Climate change is rapidly erasing evidence from one of the Arctic’s largest early modern whaling cemeteries, where archaeologists have uncovered signs of harsh labor, poor nutrition, and declining health among the men who worked Europe’s northern whale fisheries.
The burial ground, known as Likneset, or “Corpse Point,” lies on the Svalbard archipelago between mainland Norway and the North Pole. Used during the 17th and 18th centuries, the cemetery contains hundreds of shallow graves marked by stone cairns. A new study in PLOS One examined 20 individuals recovered from the site and traced both the physical toll of Arctic whaling and the growing damage climate change is causing to the cemetery itself.
Early Arctic whaling formed one of Europe’s first large extractive industries. The work depended on manual labor. Crews rowed hunting boats through icy waters, hauled live whales, towed carcasses, rendered blubber, and carried out heavy shipboard tasks in cold, wet conditions.
The skeletons from Likneset preserve traces of those demands. Researchers found widespread joint degeneration, healed injuries, and strain-related changes affecting shoulders, chest, spine, hips, knees, and feet. Many of the dead were young adult men, yet some already showed levels of skeletal wear more often linked with much older people.
The study describes a largely uniform burial population. Most individuals were tall and strongly built, pointing to selective recruitment into Arctic whaling. Chemical isotope data suggest the men came from different childhood backgrounds and geographic origins. Their adult diets, though, appear to have converged, fitting the pattern of a mobile multinational workforce operating under similar conditions.
Nutrition posed a major problem. Evidence of scurvy appeared in most of the individuals examined. The disease results from severe vitamin C deficiency and was common among sailors between the 15th and 19th centuries. Symptoms include muscle weakness, bleeding gums, tooth loss, anemia, poor wound healing, and reduced resistance to infection.
The researchers argue that chronic nutritional stress formed a central part of life in Arctic whaling camps. European crews often failed to adapt their diets to polar conditions, even though Indigenous Arctic foods such as muktuk, made from whale skin and blubber, provide vitamin C and other nutrients.
The skeletal record also contains signs of stress earlier in life. Developmental markers suggest some individuals experienced hardship during childhood but later underwent partial catch-up growth before entering adult labor. Once employed in Arctic whaling, their bodies faced sustained physical strain.
Trauma appears frequently in the remains, though most injuries had healed before death. This pattern points away from fatal accidents as the main cause of mortality. Instead, the researchers link death more closely with the cumulative burden of nutritional deficiency, disease, and prolonged hard labor.
Another detail emerged from the men’s teeth. Many carried circular wear marks in their enamel linked to habitual pipe smoking. Clay pipes were often clenched between the teeth for long periods. Tobacco use does not explain the high rates of scurvy, but smoking depletes vitamin C stores and may have added strain to already weakened bodies.
The study also examined how preservation at Likneset has changed over time. The 20 burials came from three excavation phases spanning more than three decades, from the late 1980s to 2019. This offered researchers a rare chance to compare conditions across time and across different parts of the cemetery.
Location mattered. Graves in erosion-prone coastal zones showed heavy disturbance and severe loss of organic materials. Burials in more stable central areas retained better-preserved coffins, textiles, and skeletal remains.
The comparison of nearby graves excavated decades apart revealed ongoing decay within the same landscape. Textiles deteriorated especially fast, while bones proved more resilient. The pattern shows how warming temperatures and thawing permafrost affect different materials in different ways.
These findings raise concerns for heritage management in Svalbard. Archaeological sites preserved in frozen ground have long depended on leaving remains in place. Rising Arctic temperatures and coastal erosion are weakening that approach.
For researchers, Likneset offers a rare biological record of life inside early modern Arctic industry. For heritage specialists, the site serves as a warning. As permafrost thaws and coastlines erode, irreplaceable archives of human history are losing detail, material, and context at an accelerating pace.
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