rock art studies in northernmost europe, 2000 - Joakim Goldhahn

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the important iconographic studies of ships on bronze razors by Flemming Kaul (1998, 2000, 2002, 2003b, 2004a). The iconic ships on the razors are related to several other mythological beings, and Kaul has used this iconology to reconstruct BA cosmology (Fig. 2.2): “1: Sunrise. The fish pulls the rising sun up from the night-ship to the morning ship. 2: For a while, the fish was allowed to sail on with the ship. 3: The fish is to be devoured by a bird of prey. Stylized sun-horses (S-figures) are ready to fetch the sun. 4: Two sun-horses are about to pull the sun from the ship. 5: At noon the sun-horse has collected the sun from the ship. 6: In the afternoon the sun-horse lands with the sun on the sun-ship. 7: Some time after the sun-horse has landed, the sun is taken over by the snake from the afternoon-ship. 8: The snake is concealing the sun in its spiral curls. It 2. Rock Art Studies in Northernmost Europe, 2000–2004 21 Fig. 2.3. The ship chronology presented by Kaul showing the most important traits during the Bronze Age. This chronology was later modified by Kaul (et al. 2005) working with the ship depictions from Bornholm, and Ling (2006) working in Bohuslän. will soon lead the sun down under the horizon. 9: Two night-ships sailing towards left. The sun is not visible, extinguished and dark on its voyage through the underworld. 10: A night ship followed by a fish swimming to the left. The fish is ready to fulfil its task at sunrise. The wheel has come full circle.” (Kaul 2004c: 131) Kaul (2004a) has also discussed how this cosmology was related to the eschatology of the human soul (cf. Kaliff 1997; Goldhahn 1999a; Melheim 2001, 2004; Kaliff and Oestigaard 2004; Kristiansen and Larsson 2005). Another equally important outcome of this study is that a reliable ship chronology has been established for southern Scandinavia (Fig. 2.3), a chronology that was later confirmed and redefined by Ling using the shoredisplacement phenomenon in Bohuslän (Ling 2006).
22 Alternative interpretations of the BA world-view are absent, but there is still some discussion about the interpretation of the human beings depicted on the razors; are they humans conducting different ceremonies (Kaul 1998), or gods related to the Indo-European pantheon (Odner 2000; Larsson 2000; Fari 2003; Fredell 2003a; Kristiansen and Larsson 2005; Nistad 2005), or should we try to find other ways to understand these figures? According to Kaul’s (2004a) synthesis, religious concepts were rather constant during the entire BA (1600 to 500 cal. BC). During this timespan somewhat intense and important changes took place within the societies in southern Scandinavia, such as the shift from inhumation to cremation (Kaliff 1997; Goldhahn 1999a; Melheim 2001, 2004). Other important changes occurred within the economic and agricultural spheres (Welinder 1998; Ethelberg et al. 2000; Myhre and Øye 2002), offerings and deposits of bronze items (Larsson 1986; Johansen 1993; Jensen 1997), changes in the use of rock art (Wahlgren 2002); house building traditions (Borna-Ahlkvist 2002), etc. We also witness the expression of regional identities and cultural traits (cf. Skoglund 2005). These contrasts and the contradictions between different spheres in the “same” societies are rather hard to grasp, at least for me, but I think there is a great potential for our understanding of the rock art phenomenon if we try to relate them to each other. By excavating different rock art sites, and relating the findings to the newly established rock art chronology, it has become clear that several of the sites belonging to the southern traditions were used over a vast timespan. Some were in use for over a thousand years (Lødøen 2000; Bengtsson 2004a; Munkenberg 2004; Bengtsson et al. 2005). Wahlgren (2002, 2004) has reached the same results by analysing the rate and depth of the pecked images, their combinations and their placement in the landscape. This means that the same panels were used by several generations (30 to 50) of human beings for recurring ceremonies and rituals. Nowadays, there seems to be a general consensus that rock art was related to the ritual spheres of society. Sometimes this interpretation is taken for granted and not demonstrated by any archaeological analysis. In this context Marit Wold (2005: 526, 527) has presented an important critique, arguing that a vaguely defined notion such as “ritual” tends to lose much of its interpretative potential. She urges us to try and define what kind of rituals we have in mind; crisis rituals (such as war, sickness, natural disasters, death), transitional and life course rituals (birth, initiation, gender, weddings, death), or calendar rituals (annual rituals associated with agriculture, herding, different games and plants, the movement of the sun and moon), etc. Personally I welcome this critique and some recent analyses which try to detect different kinds of rituals in their interpretations of rock art. Here we shall just mention those which dealt with images of foot prints. Many of the latter Joakim Goldhahn are rather small, often only 15 to 26 cm in length. If they depicted “real” feet these rock images would correspond to sizes 23–38 in Sweden, which are usually found on children or young teenagers. This is a rather widespread pattern that has been documented in several parts of Scandinavia, such as Östergötland (Wahlgren 2002: 223–229) and Kronoberg (Skoglund 2005: 217–222) in Sweden, and Trøndelag in Norway (Nilsen 2005: 95–99; cf. Bradley 1999; Coles 1999; Thedéen 2004; Tilley 2004). This hypothesis can hardly be proved, but if we accept it as a starting point it could be interpreted as traces of different initiation ceremonies when young people started their journey to adolescence. Maybe the foot prints were pecked as a confirmation of their newly reached status and as insignia of their insight into the esoteric knowledge that was associated with these places and media (see Goldhahn 2004)? Shamanism and altered states of consciousness We find fewer analyses of the northern traditions associated with the Mesolithic and Neolithic hunter-gatherers that use the concept of religion (but see Helskog 1999; Lindgren 2001). Instead these studies are more often influenced by different “shamanistic” interpretations (Price 2001). Most of these studies take as their starting point the ethnology and history of religion of the Sámi people (Helskog 1999, 2004; Autio 2000; Fandén 2002; Lindgren 2001, 2002; Price 2001; Slinning 2005), or related groups in Siberia (Tilley 1991; Shumkin 2000; Price 2001; Lofterud 2002; Jordan 2003, 2004). In Finland, the Kalevala, compiled in the 19th century, has been a similar source of inspiration (Siikala 2002). Several researchers have also been inspired by anthropological studies from different parts of the world, as well as the “neuropsychological model” introduced by Lewis-Williams and Dowson in 1988 (e.g. Grønnesby 1998; Lahelma 2000, 2001, 2003, 2005; Goldhahn 2002b; Viste 2004). These shamanistic interpretations have aroused some severe criticism during the last few years (e.g. Carpelan 2000; Bahn 2001; Diethelm and Diethelm 2001), and in particular the Lewis-Williams/Dowson model has been put under fire (cf. Helvenston and Bahn 2003, 2004; Clottes 2004; Lewis-Williams 2004; Pearce 2004; Wilson 2004; Blundell 2004). Even though Lewis-Williams (2002a) has lately developed some different opinions about his model, these disagreements and debates have, strangely enough, not left any documented traces within the rock art research communities in the north. One of the problems with these interpretations, according to my altered state of reality, is that the shamanistic interpretations often tend to end where they ought to start. Shamanism is not a religion per se, but an ecstatic technique to reach different alternative states of consciousness (e.g. Hultkrantz; cf. Price 2001; Ingold 2000; Lewis-Williams 2002a). To strengthen these interpretations, it is not only
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Page 3 and 4: 18 Gender Gender studies have a lon
Page 5: 20 seems to have been “maritime
Page 9 and 10: 24 to be of great importance, and s
Page 11 and 12: 26 One reason for this scepticism i
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Page 15 and 16: 30 L. red) En lång historia… Fes
Page 17 and 18: 32 Innselset, S. M. 2005. Skålgrop
Page 19 and 20: 34 Milstreu, G. 2004b. Museets Arbe
Page 21: 36 Vogt, D. 2006. Helleristninger i

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