Archaeologists are recovering them in a counterreloj

Five years ago, NASA published a document as imposing as sad: a Timelapse that showed how Alaska glaciers have melted For half a century. It is not something exclusive to them, since, as The average temperature has increasedglaciers around the world They have diminished. And this, in addition to Increase sea levelallows us to take an eye on the past.

The reason? The glaciers are full of garbage, objects and human remains of thousands of years ago.

Ötzi. That glaciers lose ice implies that they expose everything that was used once. When that white layer goes, The bodies appearand perhaps, everyone’s most famous is Ötzi. NicknamedIce man‘, Ötzi was a man who died 5,000 years ago in the Ötzal Alps. It was discovered by a couple of mountaineers in 1991 and relevant for several reasons.

The first, because before their finding, archaeologists had not sought in the glaciers because they assumed that, as archaeologist Andreas Putzer affirms BBC“Humans could not pass by because the land was very difficult.” The second, because it was the best preserved ancient body in history. It is something that allowed to rebuild his body, study the reason for his death, Your tattoos And the objects that carried, such as the arch, the arrows, their clothes, tools and bear skin hat.

And the third is obvious: the glaciers were losing their ice, exposing elements of the past.

Digging up the past. It is not a case as extreme as Ötzi’s, but this corpses that emerge in the thaw It is almost everyday something. Passers -by and ski stations workers are running in Switzerland with corpses that have been there decades. Some, even since World War II. This is the case of Marcelin and Francine Dumoulin, two farmers who went out for a walk along the mountain, suffered an accident in August 1942 and there they stayed. Until Their bodies emerged in 2017.

Nothing new. In 2012, two British mountaineers who toured the Aletsch glacier found human remains in the middle of the road along with several boots, clothing and mountain equipment. In 2014, near the top of Matterhorn, more than 4,000 meters of altitude, the remains of a British mountaineer disappeared in 1979 were located. That same year, the body of a Czech explorer lost since 1974 was also recovered.

In 2016, the thaw of the Morteratsch glacier revealed the remains of a German skier that had been lost in 1963. And, in 2019, another group of mountaineers ran into human remains also in Matterhorn. On this occasion, they were two Japanese climbers missing in 1970 to about 2,800 meters of altitude.

Not only bodies. They are examples, among many others, of the human remains appeared throughout these years due to the increase in temperatures. But, although recovering those bodies is important, so are the objects that have come to light because it allows us to rediscover the story or relocate the date on which a technology that we consider later, appeared for the first time.

Thus, we have found many arrows Prehistoric with stone tips and intact feathers used in hunting, tools such as canes, stakes or hunting utensils, clothing leather that allow us to know the techniques of making stone. Artifacts that suggest spiritual practices, the Ötzi axa comb for lice and rackets To walk in the snow of 1,700 years ago or Roman coins. Also animals with intact internal organs, such as a slut of 4,000 years ago or the bone marrow of a reindeer 4,200 years ago.

Bad matter. For archeology, it is a blessing. Ice allows you to conserve organic materials that would not survive in other environments, which allows you to study with great detail how they lived millennia ago. But it is evident that the underlying problem is much more important: climate change seems not to stop, which glaciers melt is one of the dire consequences and that these remains appear forces archaeologists to work against the clock.

Turning off the freezer. Thomas Reitmaier is the director of the archaeological service of the Canton of Grisons, in Switzerland, and in the same article he comments that the thaw and what we are finding is similar to “leaving the freezer open. At some point, the frozen meat rots and disappears”. In fact, and taking into account that many of the discoveries have been made by chance, Reitmaier asks for community help to get all possible archaeological samples before they disappear.

“We need to call to the public, who are going to the Alps, so that they let us know if they see a possible finding, because these areas are enormous and we cannot control them all,” says the researcher, adding that you have to save everything that can be known since “even the smallest object can tell an exciting story.”

Planetary registration. Reitmaier’s fear is that this archeology of glaciers is “a very short field: Once ice disappearswe will not have that architect file. ”But beyond the amount of human objects that are being discovered, this phenomenon implies that we can also know more about our planet.

Glacier ice contains information About the abrupt climatic changes that occurred thousands of years ago, which can help us understand historical patterns, but also to understand that opening a factory in Manchester It has an impact on the other side of the world.

And, if in addition to exploring glaciers in search of remains, We stop turning them into a landfillbetter than better.

Images | Wolfgang Sauber, 120, Mauri Pelt, Davemor

In Xataka | Three hours of tail at 8,848 meters high: Everest is already another tourist monster