Rock art, seascapes & long distance trade
Channel: European Association of Archaeologists
Date: 2018-10-13

Warriors in staged scenes on-board war canoes or adjacent to war canoes are common features in the Scandinavian rock art from the Bronze Age. The rock art appears at the same time as the Scandinavian societies become engaged in long distance trade of metal. Local warriors would have increasingly played an important role in the metal trade. Elite household’s investment in the maritime forces of production, ships and warriors, was therefore a crucial feature for the engagement in this kind of action. The ability to fund boat construction and crew ships provided a new control apparatus, for maritime ventures, based on ships ownership. This would have favoured the rise of maritime polities in Scandinavia. In this paper I argue for the notion that the praxis of carving ships onto the stone could have served to manifest the agency of the maritime warriors.

Author: Associate Professor Ling, Johan - Univeristy of Gotehnburg (Presenting author)