Rock art and landscapes : studies of Stone Age rock art from northern Fennoscandia

Abstract

The thesis focuses on rock art and landscapes of the Stone Age of northern Fennoscandia, between about 10000BC until 2000BC. Five areas with rock art are selected for in-depth case studies where rock art is studied in relation to time and landscape. The five areas are Ofoten and Alta in northern Norway, Kanozero on Kola Peninsula and Vyg by the White Sea in northwestern Russia and Nämforsen in northern Sweden. Important has been studying rock art both from the west and from the east, crossing administrative borders. The rock art has been studied through new documentation during extensive fieldwork in northwestern Russia, northern Norway, northern Sweden and northern Finland.

The thesis investigates how rock art interacts with the landscape at different levels, showing how natural features are intertwined with the rock art, telling the stories in the rocks. The studies suggest that the cracking landscapes of rock art included natural elements from the tiniest crack to the wider landscape. Several places, the rock art are deliberately placed in relation to the miniature landscape of the rock surface and an argument is put forward that the rock art act as geographical references to the hunter-fisher-gatherer landscape from the deliberate choice of the rock art site to the placing of the rock art on the actual rock surface.

Moving back in time to the Stone Age, reconstructing lost relations of landscape, an interdisciplinary approach is advocated, where rock art are discussed in relation to circumpolar ethnographic sources to shed light to Stone Age hunter-fisher-gatherer landscapes, and geology is applied to visualize the lost relations of Stone Age hunter-fisher-gatherer landscapes in time and place.