Swiss. Will we soon find other “Ötzi”? This is the very likely hypothesis on which we are working in Switzerland, supported by a clear observation: under the effect of global warming, glaciers are melting and new archaeological finds are resurfacing, like the spectacular mummy of this Neolithic hunter-gatherer discovered in 1991 at 3,200 meters above sea level, on the border between Austria and Italy.
In recent years, major discoveries have been made in the Swiss Alps: among them, that of the “mercenary of the Théodule pass”, the remains of a man in his thirties at his death around 1600, found in a crevasse with weapons, luggage, coins and personal effects, at the foot of the Théodule pass, which connects Valais to the Aosta valley; there was also “Schnidi”, the Neolithic hunter whose 4,700-year-old hunting equipment was found in a massif in the Bernese Alps, his body remaining untraceable; or again, in the canton of Uri (in central Switzerland), the traces of rock crystal mining by Mesolithic hunter-gatherers, traces 8,000 years old which form the oldest testimony of glacial archaeology.
Reconstruction of Ötzi presented at the Archaeological Museum of Alto Adige, Switzerland.
© Museo Archeologico dell’Alto Adige.
” Open the eyes “
Research projects bringing together glaciologists, archaeologists, historians and geographers are multiplying in targeted areas, historic passages in the Swiss Alps (cantons of Bern, Valais and Graubünden). But, as in the case of Ötzi where simple hikers had found this remains whose discovery was to mark the beginnings of glacial archaeology, bones and objects of all types are not always brought to light by archaeologists in these areas of high mountains difficult to access. It is from this observation that “IceWatcher” was born in Valais, in the summer of 2021. The application allows hikers, mountaineers, mountain guides, ski lift employees or cabin keepers to photograph objects in their environment (avoiding touching them so as not to damage them), and to locate them using a pointing GPS and report them to local archaeological services. “Our intention with IceWatcher is to allow those who walk in the mountains to open their eyes,” explains Romain Andenmatten, archaeologist at the Cantonal Archeology Office. Thirty reports were made on nine different sites thanks to the pioneering application during these two and a half years of existence, a report considered exciting which arouses the interest of other Swiss Alpine cantons (Bern, Graubünden, Vaud and Uri) as well as well as three foreign regions (Aosta Valley, Haute-Savoie and the entire Austrian Alps) which have expressed their desire to deploy the application in their territories.
The objects found – archers’ panoplies, spearheads and crossbow bolts, clothing, devotional materials and coins, but also multiple fragments of wood or metal of unestablished function – prove to be valuable testimonies for the knowledge of mountain life of past centuries such as the routes used in high mountains for the movement of herds, commercial exchanges or hunting. “We are living in a prosperous period in archaeology,” does not hesitate to say the former curator at the Valais History Museum Philippe Curdy; but it also alerts us to the need to act quickly. Because the melting of the ice, although it allows these very fragile remains to be revealed, at the same time exposes them to rapid destruction once brought back into the open air: the tissues disintegrate under the effect of the heat and the humidity, not to mention the wild animals that scatter the bones. “According to forecasts from glaciologists, global warming will cause a reduction in the glacial surface of the Swiss Alps by 60% to 80% by 2060,” he warns with archaeologist Pierre-Yves Nicod in the catalog of the exhibition “Vestiges des cimes” presented at the Annecy Museum in 2022.
If the hope of new discoveries therefore rests today on the shoulders of non-professionals, glacial archeology nevertheless counts on the help of experts: since the start of the academic year in September 2023, the young discipline has had teaching at The University of Lausanne, set up in concert with the Canton of Valais, an essential partnership to unite forces in this race against time.
