Photo Story: Fears of climate change may go a long way back

A father and a son look at the Viking-era Rok runestone near the Lake Vattern and the town of Odeshog, Ostergotland, Sweden.

The Rokstone, dated to the 9th century, is one of the most famous runestones, featuring the longest known runic inscription in stone.

A new study by Swedish scientists mean that the runic text is about fears of climate change.

While scholars have generally agreed on how to read the inscriptions, the exact meaning of the runic characters and cryptic passages has been elusive — until now.

A new interdisciplinary study by scholars from Swedish universities has concluded that the inscription is about anxiety triggered by a son’s death and fears of a new cold climate crisis. The study was based on archaeological research on a cold climate catastrophe from the years 536 to 550, which affected Scandinavia.

Read the full study here

Photo: EPA-EFE/Jeppe Gustafsson