Dwindling glaciers pose challenges for archaeologists
Published: Monday, Sep 9th 2024, 07:40
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The emergence of archaeological artifacts due to glacier melt poses challenges for researchers. The remains of a US bomber that crashed in 1944 that surfaced on the Taschaferner glacier in Tyrol are a good example of this. A Swiss app is to help save the finds from decay.
In August, researchers began the first systematic inspection, survey and documentation of the site where the US bomber crashed and was found today. It had run into difficulties on the way back after a bombing of the Skoda factory in the Czech Republic, as the high mountain archaeologist Thomas Bachnetzer from the University of Innsbruck and his colleague Johannes Pöll from the Federal Monuments Office (BDA) explained to the Austrian news agency APA on the ascent to the crash site.
The ten-man crew bailed out over Sölden in the Ötztal valley. The plane flew as far as the Taschachferner, where it crashed at an altitude of around 2500 meters. The crash site has been below the ice line for several years.
Little remains of the once mighty Taschachferner glacier. The glacier at the end of the Tyrolean Pitztal valley advanced further down the valley between 1970 and 1987, and now its end is hundreds of meters higher than it was at that time. As climate change continues to accelerate, areas that have not been ice-free for a very long time are now becoming ice-free.
For Pöll, the primary and most important conservation task is to identify and classify the smaller pieces of wreckage that are now scattered across the steep area below the mighty lateral moraine as a result of the earlier ice and now debris movements. The moraine was accumulated by the glacier at its maximum extent in 1855; today it takes a lot of imagination to picture this.
Trap from the 14th century
If the B-17 bomber is still very young from an archaeological point of view, the stone pine trap found in 2016 on the nearby Seekarjoch at around 2,900 meters above sea level is not. According to analyses by Bachnetzer and colleagues, it was laid out there in the 14th century, during the then fading medieval climatic optimum, most likely to catch ibexes.
The researchers also discovered this through a detailed reconstruction of the trap. The fact that the organic material was able to survive the centuries almost unscathed is thanks to preservation by ice, snow and the overall significantly slower decomposition processes in view of the low average annual temperatures there. That is now gone: "In a few 10,000 years, it might come back," says Bachnetzer succinctly.
Rapid decay of the finds
In the coming years, however, it is not only the Tyrolean glaciers that are likely to uncover some ancient artifacts. If the finds are made of organic material, they may not last long without ice preservation, emphasized the high mountain archaeologist.
The long-held view that there was hardly anything to be gained for his guild in the mountains is now a thing of the past. Today it is clear in many places that these harsh natural areas were repeatedly visited in the past for hunting, high pasture farming or the extraction of raw materials when the climatic conditions were favorable or warm. There is even evidence of human presence from the Middle Stone Age at the entrance to the Taschach Valley, said Bachnetzer.
Valais reporting app for finds
Many artifacts usually just lie around after the ice retreat. As a result, they are only discovered by experts in absolutely exceptional cases. According to Pöll, there is therefore a need for a widely known system with which any finds can be easily reported by non-experts and archaeologists can then make their way to the site.
Mountain hikers can report archaeological discoveries to the Archaeological Service of the Canton of Bern via an app. The "IceWatcher" app was launched by the Cantonal Archaeology Service of Valais and can be used in the cantons of Bern, Valais, Graubünden, Uri and Vaud as well as in the Alpine regions of France, Italy and Austria.
Parts are packed
The fact that time is indeed pressing is also evident on the Taschachferner: the aircraft parts, which have been much easier to access for some time now, are dwindling rapidly, as the inspection showed. No wonder, there are not only many collectors of relics from the Second World War or early eras of aviation, but also numerous visitors to the high mountains who simply take things with them carelessly. Incidentally, the large parts of the bomber, such as the engine blocks, were recovered by helicopter some time ago.
Remains that clearly show that a large plane crashed here are now almost completely missing. Some of them might even be covered in stones these days. "In a few decades, however, it's possible that nothing will be found up there because people keep taking small parts with them," says the archaeologist. Pöll can imagine that the site could be placed under a preservation order in order to raise public awareness of the special nature of this discovery site and prevent the further loss of wreckage.
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