17th century graves on Svalbard are threatened by rising temperatures

The rapid climate change documented on Svalbard over the past 30-40 years has had a major impact on the 17th and 18th century graves there, according to new research from the Norwegian project Skelleton in a cupboard. 

Since the 1950s it has been illegal to be buried on Svalbard. But hundreds of years ago Svalbard was a "no man's land" visited mainly by whale hunters from Europe and Russia's White Sea region.

The analysis of the preserved skeletons and textiles came from the large cemeteries at the areas called Likneset, Jensenvatnet, Smeerenburg and Ytre Norskøya, which together contain about 600 graves.

Due to the permafrost conditions, the burials have so far been remarkably well preserved, with skin and textiles still available for researchers to study. But as the climate warms in the Arctic, conditions are changing.

As the new study explains, a warmer climate leads to more extreme weather, with more precipitation and landslides changing the landscape. The extent of permafrost is decreasing and thaw is penetrating deeper into the ground. Combined with less sea ice and more waves on the coastline, this contributes to the leaching of sediments.

Such an environment causes coffins to collapse, exposing skeletons and textiles to the ingress of sediment, water and oxygen.

"Ongoing condition assessments show that textiles in particular are degrading more rapidly now than they did in the 1980s," Skelleton in the cupboard researchers point out. 

Meanwhile, these graves are of great cultural value, as they tell us a lot about the people who lived in the archipelago centuries ago.

For example, the skeletal analyses show that some of the whalers suffered from malnutrition and disease and that most lived a life of hard and extensive work from a very young age. The most common cause of death was scurvy, a disease that develops in the absence of vitamin C.