Pollen and bones
Pollen and bones shows how researchers read the past from tiny fragments. Analyses of pollen grains and bone remains reveal origin, kinship, landscape and climate – and an animal and plant life that was quite different from today's, from the ice age up to our own time.
What can you see in the exhibition?
In Pollen and bones, you can see:
- An ancient skull from Bømlo with pollen grains in the nasal cavities
- Bones from mammoth and Arctic fox from the last ice age
- Pollen from sunflower, poppy and cornflower: traces of trade in the Viking Age
- Pollen and bone fragments from scientific excavations
The path of bones to the past
It is remarkable how much information we can extract from an ancient skull from Bømlo, especially when the nasal cavities are full of pollen grains. Bones and pollen carry information about origin, kinship, landscape, climate and the life that once was.
The exhibition shows how analyses of tiny fragments of bone and pollen tell researchers about an animal and plant life that was different from today's. The fragments remind us that the world is in constant change, some of it created by nature itself, some by humans. You will learn how palaeobiologists reconstruct ecosystems from the ice age to the present by studying traces of pollen and bone from scientific excavations.
How do researchers work out what a fragment tells us?
Pollen and other plant remains are found mainly in bogs and water, but also alongside bones in soil layers at archaeological excavations. Bone remains are found particularly in caves and rock shelters where people and animals once lived. The exhibition offers insight into how researchers analyse and interpret various zoological, botanical and archaeological fragments.
How do they work out which plant a pollen grain came from? Whether a bone is from a dog or a cat, and whether it is a thousand or five thousand years old?
Mammoth, Arctic fox and trade in the Viking Age
Historical fragments like these give us information about both cultural and climate history, about the nature around us and about the processes that change it. Bone remains from gravel pits in eastern Norway and caves in western Norway show traces of mammoth and Arctic fox from one of the warmer periods of the last ice age.
Deposits of pollen from sunflower, poppy and cornflower, plants that did not grow in the fields of western Norway, point to extensive trade between Bergen and the outside world as early as the Viking Age. Finds from various excavations together tell a story about the transition from a hunter-gatherer culture to farming in western Norway.
What can the past tell us about the future?
Research tells us how temperature, precipitation, soil and human activity have shaped the landscapes we live in. Can we use this knowledge to predict how nature and landscapes will change in the future?
What will western Norway look like in a thousand years? In 40,000 years? Which animals and plants will cope with a warmer climate, and who will, quite literally, flourish?