– credit, Thomas Bruen Olsen / University Museum of Bergen

A hiker in Norway discovered a one-of-a-kind wild reindeer trap that Iron age inhabitants would have used to catch their dinner en masse.

Alongside the large wooden trap was a trove of hunting supplies and other artifacts, revealing a wealth of information about the culture and organization of early Norwegian society in the far north.

Dating to between 500 BCE and 500 CE, the Norwegian Iron age was characterized by a settlement of various fjords by wealthy individuals and an expansion in the organized hunting of wild reindeer.

Consisting of two parallel fences made of many cut wooden logs, their appearance above an ice sheet startled a local hiker named Helge Titland as he was trekking on the Aurlandsfjellet Plateau high in the mountains of Norway’s Vestland County in 2024.

The age of the newly-defrosted wood and the piles of reindeer antlers gave Titland the impression of antiquity, and so he called the Museum of Bergen to come investigate.

Excavations revealed that the reindeer kill trap aided hunters by funneling the animals through a narrow predictable passage where they could be shot at with arrows. Nearby, excavations revealed piles of reindeer antlers, an iron spear head, arrows, a reindeer-antler brooch, and other artifacts.

Øystein Skår, an archaeologist with Vestland County, said in a statement regarding the discovery that the kill trap is the first wooden mass-capture facility ever found in the ice in Norway—and potentially all of Europe.

– credit, Thomas Bruen Olsen / University Museum of Bergen
– credit, Leif Inge Åstveit / University Museum of Bergen

Archaeology at altitude in Norway is not the same as elsewhere. Freezing temperatures, ice sheets, and year ’round snow fall means that some ancient artifacts remain remarkably preserved. Melting ice allows for their collection, but should they not be found, carbon-based substances like wood will decay rapidly in the open air.

This trove was fortunately found and collected quickly after its defrosting. The quality of preservation is clear in the discovery of a wooden boat oar with intricate details—as clear as if they were made just in the last few decades.

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The Aurlandsfjellet Plateau sits some 4,600 feet above sea level, and so the presence of the boat oar was a head scratcher.

As to why the trap was abandoned with the items, the researchers at the University of Bergen hypothesize that a cooler-than-normal period could have resulted in thicker snowfalls which buried the trap beyond recovery.

The artifacts may have been left there by hunters who had the intention to return and use them for hunting, but couldn’t before the whole site was eventually buried by ice.

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