A team searching Norway’s Jotunheimen Mountains has recovered a 1,800-year-old arrow with its bone tip found lying just beside the wooden shaft.
The Secrets of the Ice team initially located the shaft among the rocks. Then followed a fortunate find: the arrowhead remained close by, and still, stones were found there as well.
The two fragments might readily have been divided from one another. Small objects may become concealed on rock-strewn mountain slopes by slipping through the gaps in loose stones. Finding both components close together allowed archaeologists to recover a complete ancient arrow.
The weapon has been recently recovered from among dozens of prehistoric arrows found in Norway’s melting mountain ice, a region where hunters once pursued reindeer.
Melting Ice Exposes Thousands of Years of Hunting History
During the 2026 field season, the Secrets of the Ice project recovered 48 prehistoric arrows from the Jotunheimen Mountains. Certain tombs were used from roughly 5,000 to 6,000 years ago; some date back between 5,000 and 6,000 years.
The discoveries reflect a major change in the archaeological record. When the project began in 2006, most recovered objects were less than 2,000 years old. Now, increasingly older artifacts from the Stone Age and Bronze Age are emerging as ancient ice disappears.
Researchers have gathered over 5,000 artifacts from 73 archaeological locations across Norway’s high mountains in recent two decades.
While retreating ice exposes previously hidden objects, it endangers them as well. Organic items such as wooden shafts and bone tools may degrade rapidly when exposed to the air after remaining intact for thousands of years.
Cover Image: Archaeologist Kjetil Loftsgarden holds a 1,800-year-old arrow with a bone arrowhead and wooden shaft, discovered in Norway’s Jotunheimen Mountains. Credit: Espen Finstad / Innlandet County Municipality / Secrets of the Ice