emu eggs of known age. The insides of the eggshells change through development because the developing chicks get calcium from the eggshell. Pits begin to appear in the middle of development.
“It is time-dependent, but a little more complicated,” said Douglass. “We used a combination of 3D imaging, modelling and morphological descriptions.”
The researchers then turned to legacy shell collections from two sites in New Guinea—Yuku and Kiowa. They applied their approach to more than 1,000 fragments of these 18,000- to 6,000-year-old eggs.
“What we found was that a large majority of the eggshells were harvested during late stages,” said Douglass. “The eggshells look very late; the pattern is not random. They were either into eating baluts or they are hatching chicks.”
A balut is a nearly developed embryo chick usually boiled and eaten as street food in parts of Asia. The original archaeologists found no indication of penning for the cassowaries. The few cassowary bones found at sites are only those of the meaty portions—leg and thigh—suggesting these were hunted birds, processed in the wild and only the meatiest parts got hauled home.
“We also looked at burning on the eggshells,” said Douglass. “There are enough samples of late-stage eggshells that do not show burning that we can say they were hatching and not eating them.”
To successfully hatch and raise cassowary chicks, the people would need to know where the nests were, know when the eggs were laid and remove them from the nest just before hatching. Back in the late Pleistocene, according to Douglass, humans were purposefully collecting these eggs and this study suggests people were not just harvesting eggs to eat the contents.
Also working on this project from Penn State were Priyangi Bulathsinhala, assistant teaching professor of statistics; Tim Tighe, assistant research professor, Materials Research Institute; and Andrew L. Mack, grants and contract coordinator, Penn State Altoona.
Others working on the project include Dylan Gaffney, graduate student, University of Cambridge, U.K.; Theresa J. Feo, senior science officer, California Council of Science and Technology; and Megan Spitzer, research assistant; Scott Whittaker, manager, scientific imaging; Helen James, research zoologist and curator of birds; and Torben Rick, curator of North American Archaeology, all at the Natural Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution. Glenn R. Summerhayes, professor of archaeology, University of Otago, New Zealand; and Zanell Brand, production scientist, Oudtshoorn Research Farm, Elsenburg, Department of Agriculture, Western Cape Government, South Africa, also worked on the project.
Parasite eggs in old toilet came from pork eaten 1,300 years ago
Nara Prefecture–Denizens of the Asuka Period (592-710) feasted on pork and may have done so routinely, archaeologists deduced from parasite eggs excavated from a toilet structure found in the ruins of the ancient capital of Fujiwarakyo.
The eggs, which serve as scientific evidence of pork consumption because humans are infected with parasites after eating undercooked pork, are one of the oldest findings in the country, researchers from the Archaeological Institute of Kashihara, Nara Prefecture, reported.
It is possible that immigrants from the Chinese continent ate pork regularly, they added.
The institute excavated the ruins of Fujiwarakyo, which served as the imperial capital between 694 and 710 in Sakurai, also in the prefecture, in the year ending in March 2019. It found a toilet structure in the northeast of the remains of the Fujiwara no Miya palace, the centerpiece of the capital.
Masaaki Kanehara, a professor of environmental archaeology at Nara University of Education who also serves as a collaborative researcher at the institute, and his wife, Masako, head director of the Cultural Assets Scientific Research Center, a general incorporated association, analyzed soil samples.
According to the researchers, there were five egg shells found in the soil. The eggs were apparently laid by a parasite known as a pork tapeworm, which infects humans when they eat pork.
Although bones of boars or pigs possibly raised by humans had been found when the institute conducted a survey at Fujiwarakyo in the year ending in March 2001, no pork tapeworm eggs were discovered at the time.
Similar parasite eggs had also been found in toilet structures of the ruins of Korokan in Fukuoka, which is referred to as the “ancient guest palace,” and Akita Castle in Akita. Both structures apparently date to the Nara Period (710-784), meaning that the eggs were younger than those found at Fujiwarakyo.
Previously, what appeared to be pig bones were found from an archaeological site dating back to the Yayoi Period (c. 1000 B.C.-250 A.D.). But parasite eggs provide more direct evidence for pork consumption.
Professor Kanehara said that the parasite eggs were excreted by humans after they ate undercooked pork. It is also possible that they ate pork on a routine basis because the eggs were found in the remains of the toilet facility used on a daily basis.
In the late seventh century, just before Fujiwarakyo, believed to be Japan’s first full-scale capital laid out in a grid pattern on the ancient Chinese model, was built, the Baekje and Goguryeo kingdoms in the Korean Peninsula both were conquered. It is thought that many of the emigrants fled to Japan.
The parasite eggs show that people who came from the food cultures of the Chinese continent and Korean Peninsula lived in Fujiwarakyo, the institute said in its report released in the spring.
“(The parasite eggs) are important pieces of information to shed light on a meat-eating culture in the history of eating habits in Japan because many facts about pig breeding and the regular consumption of pork at the time remain unclear,” said Masashi Maruyama, an associate professor of zooarchaeology at Tokai University’s School of Marine Science and Technology who studies the history between humans and animals from the standpoint of archaeology.
“Unlike cows and horses, pigs don’t require pastures. It is quite possible that they were bred inside Fujiwarakyo.”
‘CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE’ OF PORK CONSUMPTION
Various pieces of “circumstantial evidence” indicate that pork had also been consumed even in older times.
Excavated from a Yayoi Period site in Oita was what appeared to be a pig skull. With similar bones also having been unearthed at other Yayoi Period ruins, they are collectively referred to as the “Yayoi pig” to differentiate them from wild boars. It is possible that there were people who raised pigs and ate them.
Meanwhile, the word “ikainotsu” is mentioned in one section in “Nihon Shoki” (The Chronicles of Japan), a book of classical Japanese history compiled in the eighth century, which is dedicated to the period of time when Emperor Nintoku reigned. It suggests that there were people whose jobs were to breed boars.
Another entry shows that the meat from cows, horses, dogs, monkeys and chickens were forbidden from consumption in 675, just before the capital was relocated to Fujiwarakyo. However, there are no direct mentions of pigs and boars. The practice of eating animal meat became increasingly shunned with the spread of Buddhism, which prohibits killing.
However, according to Maruyama, the meat of pigs and boars were eaten in Edo (present-day Tokyo), Osaka, Hakata and Nagasaki’s Dejima island, on which the Dutch trading post was located, in the Edo Period (1603-1867). Animal bones were also excavated from historical sites in each region.
The Tokyo-based Japan Pork Producers Association states on its website that pig and boar breeding became widespread in Japan after techniques were presumably brought into Japan by immigrants from the Chinese continent and Korean Peninsula between 200 and 699.
But it makes it unclear as to exactly when livestock breeding began, citing there are varying opinions.
KASUGA, Fukuoka Prefecture–Prehistoric people in Japan apparently used an advanced system of weights and measurements on a decimal basis, excavations at a Yayoi Pottery Culture Period (1000 B.C.-A.D. 250) site here suggest.
Artefacts newly identified as a decuple weight, right, and a trigintuple weight shown at the Nakoku-no-Oka historical museum in Kasuga, Fukuoka Prefecture, on Sept. 1
Researchers identified what is known as a decuple weight with 10 times the reference unit mass of 11 grams among artefacts unearthed at a series of archaeological sites collectively known as the Sugu group, where many measurement weights have previously been discovered, the Kasuga municipal board of education said.
Board officials said on Sept. 1 that the decuple weight, the first artefact of its kind to be found in Japan, offers valuable insight into Yayoi culture.
The stone, which is cylindrical in shape, weighs 116.3 grams.
Unearthed in 1989 from the Sugu-Okamoto archaeological site, the artefact was recently re-examined by researchers who included Junichi Takesue, a Fukuoka University professor emeritus of archaeology, who identified it as a measurement weight.
The object was likely used with a set of scales, he said.
The archaeologists identified another artefact from the same site as a trigintuple weight, with 30 times the reference unit mass.
Weights with 1, 3, 6, 20 and 30 times the reference unit mass were identified last year among artefacts previously found at the Sugu sites.
Bronze weights measuring approximately 11 grams, which likely follow the same scaling system, have also been unearthed at an archaeological site in southern South Korea.
The Sugu site group is believed to have formed a core part of the early Japanese state of Na, which is mentioned in “Weizhi Worenzhuan,” a section of a Chinese history book dating from the third century.
It is believed a bronzeware workshop was located near the site where the decuple weight was unearthed. Researchers speculated that the weights may have been used to weigh copper and lead used for the mix.
“This latest find shows beyond all doubt that the area here was an advanced zone, a sort of ‘technopolis’ of the Yayoi Pottery Culture Period and that the Yayoi people were using the decimal system,” Takesue said.
The decuple weight was set to be displayed, along with a set of other weights, as part of a special exhibition at the Nakoku-no-Oka (state-of-Na hill) historical museum in Kasuga from late August. However, the museum remains closed due to a COVID-19 state of emergency declared for Fukuoka Prefecture.
In light of this, the museum Sept. 1 began displaying images of the weights on its website. The online exhibition, annotated in Japanese, runs through Sept. 26.
‘Ancestor’ of Mediterranean mosaics discovered in Turkey
The discovery of a 3,500-year-old paving stone, described as the “ancestor” of Mediterranean mosaics, offers illuminating details into the daily lives of the mysterious Bronze Age Hittites.
Archaeologists work at the site where a 3,500-year-old paving stone was discovered in Buyuk Taslik village, Turkey
The assembly of over 3,000 stones — in natural shades of beige, red and black, and arranged in triangles and curves — was unearthed in the remains of a 15th century BC Hittite temple.
“It is the ancestor of the classical period of mosaics that are obviously more sophisticated. This is a sort of the first attempt to do it,” says Anacleto D’Agostino, excavation director of Usakli Hoyuk, near Yozgat, in central Turkey.
ARCHAEOLOGISTS working on the 3,500-year-old paving stones discovered in Turkey’s Yozgat province.
At the site, three hours from Turkey’s capital Ankara, first located in 2018, Turkish and Italian archaeologists painstakingly use shovels and brushes to learn more about the towns of the Hittites, one of the most powerful kingdoms in ancient Anatolia.
“For the first time, people felt the necessity to produce some geometric patterns and to do something different from a simple pavement,” D’Agostino says.
“Maybe we are dealing with a genius. Maybe not. It was maybe a man who said ‘build me a floor’ and he decided to do something weird.”
The discovery was made opposite Kerkenes mountain and the temple where the mosaic is located was dedicated to Teshub, the storm god worshipped by the Hittites, equivalent to Zeus for the ancient Greeks.
“Probably here the priests were looking at the picture of Kerkenes mountain for some rituals and so on,” D’Agostino adds.
The archaeologists this week also discovered ceramics and the remains of a palace, supporting the theory that Usakli Hoyuk could indeed be the lost city of Zippalanda.
A significant place of worship of the storm god and frequently mentioned in Hittite tablets, Zippalanda’s exact location has remained a mystery.
“Researchers agree that Usakli Hoyuk is one of two most likely sites. With the discovery of the palace remains alongside the luxurious ceramics and glassware, the likelihood has increased,” D’Agostino says.
“We only need the ultimate proof: a tablet carrying the name of the city.”
The treasures of Usakli Hoyuk, for which cedar trees were brought from Lebanon to build temples and palaces, were swallowed up like the rest of the Hittite world towards the end of the Bronze Age. The reason is still not known. But some believe a change in climate accompanied by social unrest is the cause. Nearly 3,000 years after their disappearance, the Hittites continued to inhabit Turkish imagination.
A Hittite figure representing the sun is Ankara’s symbol. And in the 1930s, the founder of the modern Turkish republic, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, presented Turks as the direct descendants of the Hittites.
“I don’t know if we can find a connection between ancient Hittites and people living here now. Centuries and millennia have passed, and people moved from one place to another,” D’Agostino says.
“But I would like to imagine that some sort of spiritual connection exists.” In an attempt to honour this connection, the excavation team recreated Hittite culinary traditions, trying ancient recipes on ceramics produced as they would have been at the time using the same technique and clay.
“We reproduced the Hittite ceramics with the clay found in the village where the site is located: we baked dates and bread with them as the Hittites used to eat,” says Valentina Orsi, co-director of the excavation.
What is the oldest-known archaeological site in the world?
Our human ancestors were roaming Earth as far back as 6 million years ago, but what is the earliest site containing archaeological evidence of their existence?
It turns out, there are two spots — one in Kenya and the other in Ethiopia — that are considered the top candidates for the world’s oldest archaeological sites, according to about a dozen scholars, all with expertise in prehistoric archaeology and anthropology, who spoke with Live Science.
The question of what is the oldest archaeological site in the world is “a topic that has since recently divided the archaeological community,” Yonatan Sahle, a senior lecturer of archaeology at the University of Cape Town in South Africa, told Live Science in an email.
The first site, called Lomekwi 3, holds bones of hominins as well as stone artefacts and is located on a low hill in West Turkana, Kenya. In a study published in 2015 in the journal Nature, researchers reported that, by dating the sediment where the artefacts were found, they estimated the age of the site to be about 3.3 million years.
The finds “mark a new beginning to the known archaeological record,” a team of scientists wrote in the journal article. The tools were likely created by Australopithecus afarensis, a hominin (human ancestors and their relatives) that thrived in the region at the time.
The site is located in a wooded area on a small hill not far from Lake Turkana. It’s possible that Australopithecus afarensis was using the stone artefacts to break open nuts the team wrote in the paper. The number of people who lived at the site at any given time is not clear.
“Lomekwi 3 is the oldest known archaeological site in the world,” Jason Lewis, assistant director of the Turkana Basin Institute and a co-author of the paper, told Live Science in an email.
Jeremy DeSilva, an associate professor of anthropology at Dartmouth College who was not involved in the study, agreed that Lomekwi 3 is the oldest known archaeological site, but he noted that not all scholars agree. “Lomekwi is controversial, and some of our colleagues remain unconvinced of the antiquity of these tools,” DeSilva told Live Science.
Indeed, a number of recent papers “call into question the status of the artefacts at Lomekwi 3, arguing that some of the artefacts were not actually found in a context where the age of the artefacts can be certain,” David Braun, an anthropology professor at The George Washington University, told Live Science. In other words, the artefacts may not date to the same time as the sediment that it was found in.
Sahle is one of those archaeologists. “For many of us — myself included — unequivocal evidence for the oldest archaeological occurrences comes in the form of 2.6-million-year-old stone tools from Gona,” which is located by the Kada Gona river in Afar, Ethiopia, Sahle said. The dating results for Lomekwi 3 are contested, he noted, and he has serious doubts that the remains found at that site date back 3.3 million years.
The research at Lomekwi 3 was published relatively recently, whereas research at Gona has been published over several decades and has withstood academic scrutiny, Sahle said. “Inferences made on the chronological and behavioural context of [the] Gona archaeological assemblages derive from decades of research and have, therefore, withstood the test of time,” Sahle said.
A stone tool was unearthed at the Lomekwi 3 excavation site next to Lake Turkana in Kenya.
The stone tools at Gona may have been made by Australopithecus Garhi, a human ancestor that lived in east Africa around 2.5 million years ago. Fossils of the species have been found near stone tools and they may have been one of the first human ancestors to make sophisticated stone tools Smithsonian’s Human Origins project website notes.
“The Lomekwi claims were not adequately demonstrated when announced, and there has [been] no new evidence provided, despite several well-considered criticisms of the original Nature announcement,” said Tim White, co-director of the Human Evolution Research Center at the University of California, Berkeley. White agrees that Gona has the best unequivocal evidence for being the oldest archaeological site.
On the other hand, some scholars are supportive of the idea that Lomekwi is older than Gona. Rick Potts, director of the Smithsonian’s Human Origins Program, is convinced that Lomekwi 3 “is the oldest site with solid evidence of stone-on-stone percussion,” meaning that it’s the oldest site that has stone artefacts made by human ancestors. He noted that the stone artefacts at Lomekwi 3 appear different from those found at Gona; they are cruder and may not have been used as tools at all. The stone artefacts at Lomekwi 3 “show awkward fracturing of the rocks, including large, thick, irregularly shaped flakes that could have been the accidental byproducts of pounding — for what purpose, no one currently knows,” Potts wrote in an email, noting that people at Lomekwi 3 may not have been creating tools but rather pounding rocks together for unknown reasons. Even if the Lomekwi 3 artefacts weren’t used as tools, they would still be considered artefacts created by humans.
Brian Villmoare, an associate professor of anthropology at the University of Nevada, told Live Science, “I do tend to think that Australopithecus afarensis could have made stone tools,” but he noted that he has not examined the Lomekwi 3 artefacts.
A third candidate?
Braun said that if future fieldwork cannot alleviate concerns about the dating of Lomekwi 3, his second choice for the oldest archaeological site would be Ledi-Geraru in Afar, Ethiopia, which dates back about 2.8 million years.
The earliest-known fossil from the Homo genus, this piece of the jawbone, was discovered at a site called Ledi-Geraru in the Afar Regional State, Ethiopia.
At Ledi-Geraru, researchers found a partial hominin mandible with teeth, and they dated it by examining the age of the surrounding sediment, they reported in the journal Science in 2015. Sahle expressed doubts about the dating of this site, saying that it may be considerably younger than 2.8 million years and that Gona is the site with the best unequivocal evidence.
Regardless of which of these archaeological sites is the oldest, all of them make the Giza pyramids (which are about 4,500 years old) and Stonehenge (which is roughly 5,000 years old) relatively young by comparison.
Archaeologists Find Several Jars Full of Emeralds Connected to El Dorado, Spain
Archaeologists in Colombia have found eight ceramic jars, with metallic figurines and emeralds inside, within a temple and its adjacent graves.
Here, an ofrendatario is found at the Muisca site.
The ancient Muisca (also called the Chibcha) crafted the jars called “ofrendatarios” about 600 years ago. The Muisca, a people whose civilization flourished in the region at the time, were famous for their metal-crafting skills, and their work may have inspired the legend of El Dorado — a legendary city made of gold.
Between 1537 and 1540, the Spanish conquered the region, and many of the Muisca were killed during fighting or due to disease. Despite the destruction, the Muisca persevered and thousands of their descendants live on today.
Archaeologists uncovered the temple and graves in the remains of an ancient Muisca town located near Bogotá, the modern-day capital of Colombia.
A team led by archaeologist Francisco Correa, an archaeologist who conducts excavations prior to construction work, found the ofrendatarios during excavations that were conducted prior to road construction in the area.
Some of the figurines look like snakes and other animals, while others look more like people with headdresses, staffs and weapons. The temple where the ofrendatarios were found may be related to ancestor worship.
The interior of an ofrendatario found at the site. The ancient Muisca placed metallic figurines and emeralds inside.
“It’s very difficult to establish, I think there was some type of cult of the ancestors,” Correa told Live Science.
Ofrendatarios like these have been found at other ancient Muisca sites and may have been offerings of sorts. They have artefacts inside that often include metallic figurines and emeralds.
The temple and ofrendatarios may also be related to deities worshipped by the Muisca, said Correa, noting that they worshipped a variety of gods, including those associated with the moon and sun.
Metal-crafting legend
The Muisca were regarded as experts in metal crafting. When the Spanish encountered the Muisca, they were particularly amazed at their goldwork. There were no gold mines nearby, so the ancient Muisca traded for the metal with other groups.
As for whether the Muisca metalwork — especially their goldwork — inspired the legend of El Dorado, Correa said the group did have a tradition in which during certain ceremonies a chief would appear covered in an ointment that included gold particles.
This ceremony “was one of the motivations of this myth,” said Correa. The ceremony was witnessed by Spaniards and recorded in Spanish chronicles; the story along with the Muisca’s goldwork helped inspire the legend.
Correa worked with the Museo Del Oro & Xavierian University’s Industrial Engineering department to conduct the excavation. He also got assistance from Artec 3D, which provided an Artec Eva scanner that he used to create 3D scans of the artefacts.
A photo shared by park officials shows one such tree was recently found lodged in rocks, its bark and limbs scraped away by centuries locked in ice.
Remnants of a grand forest that vanished 1,300 years ago have begun to reappear in Alaska’s Kenai Fjords National Park, and the return is so subtle that it is largely going unnoticed.
“The log pictured here might at first seem to be just another piece of driftwood coming down Exit Creek, but it tells a much more interesting story,” the park wrote in a Sept. 8 Facebook post.
“This section of wood was once part of an ancient forest that was entombed by Exit Glacier around 1300 years ago, sometime between AD 641-771. As the glacier has continued to melt back these pieces of wood are slowly being uncovered.”
Scientists refer to such debris as interstadial wood, from forests that “thrived prior to the last ice age.” The forests grew over decades-long periods “between glacial advances when local conditions were temporarily conducive to forest growth,” NPS officials say.
The driftwood is often dismissed by tourists as recently fallen trees, but it offers “a unique opportunity to experience and understand the dynamic power of glaciers,” the park says.
Kenai Fjords National Park, created in 1980, describes itself as “a land where the ice age lingers.” “Nearly 40 glaciers flow from the Harding Icefield, Kenai Fjords’ crowning feature.
Wildlife thrives in icy waters and lush forests around this vast expanse of ice,” the park says. “Today, shrinking glaciers bear witness to the effects of our changing climate.”
“Now the glacier is retreating faster, much faster, in winter and summer,” the site reported. The glacier is now receding nearly 300 feet annually, exposing sections of land that were covered for centuries, the NPS reports.
