Melting glaciers in mountain ranges are expected to reveal a lot about past periods of climate change on our planet. Recently, they are also revealing clues about the travels and lives of early people.

The melting glacier at Schnidejoch pass, 9,000 feet above sea level in the Swiss Alps, has exposed objects dating back as far as 4,000 B.C. Other objects have been traced to the Bronze and Iron Ages and the Medieval. The times at which the pass was ice free and passable tell climate researchers much about climate fluctuations.

Scientists knew there had been warm periods in the Alps; now they have archaeological evidence to identify the exact years.

According to an Agence France-Presse article Melting Swiss glacier yields Neolithic trove, climate secrets (September 7), the oldest objects found include a birch bark quiver, a wooden bow, and pieces of leather clothing, which may have belonged to one individual in 3,000 B.C. (Photographs of two artifacts appear with the article.) Other objects of later times include a Roman coin and a shoe dating from the 14th or 15th century.

In Issue Four of Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears, we interviewed noted glaciologist Lonnie Thompson who found a 5,200-year-old plant near a melting glacier in the Andes Mountains of Peru.

 More ice-covered secrets of high mountains may be exposed as global warning continues. A United Nations report says that mountain ranges worldwide will lose their glaciers by the end of this century if global warming continues at its projected rate.