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As a polar IE lay frostbitten and starving in a frozenGreenlandcave , he smeared a black spot onto the bottom of his last daybook entry . More than a century later on , that dark smudge has revealed grim new details of the dying man ’s final 60 minutes .
His name was Jørgen Brønlund ; he was a Greenland - born Inuit and was part of a three - gentleman team on the Denmark Expedition to Greenland ’s Northeast Coast , conducted from 1906 to 1908 and led by Danish ethnologist Ludvig Mylius - Erichsen . Brønlund died in November 1907 and was the last of the squad to perish — and the only one whose trunk was ever recover .
The black spot from Brønlund’s diary.
He register his final thought in a journal , and the last page included a enceinte inglorious smudge . Researchers of late conducted extensive psychoanalysis of the spot , finding that it contained burn rubber , oil and BM . These follow hint at Brønlund ’s desperate and abortive seek to light a life - economize crude oil burner before he give in to common cold and hunger , scientists wrote in a newfangled subject area .
refer : Photos of Greenland ’s gorgeous glaciers
Brønlund cash in one’s chips during the team ’s return to alkali ingroup from Greenland ’s northerly coast , as they were traveling over inland ice . Mylius - Erichsen and Niels Peter Høeg Hagen , the expedition ’s cartographer , had already died of picture and debilitation by the time Brønlund made it to a sheltering cave near the storage , he wrote in his diary .
Jørgen Brønlund died in 1907 of frostbite and starvation, during a disastrous expedition in Greenland.
" I progress to this place under a waning moonshine , and can not go on , because of my frosty foot and the darkness . The bodies of the others are in the middle of the fjord , " read the journal ’s desolate last entry , according to a report write in 1908 inScottish Geographical Magazine . Another pleasure trip had find out Brønlund ’s body and diary in March 1908 ; they swallow him at the site of his death , and the diary was add together to the collection at the Royal Library in Copenhagen .
Under Brønlund ’s theme song on that last diary page was " an adhered bootleg spot , " according to the new study . The cryptical mark was so intriguing that it prompt an unnamed research worker to surreptitiously take it for analysis in 1993 without prior license , tell lead story study author Kaare Lund Rasmussen , a prof in the Department of Physics , Chemistry and Pharmacy at the University of Southern Denmark .
" The blot was immediately brought to the National Museum [ of Denmark ] for examination . There was no commercial-grade or otherwise take in for this person , " Rasmussen told Live Science in an email . " Nowadays , we do not analyze sampling without write authorization , but it was completely different then . "
Brønlund’s petroleum burner was found in 1973.
At the time , expert with the National Museum ’s Natural Science Unit were unable to ascertain the chemical makeup of the unknown spot . For the new sketch , scientist reexamined the spot using techniques that did n’t exist in the nineties — such asX - rayfluorescence ( XRF ) and inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry ( ICP - MS ) — to analyze the mark at the atomic level and pinpoint its chemical substance element .
Along with carbon in the charred fragment , the researcher discoveredcalcium , titaniumandzinc . But that trio of signature did n’t match any know tilt formations in northeasterly Greenland , Rasmussen said . Further depth psychology of the spot solved the puzzle , identifying the minerals calcite , rutile and zincite , which turn back those element . These mineral were used as filler in rubber yield , advise that the diary spot let in burnt rubber . That likely come from a charred gasket on a kerosene stove or burner that Brønlund was trying to ignite , grant to the study .
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The researchers also detected three groups of organic compounds : lipids — such as vegetable oil , beast fat , and fish or heavyweight oil — crude oil and human fecal matter ( in his sternly weakened and desperate body politic , Brønlund may have tried burn his own excretory product to get the stove to light ) .
" At this time , Brønlund had starved for weeks , was tired beyond his capacity , and he was freeze , " the scientist publish . " It is likely that his hands were shake when he used the matches from the terminus to pre - fire up and sour on the kitchen stove in the small cave . "
Such stoves metabolized inebriant for preheating before they could be lit , and there was none in the depot . Brønlund may have left the mark on his journal page after set about — and in all probability run out — to preheat the kitchen range with anything he could find , and the presence of dejection in the mark speaks to the dire circumstances and poor condition during his " last dingy daytime , " the written report authors reported .
The finding were published online Nov. 16 in the journalArchaeometry .
primitively put out on Live Science .
