Page:Prehistoric and Medieval Skis from Glaciers and Ice Patches in Norway.pdf/4

46 The skis from glacial ice will be presented in the following, including a brief description of the main sites. We start with a unique and enigmatic Bronze Age find from the Lendbreen ice patch.

The Lendbreen find—ski or snowshoe?

Lendbreen is a very large ice patch, situated on the north side of the mountain ridge Lomseggen at a height between 1690 and 1920 m. a. s. l. It is by far the most complex ice site investigated in Oppland County. The site was first visited by archaeologists in 2006, but the first systematic surveys took place in 2011 and are still on-going. It combines the usual reindeer hunting remains (dated from c. 1300 BCE to 1500 CE) with a mountain route crossing the ice (with finds dating from c. 300 to 1700 CE). Most finds are concentrated in the pass area at the top, with scattered finds further down the slope, many of which were probably moved downhill by meltwater.

Four fragments of a short ski or snowshoe have been recovered at Lendbreen during archaeological fieldwork 2011–2013 (Figure 3). The ambiguity associated with this being a ski or a snowshoe will be addressed below. The first and largest fragment was found at the top of the ice patch in 2011. Subsequently three additional fragments were found further down the slope in 2012–2013, in the direction of fall from the first find. The distance between the recovered fragments of the ski/snowshoe is up to 300 m. The ski/snowshoe is radiocarbon-dated to cal BCE 791–540 (Table 1).