Volcanic eruptions, climate change, crop failures, famine and plague all may have swept through Norway in the sixth century C.E., putting pressure on leaders and their communities The golden artifact, a sword scabbard fitting perhaps belonging to an elite warrior leader  Annette Græsli Øvrelid, Archaeological Museum, University of Stavanger A storm along the coast of southwestern Norway likely uprooted the tree, resting on a mound of earth, that recently caught the eye of a man out on a walk. With a stick, the hiker poked at the debris—and uncovered something very old. Suddenly, he saw something that glittered, the man says in a translated statement from the University of Stavanger in Norway. But he didn’t quite understand what he had found. Researchers enlightened him. Likely originating from the sixth century C.E., it was a golden artifact that once may have fit on the scabbard of a warrior leader’s sword.…