Accelerated climate warming has in the last decade led to significant melting of ice patches in the Norwegian mountains. As a result, 1000s of archaeological finds are becoming exposed on the edges of the melting ice. These finds include cultural and historical objects such as hunting equipment and clothing, going all the way back to the Stone Age. This unique material opens up new possibilities to study past human behaviour and human-environment relationships.
Arrows used for hunting are one of the objects that have been recovered from the ice patches. Many of these still contain intact feathers that form the fletching of the arrow. To date, attempts to identify the birds from which these feathers come have been unsuccessful. In this project we will use ancient DNA and palaeoproteomics (ZooMS) to identify the species from which the feathers in Iron Age arrows were collected. It may also be possible to reconstruct mitochondrial genomes from a subset of the feathers. The interdisciplinary project brings together archaeology and biological sciences, and will include careful sampling of the feathers, laboratory and bioinformatic analyses. There may also be opportunity to join the archaeologists on the ice patches during the summer.
The project is a collaboration between the Institute for Biosciences and the Museum of Cultural History, and you will be supervised by Sanne Boessenkool (IBV), Julian Post-Melbye (KHM) and Margrethe Gjedboe Felter (KHM).
For more information please contact Sanne Boessenkool