
World's oldest snowshoe found on a glacier in Italy's Dolomites - curtis
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/09/12/worlds-oldest-snowshoe-found-on-a-glacier-in-italys-dolomites/
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curtis
_The discovery was made close to where the frozen, mummified remains of a
Neolithic hunter were found by two German hikers 25 years ago._

It's not clear exactly how near the snowshoe site was to Oetzi's site, but a
little bit of googling suggests it might have been quite close indeed -- maybe
within a couple of miles. Of course the chance that the artifact is directly
related to Oetzi is quite slim indeed, since geographical proximity doesn't
particularly indicate chronological proximity. Still pretty interesting,
though.

~~~
flukus
>Of course the chance that the artifact is directly related to Oetzi is quite
slim indeed, since geographical proximity doesn't particularly indicate
chronological proximity.

How about the geographic proximity combined with the remoteness of the
location? Is it one of those places that very few people have ever set foot
on?

~~~
curtis
The article says the snowshoes were discovered on Gurgler Eisjoch glacier.
There's no entry in Wikipedia (en.wikipedia, anyway) for the glacier, but
there is a mention of a "Gurgler Eisjoch" mountain _pass_
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96tztal_Alps#Passes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96tztal_Alps#Passes)).
If both Oetzi and the snowshoes were discovered near a pass, then perhaps it's
not so surprising after all. Quite a lot of traffic would be funneled through
a narrow geographic area, especially when considered over hundreds or
thousands of years.

~~~
versteegen
Yes, Oetzi was discovered in a mountain pass, that is why he was found so
close to the Austrian-Italian border. Also, analysis of his bones and
microscopic quartz crystals in his gut showed that he made the journey between
the Italian and Austrian valleys of the region often during his life.

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howfun
Paywall

~~~
csmattryder
A wall easily scaled by clicking "web" under the link, and clicking the first
search engine result.

~~~
tombert
I do feel that there should be some kind of FAQ about that somewhere on HN.
Something like "The Wall Street Journal and the Telegraph paywalls can be
avoided by Googling the article name or clicking 'web'" would be useful for
getting rid of the people commenting about the paywall.

~~~
whatever_dude
This. I never even realized the web link was there. Always wondered myself why
people would keep posting WSJ links to HN without complaints since it was
always behind a paywall.

TIL.

