Who says climate change doesn't have its good side? Not archaeologists, who discovered a spear from ten millennia ago in a melting ice patch - and that's just the start of what they've found.
The artifact in question is an atlatl dart, a spear-like weapon used by Native Americans. Although the artifact, which you can see below, may look like just a tree branch - a fact exacerbated by it being curved by the melting process and nearly snapped in half by a passing animal - it was actually a state-of-the-art hunting weapon when it was used 10,000 years ago.

The discovery was made possible by the unprecedented melting of ice patches, once permanently frozen areas that are now revealing their secrets. Leading the charge is Craig Lee of the University of Colorado, who explains what his new specialty of ice patch archaeology is all about:The best part is that the artifacts entombed in the ice are often objects that couldn't have survived in any other conditions. A wooden weapon like the atlatl would likely have decomposed long ago if left unprotected against the elements. By carefully studying regions of past human activity to identify the most likely patches to contain artifacts, Lee and other archaeologists can discover everything from human artifacts to plant remains, animal carcasses, and, yes, feces, all of which can help us better understand the ancient past.
Lee explains what is most likely to be found in these ice patches: