Prehistoric Rock Art in Scandinavia: Agency and Environmental Change

Despite being called ‘carvings’ (as they are also in French, gravures rupestres, and in other languages) these petroglyphs are actually pecked in lines or hollowed out on parts of the surface of solid rocks to form figurative motifs. The most common type is the simple cup-mark, which is difficult to characterize as figurative in any sense (c.250,000 occurrences), and is not discussed here. There are two main reasons for the obvious interest of maritime archaeology in these images. Firstly, their location: the majority of them have been found along ancient shorelines, which makes their physically maritime character apparent. Secondly, a significant part of their content is ship images, which are the most common type of figurative depiction (c.20,000 occurrences). On the other hand, the implications of this seemingly overwhelming maritime communication are not self-evident. Both factors have to be scrutinized in the light of anthropological and other theories. Besides, the suggested location of rock art on the shoreline is sometimes problematic, even dubious. At any rate it needs to be analysed. There are two main periods of carving activity. The mesolithic carvings of northern Scandinavia, some of them probably going back to the 8th millennium BC, and with an uncertain end in the Neolithic, c.4th millennium BC, consist of panels of large land and sea mammals, such as elks and whales. They are ascribed to hunting, fishing and gathering societies. This older tradition was not studied in these books. But interestingly, itmight be that the seminal ship imagewas introduced within it, in some time and area overlapping with the later tradition. This later tradition, dating to the Bronze Age in southern Scandinavia, c.1700– 500 BC, is by far the richest, and has a background in at least part-time agriculture, cattle-herding and cultivation. However, these two traditions overlap to some extent, both geographically and chronologically. The Bronze Age variety carries on well into the Early Iron Age, c.200 BC. Vague remnants may even extend to the advent of the Roman period, about the year 0. Even today the closeness to the sea of most carvings in both periods is obvious. It could have been a deceptive impression but it is not. Dating of the periods and individual carved panels is facilitated by the extensive land-uplift, the greatest on the globe, lowering the coastlines all the time. Since the Ice Age almost all Scandinavia has been characterized by a strong rebound from having been pressed down under the inland ice. The land has risen out of the sea up to 800m since c.8000 BC (although sea-levels rose as well, reducing the effect to a maximum of 287m). The position of the carvings at ancient shorelines can thus be dated in each area in an internationally unique way by way of various branches of the natural sciences, quaternary geology, palaeobiology (zoology, botany) and 14C analysis. It was noted early in rock-carving research that this was the salient point; consecutive carvings on the rocks had to follow the receding coastline. By the 1940s it was clear that some of the lower panels must have been made during the first part of the Iron Age. Scandinavian rock art is also one of the greatest documents on ancient religion in the world. This far, the Stand der Forschung is generally accepted. Alternative ideas exist on the proportion of beliefs or (cultic) ceremonial in their images. Some authors claim that they are depictions of cult rather than belief. An old idea, for example, was that the ship figure is a depiction of a cultic ship-model which was carried in ceremonial processions. The connections with other contemporary forms of expression are obvious. Burial cairns have a related association with the coast, although not always as close to the shore rocks as the carvings themselves. The ship figure of the carvings is paralleled by a significant number of contemporary ship-settings in some areas, with stones in the ground marking the outlines of a double-ended craft. They contain burials inside or outside the setting. Moreover, a large number of smaller items found in graves, often called portable art, most of them bronze razors, carry ship-depictions and/or are made in the form of a boat. Currently the most accepted interpretation, the latest convincing one being that of Flemming Kaul, is that the ship is thought of as the solar boat, understood as an expression of a sun cult. This includes the possible illustration