In the latest discovery from the field of climate archaeology, receding ice patches in the Italian Dolomites have uncovered a series of 4,000-year-old Neolithic hunting basecamps. The rapid melting revealed perfectly preserved organic tools, including wooden arrow shafts, birch-bark containers, and fragments of ibex-hide clothing that had been trapped in ice for millennia.
Archaeologists from the University of Bolzano stated that the sites provide evidence of high-altitude seasonal migration and specialized hunting strategies used during the mid-Holocene. However, researchers are warning that the speed of the melt is putting hundreds of similar undiscovered sites at risk of rapid decay if they are not documented immediately.