High mountains and latitudes were once thought far too bleak for ancient humans, but as icy patches melt they are revealing a rich world of human history
THE summer of 2003 was the hottest in Europe for 500 years. On the remote Schnidejoch pass, 2750 metres above sea level in the Swiss Alps, an ice patch shrank by half its volume, leaving a wooden object high and dry. When hiker Ursula Leuenberger came across it, she realised it had no business there, so far above the tree line, so she picked it up and handed it over to the local archaeological service. It turned out to be part of a Neolithic arrow quiver, almost 5000 years old.
Since then, archaeologists have found more than 800 artefacts in the vicinity of the pass. Schnidejoch ...
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