00:00In 1952, an American aircraft named 624 Globemaster II crashed into a large mountain as it rallied Alaska from the state of Washington.
00:11Unfortunately, not a single of the 52 people on board had to survive.
00:16The bad weather at the time made it very difficult to locate the crash site.
00:20And even afterwards, all attempts to locate it failed.
00:24But in 2012, the crew of a helicopter carrying out a training mission spotted debris of the plane crushed on the surface of Colony Glacier.
00:32They started looking for other pieces and confirmed that it was indeed the missing plane.
00:37Since then, every summer for about a decade, different military squads have joined Operation Colony Glacier.
00:45They managed to identify 40 of the 52 people who had lost their lives in this crash.
00:51The soldiers participating in this mission would never consider abandoning a comrade who fell on a mission,
00:57and believe that it is their duty to bring back those who did not survive.
01:06Another discovery took place in the Alps.
01:08In 1980, hikers exploring these picturesque reliefs came across human remains.
01:14They were half imprisoned in the ice at the top of a mountain pass between Italy and Austria.
01:20At first, the police thought it could be a mountaineering accident.
01:24But in a few weeks, archaeologists began to assert that this man could have lived more than 5,000 years before.
01:31We finally gave this frozen man the nickname Ötzi.
01:35He owes his name to the Ötztal Valley, which is very close.
01:38He has since acquired a certain notoriety as being the oldest ice mummy ever discovered.
01:44Ötzi's state of freezing could not be as unique as we thought.
01:49And this is where things take an interesting turn.
01:51Archaeologists have their own theories.
01:55You see, at first, everyone was convinced that the discovery of Ötzi's remains marked the beginning of a colder era,
02:02because he had been caught in the ice without any interruption since he had left it alive.
02:07However, over the last decades, glaciers and ice caps around the world melt like a sorbet on a hot summer day.
02:15Not only Ötzi, but also other ancient relics such as bodies, hunting equipment, horse hooves, and even old skis have begun to emerge.
02:25Archaeologists therefore support the existence of similar sites.
02:29They have found many, and all fit perfectly into this new field of glacial archaeology.
02:36It seems that as the world warms up, it can reveal many more secrets from the Great Cold.
02:45Let's move on to another amazing discovery.
02:48In 2018, William Taylor and Nick Jarman explored the snowy slopes of the Altai Mountains in Mongolia
02:54and came across an ancient treasure hidden in the ice.
02:57Inside, they discovered the stem of an old 3,000-year-old arrow, well preserved and decorated with ocher marks.
03:04It was in perfect condition, a rarity for such ancient objects made of organic matter.
03:09They also found other fragments, such as a bronze arrowhead to which the tendons of an animal were still attached.
03:17All these relics of the past had remained intact for thousands of years because they were trapped in the ice.
03:26In Mongolia, the increase in temperatures has melted ice sheets that had remained intact for centuries.
03:33Similar discoveries were made in Yukon, the United States, Italy, Siberia and Norway.
03:41Thousands of sites have thus been identified.
03:44However, researchers are on a real race against time to document and preserve these relics before they are lost forever.
03:54Their study questions the very definition of these territories as being wild expanses
04:00and demonstrates that indigenous peoples coexisted with nature there.
04:04Sometimes, people also discover everyday objects as simple as a sandal.
04:09This one, discovered on a mountain pass in central Norway, indicates that people already used this route about 1,700 years ago.
04:17This suggests that there was less snow and ice in this region at the time.
04:21The sandal, dating from about 300 BC, strongly resembles the Roman sandals of that time.
04:31Once again in Norway, hunters have found a sword stuck at the top of a mountain at an altitude of more than 1,600 meters.
04:38There is no funerary site nearby and it is disconcerting to imagine why someone would have taken his sword to such a remote place.
04:46Archaeologists suggest that the owner could have got lost.
04:50Subsequently, in 2011, unusual objects resembling giant fronds began to emerge with the melting of the ice.
04:57Carbon-14 dating suggests that this singular object was designed around 400 BC.
05:04It is more than a meter long and has knife-like grooves.
05:08Archaeologists have been intrigued by it, until a team member recognized them as a kind of handle or pliers,
05:15used to attach hay bales or hay leaves to the sledges.
05:18People in the region used hay sledges with such pliers until the 1950s,
05:24when tractors became more widespread.
05:30Let's go back a few thousand years now.
05:33We can easily get there just by looking at this mammoth.
05:37This pachyderm looks a bit like a cute doodoo, although slightly worn.
05:42This ancient colossus, which experienced its peak 39,000 years ago, is the best preserved mammoth ever discovered.
05:50Even its emblematic hirsute mane is surprisingly well preserved,
05:54because it has remained trapped in the ice until its recent discovery in Siberia.
05:59This incredible animal is talked about a lot in Yokohama, Japan,
06:03where scientists carry out tests that aim to bring this extinct species back to life.
06:08When we discovered this mammoth female, we discovered an unexpected treasure,
06:13a sample of its blood preserved under the ice.
06:16We therefore think that this ancient blood could hold the key to the mammoth's resurrection.
06:22We also found well-preserved muscle tissue.
06:25This mammoth female was between 50 and 60 years old when she experienced this glacial fate.
06:30The discovery of mammoth blood sparked debates about the ethics of the resurrection of extinct creatures,
06:36like the Jurassic Park scenario.
06:39The plan would be to implant an ovocyte in a modern elephant for a gestation of 22 months,
06:44hoping that at least one living mammoth cell would survive.
06:51Climbing aboard, we return to the French Alps,
06:54where we are not far from the site where an Air India plane tragically crashed 46 years ago.
07:00Fortunately, we are accompanied by a conscientious mountain rescuer and his neighbor.
07:04They went to this area after a group of tourists noticed a strange object on a glacier.
07:09It was a bag.
07:11The Indian embassy in Paris had sold it and seemed determined to recover it.
07:15What makes it so mysterious is that it carried the inscriptions of diplomatic mail and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
07:22The Air India flight was on its way from Bombay to New York.
07:26When it stung in January 1970, it carried with it 117 people.
07:32And guess what else was in this bag, except the diplomatic mail of the soaked?
07:37A pile of old Indian newspapers.
07:40Next to this, we also found pieces of the cabin of the plane,
07:44a slippery shoe and a bunch of cables, treasures for the least unexpected in the middle of the mountains.
07:53During the summer of 2013, on the Canadian island of Ward Hunt,
07:57scientists came across a message left by a geologist named Walker, who had placed it there 54 years earlier.
08:05This message served him in some way as a last testament,
08:08because he died barely a month after hiding the bottle in the rocks of the island.
08:13The content of the message was truly amazing.
08:16In 1959, Walker had measured the distance between these same stones and the edge of the glacier
08:22and had evaluated it at only 51 meters.
08:25Then, in 2013, this distance was dug to reach 122 meters.
08:31Researchers are convinced that this striking contrast between the two measurements
08:35only emphasizes the consequences of the ongoing global warming.
08:42Imagine this melting ice in the mountains of Norway
08:46as a time machine that reveals us a hidden treasure.
08:50Nearly 800 Viking remains, hidden for more than a thousand years, have been discovered.
08:55They give us a glimpse of the flourishing commercial routes of the Viking era
08:59and of the crucial role of mountain passes in this ancient trade.
09:02Among the discoveries are leather shoes,
09:05wool scarves, tunic gloves,
09:08whole arrowheads, horseshoes,
09:11walking sticks and kitchen utensils from the panoply of a Viking chef.
09:15He even kept some memories of his chariot.
09:18These remains provide us with valuable information on the ancient habits of travel
09:23and on the apogee of this culture, when its roads overflowed with activity.
09:27Finally, they give us a glimpse of the life of these ancient adventurers.
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