Read More: Someone laying a patio in northern Denmark dug up the country’s largest known Viking silver hoard, 18.5 kilograms of bracelets, bars and coins, and one bar is scratched with a runic word experts have never seen before<\/a><\/h4>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\nThe fieldwork was led by Finstad, an archaeologist at Innlandet County Municipality who heads Secrets of the Ice, the county’s glacier archaeology program run with the Museum of Cultural History at the University of Oslo. The team spent three weeks in the Kvitingskj\u00f8len mountain area, working the edges of three ice patches called Langfonne, Storfonne and Handklefonne.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A slate point and a cracking shell<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Among the oldest finds is the arrow with the slate arrowhead and wooden shaft. Researchers estimated its age by comparing it with arrows found earlier, according to Science Norway, so the 5,000-to-6,000-year range is an estimate based on similar objects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Many earlier arrows from these ice patches were dated by radiocarbon, which measures how much carbon-14 is left in once-living material such as wood. It is the same method researchers used to date 136 weapons and work out when the bow and arrow era began in North America<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe team also recovered an arrowhead cut from freshwater mussel shell, about 3,600 years old. “The arrowhead is fragile and has begun to split,” the archaeologists write in their field report<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\nA bone arrowhead found with parts of its shaft right next to the ice is put at about 5,000 years old. A separate piece of shaft, about 3,600 years old, had been reinforced with animal sinew and birch bark around the nock, the notched end that sits on the bowstring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Kjetil Loftsgarden, an archaeologist at the Museum of Cultural History in Oslo, was photographed holding a complete arrow with a bone point and wooden shaft, roughly 1,800 years old. The more recent arrowheads are made of iron and are “only” between 1,000 and 1,500 years old, Science Norway reported.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"Archaeologist](\"https:\/\/www.ecoticias.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/loftsgarden-1800-year-old-arrow-ice.jpg\")
Kjetil Loftsgarden of the Museum of Cultural History in Oslo holds a complete arrow about 1,800 years old, with a bone tip and wooden shaft. Photo: Espen Finstad \/ Innlandet County Municipality, Secrets of the Ice<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\nFinstad said the new finds mean that more than 100 arrowheads and arrow shafts have now been recovered from a single ice patch over the years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Why hunters followed reindeer onto the ice<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Reindeer explain why so many arrows ended up so high. In a 2020 study of Langfonne, the authors write that the hunts “probably took place mainly on hot days in July and August, when large numbers of reindeer congregate regularly on the ice and snow to cool and avoid botflies,” parasitic insects that plague the animals in summer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The team also recovered an arrowhead cut from freshwater mussel shell, about 3,600 years old. “The arrowhead is fragile and has begun to split,” the archaeologists write in their field report<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A bone arrowhead found with parts of its shaft right next to the ice is put at about 5,000 years old. A separate piece of shaft, about 3,600 years old, had been reinforced with animal sinew and birch bark around the nock, the notched end that sits on the bowstring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kjetil Loftsgarden, an archaeologist at the Museum of Cultural History in Oslo, was photographed holding a complete arrow with a bone point and wooden shaft, roughly 1,800 years old. The more recent arrowheads are made of iron and are “only” between 1,000 and 1,500 years old, Science Norway reported.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Finstad said the new finds mean that more than 100 arrowheads and arrow shafts have now been recovered from a single ice patch over the years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Reindeer explain why so many arrows ended up so high. In a 2020 study of Langfonne, the authors write that the hunts “probably took place mainly on hot days in July and August, when large numbers of reindeer congregate regularly on the ice and snow to cool and avoid botflies,” parasitic insects that plague the animals in summer.<\/p>\n\n\n\nWhy hunters followed reindeer onto the ice<\/h2>\n\n\n\n