Lendbreen as a mountain pass
Post-medieval sources (Grjotheim 1978) indicate that permanent settlements along the Otta River included summer farms at Neto (Figure 1). The existence of such settlements can be extrapolated back to at least the Viking Age (AD 800–1050) and the Merovingian period (AD 550–800) based on associated graves (Figure 1 & Table S2). There was a clear need to move livestock from settlements north of Lomseggen to Neto (probably in June) and back again (probably in September). Products also needed to be transported home from Neto, some in summer (e.g. butter) and some perhaps during the autumn or winter, as conditions allowed (e.g. stored fodder) (cf. Timberlid 2015).
Several artefacts found at Lendbreen were associated with the transport of fodder. Two wooden objects, for example, closely resemble an implement known as a tong (Figure 9), which was used in the recent past for retaining fodder stacked on a wagon or sled (Olsen 2001). One of these implements has been radiocarbon dated to cal AD 264–533, suggesting that the Lendbreen chronology is consistent with high-elevation summer farming as early as the Roman Iron Age. Horses may have needed feed while in transit, but a key role of summer farms in Norwegian transhumance pastoralism was fodder production for winter. Fodder was transported (often over snow later in the year) for cattle wintered in the byres of home farms at lower elevations (Timberlid 2015). The 66 twigs found at Lendbreen may represent fragments of ‘leaf fodder’ that, traditionally, was stripped from birch stands around both permanent settlements and summer farms (Timberlid 2015). A small wooden object is probably a bit for a young animal, such as a kid or lamb, and was used to limit suckling and thus maximise milk production for human consumption (Figure 5). An undated scythe blade completes the picture of regional transhumance pastoralism.
Figure 9. Upper left) an object interpreted as a tong (a clamp for holding fodder on a sled or wagon) dated to the Late Roman Iron Age; right) a similar, undated object, also from the pass area; lower left) a historical example from Uppigard Garmo, pre-dating c. 1950 (photographs: Glacier Archaeology Program & R. Marstein).
Crossing areas of vertical bedrock and large scree poses the greatest challenge when traversing the Lendbreen pass, but this can be avoided by travelling on the ice patch itself, especially when enlarged by snow. We can therefore envision that the pass was chosen for transhumance early in the season, then for bringing back fodder (among other products) when some snow had returned late in the season, and/or in years of reduced ice-melt.
The evidence from the wider region is consistent with the existence of Iron Age (and earlier) high-elevation grazing, leading to the establishment of summer farms by at least the Roman Iron Age. Palynological research on a bog approximately 3km to the west of Neto shows evidence of first-millennium BC pastures, followed by increased anthropogenic influence on the landscape during the Roman Iron Age (Aukrust 1982). Other summer farming areas within approximately 80km of Neto have yielded archaeological and/or palynological evidence for use as pasture in the first millennium BC, followed by increasing human activity c. AD 200–300 (Gunnarsdóttir & Høeg 2000; Høeg 2014; Hjelle et al. 2015; see also Stene 2015). The use of summer farms then intensified during the Late Iron Age and the Middle Ages, until the Black Death (which first struck Norway in 1348 or 1349), after which there was a hiatus until c. AD 1600.
Lendbreen may also have been a preferred crossing among a series of land routes leading to northern, western and eastern Norway. These routes are mainly known from local oral history, which notes, for example, journeys to the fjords of western Norway for barley and dried fish in times of poor harvest (Kleiven 1973), but also from a charter of c. AD 1400 that records the Vollungsbrua Bridge (Figure 10) over the Otta River in Skjåk (Diplomatarium Norvegicum 1847–2011: V 403). This communication node is important in situating the Lendbreen pass within a system of inter-regional and long-range communication. These routes may have facilitated the transport of high-elevation rural products—ranging from reindeer antlers (for comb making) and pelts to butter produced at summer farms, all of which were Norwegian exports in the Viking Age and/or Middle Ages—to distant, overseas consumers (Nedkvitne 2014: 57–58; Ashby et al. 2015; Indrelid 2015; Stene & Wangen 2017; Critch et al. 2018).
Figure 10. The latest timber incarnation of Vollungsbrua (pre-1912), a bridge linking Lendbreen to inter-regional routes (photograph: Gudbrandsdalsmusea, Norddalsarkiva avd. Skjåk).
Discussion
Lendbreen served as a focus for reindeer hunting from the Bronze Age to the Viking Age, with only occasional later use for this purpose. The evidence that Lendbreen also served as a mountain pass, probably for both intra-regional transhumance and long-range travel, increases in quantity from the Roman Iron Age through until the end of the Middle Ages (and occasionally beyond). The site appears to have functioned differently from many other known mountain passes, in that it was used at times when enough snow and ice covered the scree. High passes in the Himalayas and the Alps were often closed during winter or when the advance of glaciers made crossing them very difficult (e.g. Younghusband 1897; Hafner 2015; Providoli 2016). In other ways, however, Lendbreen is more typical. It has cairns delineating the route and a shelter at the top. The presence of dead horses at Lendbreen parallels the skeletons of dead pack animals found at Alpine and Himalayan mountain passes (Shaw 1871; Savioz 2016). The recovery of items of clothing at Lendbreen also finds parallels with prehistoric mountain passes in the Alps (Volken & Volken 2015). While some of these garments may have been lost en route, the discovery of a complete Iron Age tunic at Lendbreen—like the Neolithic leather legging found at Schnidejoch (Volken & Volken 2015)—is harder to understand. It is possible that these items of clothing were discarded in dire circumstances, such as the irrational behaviour associated with hypothermia.
Lendbreen and the Alpine passes share similarities not only in their finds and physical features, but also in their function. As with Lendbreen, Alpine passes were used for a variety of purposes including travel, transhumance (broadly defined) and trade (Curdy 2016). The pass at Schnidejoch, for example, has yielded finds related to high-elevation travel from as early as the third millennium BC (Hafner 2015). Moreover, palynological studies, the excavation of huts and the identification of dairy residues on ceramics indicate that summer farming was practised in the Bronze and Iron Ages in the Alps (Gilck & Poschlod 2019). Evidence that leaf fodder was transported via Lendbreen may have relevance for the situation in the Alps, where this resource has similarly been used for animals stalled in permanent lowland settlements during the winter, as part of a system that involved summer dairy production at high-elevation pastures (Carrer 2015). Alpine passes also served as major inter-regional trade routes, particularly during the Middle Ages (Curdy 2016).
Although similarities in function exist, Lendbreen's use as a mountain pass occurred later than the earliest known Alpine examples. This chronological difference probably reflects low settlement density and low economic activity in the Lendbreen region before AD 300. Once the pass was in use, the radiocarbon dates from Lendbreen imply chronological variability in the intensity of high-elevation activity. Dates on objects probably associated with the site's use as a mountain pass cluster in the Roman Iron Age and peak in the years around AD 1000. This chronology may reflect shifts in the demand for mountain products and in the motivation behind local and long-distance travel, based on a combination of environmental, social, economic and demographic influences.
The post-medieval and late medieval decline in the KDE distribution could, in part, relate to climatic deterioration during the Little Ice Age (Thun & Svarva 2018), and to depopulation during the well-documented impact of the fourteenth-century plague (Benedictow 2004; see above regarding the abandonment of summer farms). That the dates cluster in the Viking Age, particularly around AD 1000, is unlikely to be coincidental as it was a time of high mobility, emerging urbanism and increasing political centralisation in Scandinavia, and a period in which markets around the Irish, North and Baltic Seas were growing (Sindbæk 2012; Loveluck 2013; Ayers 2016; Skre 2017). The resulting demands on rural producers, and the need to transport outfield products, may explain the increased activity in the high mountains—a trend analogous to the Viking Age development of surplus tar production near shielings elsewhere in Scandinavia (Hennius 2018). In a broader comparative perspective, albeit with a differing chronology, it is notable that Alpine passes flourished during the heyday of the medieval Champagne fairs that served as major foci of pan-European trade in a variety of products (Curdy 2016).
The political, economic and environmental contexts in the Migration Period (AD 400–550) and the Roman Iron Age differed from those of the Viking Age. Within Norway, these earlier periods were characterised by rural settlement, limited ship capacities and more localised power structures. Long-range trade of bulky mountain products was therefore less likely, although regional demand may sometimes have been strong. During the Late Antique Little Ice Age (Büntgen et al. 2016) of c. AD 536–660, for example, high-elevation resources such as pasture and reindeer may (counter-intuitively) have been essential in the context of the reduced potential for arable agriculture at permanent, lowland farms (Pilø et al. 2018).
Burials, settlement archaeology and palynology all point to a high population density during the favourable climate of the preceding Roman Iron Age (Solberg 2003). Such density would have created demand for mountain products for different reasons. Heightened intra-regional demand may therefore have contributed to the earliest mountain-pass activity at Lendbreen. Moreover, external influence and long-range trade cannot be entirely discounted, even during the Roman Iron Age. Those crossing Lomseggen may have maintained extensive connections. The Lendbreen tunic, for example, is best paralleled at Thorsberg in northern Germany (Vedeler & Bender Jørgensen 2013).
To conclude, people started crossing the ice at Lendbreen c. AD 300 as part of their mountain itineraries and continued to do so until the end of the Middle Ages. They left behind items of clothing, everyday objects, transport equipment and dead packhorses, evidence preserved by the ice and the cold, dry conditions. This archaeological record provides new insights into the nature of high-elevation travel in the past, including the changing material and socio-economic factors that influenced it. Far from being barriers or marginal zones, high mountains could also be arteries of intra- and inter-regional communication and exchange.