Even though recreational skiing now dominates the use of skis, they were traditionally used for transport and hunting only. Skis are still used in this way in some areas in Asia, such as in the Altai Mountains. Very likely hunting and transport in a high-alpine landscape were the main uses for the skis from the glacial ice as well. All ice patches with archaeological finds in Oppland have artefacts associated with hunting, including Digervarden, Lendbreen and Dalfonn. It may well be that the recovered skis belonged to hunters. Medieval sources such as the “Kings Mirror” and the “Landslov” (unified code of law for Norway) of King Magnus Lagabøte, both thirteenth century, tell us that hunting on skis was practiced. The animals were an easy target for the ski hunters in deep snow. The hunters could track the animals in the snow and they could also ski down from above, using the speed gained in the slope to close in for the kill.
Hunting of reindeer on the ice patches was normally a summer activity. It appears unlikely that skis were much used during summer hunts, at least in the Iron Age when summer-hunting was often undertaken by larger groups of hunters in a communal hunt, controlling the movement of the reindeer herd as they gathered on the ice to avoid pestering insects (Pilø and Finstad in press). From recovered buck antlers, naturally shed during early winter, we know that reindeer were also present on the ice patches in the winter. So, winter hunting on the ice patches was possible.
There is a natural all-year migration route for the reindeer over the Digervarden Mountain. The topography of the terrain canalizes the moving herds in the area where the ski was found. Five hunting blinds are situated on the ridge here, showing that hunters were aware of this, and used the topography during summer hunts. The area of the ski find would also have been a good hunting ground in the winter, when the reindeer sought higher wind-blown ground to seek food. Perhaps the ski was lost during the hectic hunt or in a small avalanche. There is, however, an old mountain route just east of Digervarden, and it may be that the ski found here is related to transport, rather than hunting, if it makes sense to draw such a division.
The Vossaskavlen skis are from a site where a sled has also been found, albeit much older than the skis (Bjørgo et al. 2015, 78). It is not clear whether the skis are related to hunting or transport. No artefacts associated with hunting have been recovered at this site so far.
The Lendbreen ski/snowshoe is the odd one out in this context. If it had been found in a bog in the lowlands, it would have been tempting to describe it as a ski/snowshoe for short distance movement around the camp. The high-alpine context of the find indicates a very different use. The shortness, the width and the fur-lining are all indications of a use in deep snow. It was found in a pass area, but the earliest transport-related finds here so far are from c. 300 CE, i. e. significantly later than the ski. However, this does not exclude that the ski was used during a winter-crossing of the mountain ridge in the Late Bronze Age.
Conclusion
The melting of glacial ice in the high mountains has provided important new ski-historical evidence. These are skis that were lost during hunting or transport in a
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