scholarly journals Meetings Between Strangers in the Nordic Bronze Age: The Evidence of Southern Swedish Rock Art

2020 ◽  
Vol 86 ◽  
pp. 261-283
Author(s):  
Richard Bradley ◽  
Courtney Nimura ◽  
Peter Skoglund
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Rock Art ◽  
Southern Sweden ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
The Baltic ◽  
The Relationship

Recent research has established that south Scandinavia during the Nordic Bronze Age was entirely dependent on imported metal. It was obviously in contact with other parts of Europe and must have participated in a system of long-distance exchange. It is not clear how it would have operated, but it helps to explain the importance of watercraft and drawings of distinctive artefacts in the rock art on the Baltic and Atlantic coasts. A different group of images can be associated with inland areas where the art has a more restricted lexicon. Can the borderland between these traditions shed any light on the relationship between the seashore and the interior, and might this help to identify places where artefacts changed hands? This paper presents the results of fieldwork between Lakes Vänern and Vättern in Västra Götaland county, southern Sweden. It considers the character of inland rock art and whether some locations with more complex panels were used as ‘aggregation sites’.

scholarly journals Navigating Inland: Bronze Age Watercraft and the Lakes of Southern Sweden

2019 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 186-206 ◽  
Author(s):  
Courtney Nimura ◽  
Peter Skoglund ◽  
Richard Bradley
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Rock Art ◽  
Southern Sweden ◽  
Inland Lakes ◽  
Southern Scandinavia ◽  
Primary Focus ◽  
The Baltic ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Lake Vänern

The rock art of southern Scandinavia is characterized by depictions of watercraft. The majority are close to the coast, and they have been the primary focus of research. Less attention has been paid to similar representations associated with two large inland lakes in southern Sweden. In this article we present the results of fieldwork around Lake Vänern and Lake Vättern and consider the relationship of this rock art to the better-known images on the coast. We explore the practicalities of navigating between the sea and the interior and suggest that there was an important contrast between an early eastern sphere extending to Lake Vättern from the Baltic and a later western sphere connecting Lake Vänern with the Atlantic.

scholarly journals Rock art and the prehistoric landscape of Galicia: the results of field survey 1992–1994

1995 ◽  
Vol 61 ◽  
pp. 347-370 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Bradley ◽  
Felipe Criado Boado ◽  
Ramón Fábregas Valcarce
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Field Survey ◽  
Rock Art ◽  
Outer Edge ◽  
Early Bronze Age ◽  
Copper Age ◽  
North West ◽  
Abrupt Changes ◽  
Ground Conditions ◽  
The Relationship

This paper discusses the relationship between the earlier prehistoric pattern of settlement in Atlantic Europe and the creation of rock art. It investigates the organisation of the Copper Age and Early Bronze Age landscape of north-west Spain using the evidence provided by the distribution, siting, and composition of rock carvings. It presents the results of field survey in three sample areas extending from the centre to the outer edge of their distribution. Although these drawings cannot be interpreted as illustrations of daily life, they may have helped to define rights to particular resources in an area which experienced abrupt changes of ground conditions over the course of the year.

North European Rock Art

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joakim Goldhahn
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Rock Art ◽  
Northern Europe ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Migration Period ◽  
Farming Communities ◽  
And Migration ◽  
The Bronze Age

This chapter offers a long-term perspective on rock art in northern Europe. It first provides an overview of research on the rock art traditions of northern Europe before discussing the societies and cultures that created such traditions. It then considers examples of rock art made by hunter-gatherer societies in northern Europe, focusing on the first rock art boom related to Neolithization. It also examines the second rock art boom, which was associated with social and religious changes within farming communities that took place around 1600–1400 bc. The chapter concludes by analysing the breakdown of long-distance networks in the transition from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age and its consequences for the making of rock art within the southern traditions, as well as the use of rock art sites during the Pre-Roman Iron Age, Roman Iron Age, and Migration Period.

Plank-built in the Bronze Age

Antiquity ◽  
1980 ◽  
Vol 54 (211) ◽  
pp. 118-127 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. R. Hale
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Experimental Model ◽  
Rock Art ◽  
Late Bronze Age ◽  
Sea Trial ◽  
North Germany ◽  
Southern Norway ◽  
The Baltic ◽  
The Bronze Age

In 1972 Paul Johnstone initiated a project to build and sail a hide-covered boat which would embody the theories of those Norwegian scholars—in particular Professor Sverre Marstrander—who have classified the boats of the Scandinavian Bronze Age with the Eskimo umiak and the Irish curragh. Thanks to the publicity given the experimental model by the BBC ‘Chronicle’ series and the enthusiastic advocacy of Bregger, Marstrander and Johnstone himself (‘Bronze age sea trial’, Antiquity, XLVI, 1972), the skin-boat theory has become almost an orthodoxy in Britain and Scandinavia. In fact, however, the reconstructed boat itself clearly demonstrated the awkwardness of translating into the medium of a hidecovered frame the boat designs of the bronze age rock art, which include several features utterly irreconcilable with the requirements and norms of skin-boat construction. For no type of boat before the age of photography has such a vast corpus of evidence been preserved as for the vessel that served the fishermen, traders and raiding parties of Scandinavia between 1200 and 600 BC (that is, the Bronze Age periods 111, IV and V). The boat is a favoured motif in thousands of rock carvings in southern Norway, Sweden, and the Baltic islands, and on at least 200 late bronze age razors from Denmark and North Germany.

Neolithic Cupmarks from Vasagård on Bornholm, Denmark: Dating the Rock Art Tradition in Southern Scandinavia

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Rune Iversen ◽  
Michael S. Thorsen ◽  
Jens-Bjørn Riis Andresen
Keyword(s):  
Baltic Sea ◽  
Bronze Age ◽  
Rock Art ◽  
The Baltic Sea ◽  
Southern Scandinavia ◽  
The Rich ◽  
The Baltic ◽  
The Bronze Age

This article presents the first evidence for cupmarks in the southern Scandinavian Middle Neolithic, in the form of two cupmarked stones recovered during excavations at the Neolithic enclosures of Vasagård on the island of Bornholm in the Baltic Sea. Until now, cupmarks, which are frequently found on dolmen capstones, have been associated with the rich and figurative rock art known from the Bronze Age (c. 1700–500 bc). The evidence from Vasagård opens up the possibility that more cupmarks could be Neolithic. The association of the cupmarked stones from Vasagård with ritual gatherings suggests an affinity with contemporary sites, including Orkney, where cupmarks have been linked to architectural transformations.

Reflections on Bronze Age travels

Antiquity ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 89 (343) ◽  
pp. 215-216
Author(s):  
Kalle Sognnes
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
Rock Art ◽  
Southern Sweden ◽  
Strong Focus ◽  
First Time ◽  
Age Studies

In the above paper, Johan Ling and Zofia Stos-Gale present results from a project comparing isotopes from Bronze Age artefacts with signatures from known Bronze Age mining localities. The results showed that artefacts found in southern Sweden were made from bronze mined in Cyprus. This is in itself interesting, but the discovery of rock art engravings in Sweden that resemble ‘oxhide’ bronze ingots from Cyprus adds a new dimension to the interpretation of Scandinavian rock art, with its strong focus on boat images. The number of possible oxhide ingots represented in Swedish rock art is low, but if the identification of these images is correct, we have evidence, for the first time, of direct connections between Scandinavia and the eastern Mediterranean, connections that have been supposed, but not evidenced, for more than a century (e.g. Hansen 1909). Here, I focus on some implications this article may have for future Scandinavian Bronze Age studies, with special emphasis on rock art.

The Hunt and the Otherworld: A Breton Reading of the Massleberg Stora Skee Rock Art Panel (Bohuslän, Southern Sweden)

Numen ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 63 (4) ◽  
pp. 383-410
Author(s):  
Matthias Egeler
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Rock Art ◽  
Current Trend ◽  
Old French ◽  
Southern Sweden ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
European Heritage ◽  
Human World ◽  
Welsh Literature ◽  
Breton Lays

Taking its starting point from the current trend towards using Indo-European comparative material for elucidating Scandinavian Bronze Age rock art sites, this article develops an interpretation of the overall iconographic program of the Massleberg Stora Skee rock art panel in Bohuslän, southern Sweden. It focuses on the hunting scene which forms one of the centerpieces of the site and poses the question of how this hunting scene relates to the remaining iconographic elements of the panel, especially the ships and footprints, and to the water flowing over the rock. Using analogies drawn from Old French “Breton lays,” medieval Irish and Welsh literature, and the archaeology of the Hallstatt period (the Strettweg cult wagon), it is possible to develop an interpretation which connects the hunt with the communication between the human world and an “Otherworld” and to show how such an interpretation can tie in with the other iconographic as well as natural elements of the site. On this basis, the article concludes with a general discussion of the use of typological analogies versus the application of concepts of Indo-European heritage for the analysis of Scandinavian rock art and discusses the wider applicability of the “Otherworld” term as an analytical concept.

Nuragic Settlement Dynamics

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cezary Namirski
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
East Coast ◽  
Early Iron Age ◽  
Central Mediterranean ◽  
Settlement Dynamics ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Bronze Age

The book is a study of the Bronze Age and Early Iron Age Nuragic settlement dynamics in two selected areas of the east coast Sardinia, placing them in a wider context of Central Mediterranean prehistory. Among the main issues addressed are the relationship between settlement and ritual sites, the use of coastline, and a chronology of settlement.

Changing Places: Rock Art and Holocene Landscapes in the Wadi al-Ajal, South-West Libya

2014 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 165-182 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tertia Barnett ◽  
Maria Guagnin
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Analysis ◽  
Surface Water ◽  
Rock Art ◽  
Human Settlement ◽  
Gis Model ◽  
South West ◽  
Settlement Location ◽  
Central Sahara ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Over Time

This article examines the relationship between rock art and landscape use by pastoral groups and early settled communities in the central Sahara from around 6000 BC to 1000 AD. During this period the region experienced significant climatic and environmental fluctuations. Using new results from a systematic survey in the Wadi al-Ajal, south-west Libya, our research combines data from over 2000 engraved rock art panels with local archaeological and palaeoenvironmental evidence within a GIS model. Spatial analysis of these data indicates a correspondence between the frequency of rock art sites and human settlement over time. However, while changes in settlement location were guided primarily by the constraints on accessibility imposed by surface water, the distribution of rock art relates to the availability of pasture and patterns of movement through the landscape. Although the reasons for these movements undoubtedly altered over time, natural routes that connected the Wadi al-Ajal and areas to the south continued to be a focus for carvings over several thousand years.

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