Emily Chan
On the mountains of Scandinavia, wooden tools once used by ancient reindeer hunters were discovered by a team of researchers while they were surveying the area.
The artifacts are known as “scaring stick” flags, and they were found in Breheimen National Park in Norway.
The team, which consisted of two archaeologists and a mountain guide, spotted the objects after they were revealed by a large patch of melted ice.
The ice was essentially a small, stationary glacier that was frozen to the ground but had experienced some melting that caused it to separate into smaller pieces of ice.
“This ice retreat is caused by climate change and affects mountain ice everywhere here in Innlandet County, Norway—and of course, globally as well,” said Lars Holger Pilø, the co-director of Secrets of the Ice, a glacier archaeology program.
The scaring stick flags are roughly 1,500-years-old. The team first came across an intact flag and then a broken one about 65 feet away.
Scaring sticks are long, wooden sticks that are usually around three feet in length. Lightweight and movable objects, such as a thin wooden flag, are attached to the top.
Ancient people in Norway used them to hunt reindeer. Similar tools have shown up in regions like Greenland and Siberia, but none have ever been uncovered in North America.
“Scaring sticks are used to lead the reindeer toward hunters hiding behind natural features such as boulders or behind stone-built hunting blinds,” Pilø said.
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