Read the full story in the New York Times (gift article).
The Alps are losing ice faster than almost anywhere on the planet. And, as the glaciers and ice patches disappear, they are releasing secrets that had been locked away for millenniums.
Secrets like an enigmatic, 2,500-year-old ski that melted not long ago out of a strip of dying Swiss ice.
On a bright recent morning, Romain Andenmatten, a 42-year-old archaeologist, peered down at his discovery. Exploring the paltry remains of the ice at a mountain pass called Col de Barberine, he spotted a three-foot-long slat of grayish wood, nestled between rocks at the ice’s edge.
Three years ago at this same pass, elevation 7,500 feet, Dr. Andenmatten found a similar plank, also with a tapered end suggesting a ski or snowshoe. Carbon dating revealed it to be from roughly the fifth century B.C., when, on a certain day in the Iron Age, its owner might have been crossing the Alps and lost his footing.