When people think of archaeology, they generally think of massive dig sites, finding old ancient buildings, or mysterious monuments under the sea.
But archaeology isn't just limited to dirt, rocks, and water. Plenty of major historical discoveries were also found trapped away in the ice.
We may often think of ice as fragile, but given the right conditions, these walls of frozen water can be surprisingly thick and sturdy.
Since less heat can often help with preservation, the ice around these findings can act as a window into the past, a piece of time and history frozen metaphorically and literally.
Here are some of the coolest – pun intended – archaeological discoveries found in ice.
The ancient arrows
In 2023, scientists in Norway searched for discoveries in the Jotunheimen mountains and found something: A 3,000-year-old wooden quartzite-tipped arrow.
And this wasn't an isolated find.
More arrows have been discovered as Norway's ice melts due to climate change. One of them was a small 1,400-year-old arrow with a blunt tip. This makes it stand out more because, according to the researcher who discovered it, Lars Holger Pilø, the arrow in question was likely not a functioning arrow for hunting or warfare but a toy that could help a child learn how to use a bow and arrow, as reported by PopSci.
A legendary lost Viking town
Vikings were not a civilization in themselves but a group of travelers, traders, pirates, and explorers from Medieval Scandinavia. Regardless, these raiders profoundly shaped the history of northern Europe in the medieval era, and thus, the word Viking has been used for all of ancient Scandinavia in popular culture.
Regardless, these people had homes of their own, and when a lost Viking mountain pass thawed out of the ice in Norway's Lendbreen glacier, it raised interest. Pilø, as part of his Secrets of the Ice glacial archaeology program, followed the pass in 2021. What he found was a series of markers and cairns that indicated the passage of human traffic through the area towards the Neto farms—where known legends have said there was once an ancient town.
Then, in the nearby juniper bushes by the farm, where the path continued to lead, they found evidence of hearth fires from homes, radiocarbon dated to the Viking Age.
Sparkling obsidian tools and antler ice picks
Glacial ice covers around 10% of the Earth, and while places like Norway, with its rich history from the Viking Age, may see many exciting discoveries made, these are by no means exclusive to Scandinavia.
The Tahltan First Nations have hunted around the Mount Edziza volcano in British Columbia, Canada, since around 5,000 BCE. In recent years, the ice in the area has thawed, and researchers uncovered a treasure trove of artifacts from the Tahltan nation dating back 7,000 years. These included many obsidian tools, sparkling black glass made from volcanic lava, ice picks made from antlers, and a whole host of wooden and bone tools and containers.
A Bronze Age lunch box
The Swiss Alps have also been host to several incredible archaeological discoveries over the years, and we'll be covering a couple more on this list. However, one of the more interesting ones is the discovery of a 4,000-year-old lunch box alongside a bow and arrows.
According to LiveScience, the site where these were found was discovered by accident by a local mountain hut warden in 2011. While walking his dog, the warden noticed pieces of wood and leather emerging from the ice, having thawed out over time.
A Swiss archaeologist explained that these most likely belonged to Bronze Age herders or hunters who sought shelter in the area thousands of years ago.
The Mongolian animal hair rope
The Eastern Steppes were home to numerous nomadic civilizations throughout history, who eventually created the largest contiguous land empire in human history with the Mongols. But life has even been known to exist in some of the much colder regions of the steppes, including in the Altai Mountains.
As William Taylor reported for The Conversation outlet, the early pastoral culture in the Altai left behind very little information, which is what made the intricately woven fragment of an animal hair rope so significant.
Radiocarbon, dated over 1,500 years old, has withstood the test of time, while most findings like this would have been lost to erosion. Findings like these help researchers learn more about these long-lost civilizations.
A US military transport plane
Archaeology is not just limited to relics of ancient civilizations. Even things from more recent eras can still be found beneath the ice.
Case in point: a C-53 Skytrooper Dakota transport plane for the US military. It had been en route to Italy from Austria in 1946 but ultimately crashed in harsh weather. The crash was especially notable due to the passengers on board, including some high-ranking US Army officials. The mission launched to rescue them is believed to be the first Swiss air rescue mission ever carried out. But while the engines were found a few months after the crash, the actual plane wreck itself was lost to the ice and snow.
Then, in 2012, three teenage hikers went looking for the wreck, though not expecting to find it. However, they managed to do exactly that.
A brutal World War I battlefield where over 100,000 people died
As stated, the Alps have many archaeological discoveries within their snowy peaks.
During World War I, Italy and the Austro-Hungarian Empire fought a brutal series of battles along the Alps known as Guerra Bianca, or the White War. It was fierce high-altitude combat, most of the battlefield over 2,000 meters above sea level.
Conditions were harsh, logistics were a nightmare, and of the over 150,000 people who died, most weren't even from combat.
To this day, equipment and corpses are still being uncovered throughout the ice.
Archaeological discoveries in Antarctica
No, scientists did not find remnants of some ancient civilization in Antarctica. But that doesn't mean archaeology doesn't still happen there.
Aside from the remnants of abandoned research posts or the remnants of failed expeditions, researchers have uncovered many meteors that impacted the Earth in the distant past, many of them having been rocks that broke off from the Moon and Mars. With such a vast area to study and the ice so excellent at preservation, the possible scientific discoveries at the bottom of the world seem practically endless.