Prehistoric and Medieval Skis from Glaciers
and Ice Patches in Norway
Espen Finstad1, Julian Martinsen2, Runar Hole3 and Lars Pilø1}
1. Oppland County Council; 2. Museum of Cultural History,
University of Oslo; 3. Tarandus AS.
Lars.Holger.Pilo
oppland.org
Traditionally, ski history has relied on preserved skis from bogs, on rock carvings depicting skiers and on written sources. The on-going melting of mountain ice has led to the discovery of ancient skis from a new context. In this paper, we present ski finds from glacial ice in Norway, dated from the first millennium BCE to the Medieval Period. The finds of skis from glacial ice shed new light on the ski history of North-Western Europe—the development, the context of use in a high-alpine landscape and the skiing technique. One of the finds provides the earliest date yet for the use of fur on the underside of skis.
Introduction
The melting of mountain ice due to climate change has led to the development of a new archaeological discipline—glacial archaeology (Andrews and MacKay 2014; Dixon et al. 2014; Reckin 2013). Oppland County Council and the Museum of Cultural History, University of Oslo have cooperated in this field since 2006, with a permanent Glacier Archaeology Program ongoing in Oppland County since 2011. Well over 2000 artefacts have been recovered, making Oppland the most finds-rich region in glacial archaeology worldwide. The high number of artefacts from the ice in the county is probably in part caused by the short distance between the densely settled valleys and the high mountain ice.
In this paper, we present interesting new ski-historical evidence from the glacial ice in Oppland. Recently, the Lendbreen and Digervarden ice patches have released
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