AWell above the treeline in Norway's highest mountains, ancient fields of ice are shrinking as Earth's climate warms. As the ice has vanished, it has been giving up the treasures it has preserved in cold storage for the last 6,000 years – items such as ancient arrows and skis from Viking Age* traders. And those artefacts have provided archaeologists with some surprising insights into how ancient Norwegians made their livings.

A.随着地球的气候变暖，在挪威最高山脉的林木线之上，古老的冰原正在缩小。随着冰的消失，它已经放弃了在冷藏库中保存了6000年的珍宝 --如维京时代商人留下的古代弓箭和滑雪板等。这些文物在关于古代挪威人是如何谋生的方面，为考古学家提供了一些令人惊讶的见解。

B.像纺织品和兽皮这样的有机材料在考古遗址中相对较少被发现。这是因为，除非它们受到导致腐烂的微生物的保护，否则它们往往不会持续很长时间，极端寒冷是一种可靠的方式，来保持文物在几千年的时间里相对新鲜，但一旦解冻，这些材料就会迅速地降解。

BOrganic materials like textiles and hides are relatively rare finds at archaeological sites. This is because unless they're protected from the microorganisms that cause decay, they tend not to last long. Extreme cold is one reliable way to keep artefacts relatively fresh for a few thousand years, but once thawed out, these materials experience degradation relatively swiftly.

随着气候变化，冰川的覆盖面积越来越小，冰川考古学家需要争分夺秒地寻找新发现的手工艺品，保存它们，并对它们进行研究。如果一些脆弱的东西露出并被风吹走，它可能很快就在科学中消失了。或者一支弓箭暴露在外，然后又被下一场大雪覆盖，保持完好。这种不可预测性意味着，冰川考古学家必须在他们的野外工作方法中系统化。

C.九年多来，包括挪威奥普兰郡议会的Lars Pilo,和麦克唐纳考古研究所的James Barrett在内的一队考古学家调查了奥普兰零星分布的冰。奥普兰是挪威南部的区域，这里有着全国最高的山脉。驯鹿曾经在夏末的几个月里聚集在这些冰天雪地的地方来躲避昆虫的叮咬。从石器时代开始，猎人也随之而来。另外，贸易路线穿过奥普兰的山口，将挪威的定居点与欧洲其他地区连接起来。

With climate change shrinking ice cover around the world, glacial archaeologists need to race the clock to find newly revealed artefacts, preserve them, and study them. If something fragile dries and is windblown it might very soon be lost to science, or an arrow might be exposed and then covered again by the next snow and remain well-preserved. The unpredictability means that glacial archaeologists have to be systematic in their approach to fieldwork.

冰川缓慢而稳定的移动往往会破坏其底部的任何东西，所以考古队专注于静止的冰川，其中大部分都在1400米以上。这些冰是在被霜风化的巨石、落石和裸露的基岩中发现的，这些基岩一年之中有九个月的时间都被埋藏于雪下。

野外工作很辛苦--带着我们所有的装备徒步常常在多年冻土上露营--但是很值得。你是在拯救考古，让融化的冰得到更广泛的关注，发现一种独特的环境历史，并真正与自然环境联系在一起。Barrett说。

COver a nine-year period, a team of archaeologists, which included Lars Pilø of Oppland County Council, Norway, and James Barrett of the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, surveyed patches of ice in Oppland, an area of south-central Norway that is home to some of the country's highest mountains. Reindeer once congregated on these icy patches in the later summer months to escape biting insects, and from the late Stone Age**, hunters followed. In addition, trade routes threaded through the mountain passes of Oppland, linking settlements in Norway to the rest of Europe.

D.在流冰区收缩的边缘，考古学家发现了2000多件手工艺品，形成了从公元前4000年到14世纪文艺复兴初期到物质记录。很多手工艺品都与狩猎有关猎人们很容易把箭放错地方，他们经常把折断的弓扔掉，而不是一路带回家。其他物品也可以被猎人用来穿越奥普兰的高山隘口，例如工具，滑雪板和马蹄铁等通用物品。

E.Barrett的团队对153种手工艺品进行了放射性碳年代测定，并且把这些日期与当地重要环境改变的日期做对比--例如变冷或变暖的时期--以及重大社会和经济变化--例如农业定居点的增长和维京时代之前国际贸易网的扩张。他们发现一些时期产生了大量的手工艺品，这表明在那些时期，人们在山区非常活跃。但是在其他时期，几乎没有活动迹象。

The slow but steady movement of glaciers tends to destroy anything at their bases, so the team focused on stationary patches of ice, mostly above 1,400 metres. That ice is found amid fields of frost-weathered boulders, fallen rocks, and exposed bedrock that for nine months of the year is buried beneath snow.

F.根据Barret所说，令人惊讶的是这些时期的时间安排。奥普兰的群山呈现出令人生畏的地形，并且在极其寒冷的时期，冰川会阻塞更高的山口，使得在山脉的上游行走会极其困难。考古学家们认为人们在古小冰期(大约536-600CE，是比平时更冷的一段短暂的时期)，会坚持住在低海拔地区。但根据猎人们掉在这里的东西的数量来看，当气候转冷的时候，猎人们经常会冒险进入山区。

“值得注意的是，从冰层中发现的东西可能一直持续了整段时期，这可能表明为了补充低温时期农业收成的下降，山区狩猎的重要性增加了。“Barrett说。斯堪的纳维亚气候变冷可能意味着大面积的农作物减产，因此更多的人将依靠狩猎来弥补这些损失。

'Fieldwork is hard work – hiking with all our equipment, often camping on permafrost – but very rewarding. You're rescuing the archaeology, bringing the melting ice to wider attention, discovering a unique environmental history and really connecting with the natural environment,' says Barrett.

G.Barrett团队所发现的许多手工艺品可以追溯到维京时代初期，从公元700年到公元900年。在这个时期，连接斯堪的纳维亚与欧洲和中东的贸易网正在扩张。尽管我们通常想到斯堪的纳维亚的扩张时期就会想到船只，但这些最近的发现表明，大量的货物是通过陆路运输的，比如奥普兰的山道。挪威城镇和出口市场的发展，为抵御寒冷的兽皮和制作梳子等有用物品的鹿角创造了大量的需求。猎人们的生意一定很好。

H.挪威的山脉很可能仍然隐藏着许多偏远冰原的历史和史前信息。当Barrett团队查看153件文物样本的日期时，他们注意到从公元前3800年到公元前2200年之间几乎没有任何文物。事实上，这一时期的考古发现在整个挪威都很罕见。研究人员表示，这可能是因为许多手工艺品已经分解，或者依然冻结于冰层之中。这意味着考古学家可能会在未来几年从融化的冰层中提取一些文物。

DAt the edges of the contracting ice patches, archaeologists found more than 2,000 artefacts, which formed a material record that ran from 4,000 BCE to the beginnings of the Renaissance in the 14th century. Many of the artefacts are associated with hunting. Hunters would have easily misplaced arrows and they often discarded broken bows rather than take them all the way home. Other items could have been used by hunters traversing the high mountain passes of Oppland: all-purpose items like tools, skis, and horse tack.

* 维京时代：欧洲历史上的一个时期，大约从公元700年到公元1050年，期间斯堪的纳维亚的维京人通过贸易和战争迁移至整个欧洲。

** 石器时代：早期历史中的一个时期，大约始于340万年前。

EBarrett's team radiocarbon-dated 153 of the artefacts and compared those dates to the timing of major environmental changes in the region – such as periods of cooling or warming – and major social and economic shifts – such as the growth of farming settlements and the spread of international trade networks leading up to the Viking Age. They found that some periods had produced lots of artefacts, which indicates that people had been pretty active in the mountains during those times. But there were few or no signs of activity during other periods.

FWhat was surprising, according to Barrett, was the timing of these periods. Oppland's mountains present daunting terrain and in periods of extreme cold, glaciers could block the higher mountain passes and make travel in the upper reaches of the mountains extremely difficult. Archaeologists assumed people would stick to lower elevations during a time like the Late Antique Little Ice Age, a short period of deeper-than-usual cold from about 536–600 CE. But it turned out that hunters kept regularly venturing into the mountains even when the climate turned cold, based on the amount of stuff they had apparently dropped there.

'Remarkably, though, the finds from the ice may have continued through this period, perhaps suggesting that the importance of mountain hunting increased to supplement failing agricultural harvests in times of low temperatures,' says Barrett. A colder turn in the Scandinavian climate would likely have meant widespread crop failures, so more people would have depended on hunting to make up for those losses.

GMany of the artefacts Barrett's team recovered date from the beginning of the Viking Age, the 700s through to the 900s CE. Trade networks connecting Scandinavia with Europe and the Middle East were expanding around this time. Although we usually think of ships when we think of Scandinavian expansion, these recent discoveries show that plenty of goods travelled on overland routes, like the mountain passes of Oppland. And growing Norwegian towns, along with export markets, would have created a booming demand for hides to fight off the cold, as well as antlers to make useful things like combs. Business must have been good for hunters.

HNorway's mountains are probably still hiding a lot of history – and prehistory – in remote ice patches. When Barrett's team looked at the dates for their sample of 153 artefacts, they noticed a gap with almost no artefacts from about 3,800 to 2,200 BCE. In fact, archaeological finds from that period are rare all over Norway. The researchers say that could be because many of those artefacts have already disintegrated or are still frozen in the ice. That means archaeologists could be extracting some of those artefacts from retreating ice in years to come.

* Viking Age: a period of European history from around 700 CE to around 1050 CE when Scandinavian Vikings migrated throughout Europe by means of trade and warfare

** The Stone Age: a period in early history that began about 3.4 million years ago