A Hiker Discovered a Trove of Artifacts in Norway’s Melting Ice. The Site Turned Out to Be a 1,500-Year-Old Reindeer Trap

[dognose]

Located in the mountains of western Norway, the facility was likely used by Iron Age hunters to trap and kill wild reindeer. Experts say it’s the only site of its kind ever found in the country​

Sonja Anderson - Daily Correspondent
November 20, 2025 3:28 p.m.

Well-preserved reindeer antlers found at the site

Melting ice in Norway’s mountains has revealed a trove of cut logs, reindeer antlers, iron spearheads and other hunting tools. Experts say the site is a 1,500-year-old reindeer trap. It features two fences made out of large logs, which Iron Age hunters used to trap and kill wild reindeer.


Positioned about 4,600 feet above sea level, the site is located on the mountain plateau of Aurlandsfjellet in western Norway’s Vestland County. Last year, a hiker named Helge Titland discovered several cut logs in the area, according to a statement from the Vestland County Municipality. In recent months, researchers from the municipality and the University Museum of Bergen conducted an investigation of the area.

The ruined structures they discovered are the only wooden mass-capture facility ever found in the ice in Norway—and potentially all of Europe, says Øystein Skår, an archaeologist with Vestland County, in the statement.

The researchers think a cool period in the mid-sixth century might have brought more snowfall to the area, driving away the hunters. Because the logs and deer antlers are well-preserved, the trapping facility was probably buried under snow and ice soon after it was abandoned.

The trap was first discovered in 2024. By the time researchers arrived to investigate it in the fall of 2025, additional ice had melted, exposing more of the wood.

Leif Inge Åstveit, an archaeologist at the University Museum of Bergen, tells the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK) that the trap was built at the end of the Early Iron Age, which lasted from roughly 500 B.C.E. to 550 C.E. At the time, societies in Norway were growing and becoming increasingly more organized, with wealthier individuals settling in the fjord villages in western Norway.

The newly discovered trap “gives insight into the importance reindeer hunting may have had in a broader societal context during the Early Iron Age,” Åstveit tells NRK, per a translation by Science Norway’s Alette Bjordal Gjellesvik.

As for the wealth of the fjord communities, “we now suspect that wild reindeer hunting played an even greater role than earlier believed,” Åstveit adds.

Archaeologists found iron spearheads at the site. Thomas Bruen Olsen / University Museum of Bergen

Norway has a large population of wild reindeer, and hunters have been devising methods of killing the animals for many centuries. In 2022, researchers in Norway discovered 1,700-year-old arrows near 40 stone-built hunting blinds, where hunters once hid from passing deer. In 2023, experts unearthed a collection of 1,500-year-old “scaring sticks”—wooden poles topped with small flags—which hunters once stuck in the snow in lines, reported McClatchy’s Aspen Pflughoeft. Reindeer were scared of the flags, so they ran away from the line and toward waiting archers.

At the recently discovered trapping facility, researchers found a cache of hunting supplies, such as iron spearheads, wooden arrows and parts of bows. They also discovered a brooch carved from an antler and many small, finely-crafted wooden objects.

The archaeologists were mystified by the presence of oars so high up in the mountains. Thomas Bruen Olsen / University Museum of Bergen

“The most unexpected discovery is one or more oars decorated with detailed ornamentation,” Skår says in the statement, per Science Norway. “What these were used for, and why they were brought into the mountains 1,500 years ago, is still a mystery.”

All of the discoveries are now being kept in a freezer in the University Museum of Bergen’s conservation department, where they will slowly dry off, per the statement. Skår hopes the preserved artifacts will be exhibited at the museum in the future. He says that melting ice puts other artifacts at risk.

“One challenge now is that objects risk disappearing as people collect them,” Skår says in the statement, per Science Norway. “And once the ice melts further, any wooden material will decay quickly.”

SOURCE:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smar...o-be-a-1500-year-old-reindeer-trap-180987710/

 

[Chilli]

Great find. But the way im reading it the way its presented its as if they are trying to make it all sound more primitive than it actually is. The spear head was made by someone very skilled by the looks of it. It reads like caveman stuff but historically back 1500 yrs ago man across the world was very skilled in many things. The biblical account on things showed it so back 6000 yrs.
Its like they were surprised that people did this. Its a cool find but not surprising really.
I can't help but feel that secular archaeology loves their new dating method over the previous BC AD as they can completely erradicate any previous references to man being more advanced than they like to present him as, totally removing the biblical template or reference point so to speak and presenting their evolutionist theories more unchallenged.