The cave, called Arne Qvamgrotta, is located just inside the Arctic Circle near the town of Kjøpsvik, under Norway’s national mountain, Stetind. It’s part of a larger cave system formed by water eroding limestone rock. These kinds of caves, known as karst caves, often contain hidden underground landscapes. It was first discovered in the 1990s during the limestone mining. Unlike other caves, a layer of sediment with preserved bones somehow stayed intact for thousands of years.
In 2021 and 2022, a team of researchers from the University of Oslo explored the caves and studied the fossilized bones. The findings revealed oldest pictures of Arctic wildlife from this time period.