Maarten van Hoek The Geography of Cup-and-Ring ... - StoneWatch

Each country, however, has a remarkable concentration of cup-and-ring
motifs. The outer circles of the concentric pie-charts in Fig. 91 clearly
show that the major Norwegian group mainly occurs in Hordaland (area
2; area 1 being the rest of Norway) and that the major Swedish group
is found in Bohuslän (area 4; area 3 being the rest of Sweden), both
expressing a marked preference for the westerly oriented coasts.
There are, however, also smaller but important concentrations near the
town of Norrköping (area 5) and north of Lake Mälar.
Although 40 % occurs in Norway and 60 % in Sweden (Fig 91; single piechart),
the biggest concentration of cup-and-rings is found in the
Hordaland region of Norway, where we find 26 % of all examples
(within the study area) east of the village of Etne (Fig. 91; frame 2).
In this small area we moreover find the site with the biggest
concentration of cup-and-rings in the study area, the remarkable rock
at Stöle, where 27 examples are found. Most of the other Norwegian
cup-and-ring sites are found in the Østfold district, which culturally
forms part of the Bohuslän rock art region of Sweden.
Simultaneously, the inner circles of the concentric pie-charts in Fig.
91 show that simple cup-and-ring art (cupules with one or two
concentric rings) predominates in both Norway and Sweden. Complex
cup-and-ring art is scarce in relative and absolute terms. The
distribution maps in these chapters often show the biggest number of
concentric rings around a cupule per site and it proves that there are
only two areas with a higher amount of complex cup-and-ring art. One
area is the remarkable concentration near Etne, Hordaland, Norway,
where also the biggest number of rings around a cupule in the study
area has been reported: eight rings around a small cupule at Flote (Fig.
147.A). The other area forms a band through Sweden, running from the
west coast of Bohuslän, where the emphasis lies, to the lesser
concentrations at east coast; Norrköping and Lake Mälar.
* 1.5.1.2 The general distribution pattern strongly indicates a
coastal preference for the siting of cup-and-ring motifs, although the
coastal character is not always evident nowadays. In present day
Norway, most cup-and-ring sites are seemingly found far inland. For
instance, a small group of cup-and-ring sites on the Sorfjorden, a
tributary to the famous Hardangerfjorden, is situated more than 90 km
inland as the crow flies (Fig. 101). Yet it has a coastal position, being
located on the lower slopes of the west facing walls of the deeply
penetrating salt water fjord. Similar situations occur in Sweden, where
many rock art sites are in a landlocked position nowadays, whereas
their original location was distinctly coastal (Burenhult 1980; Coles
1990: 43).
It therefore proves that one of the most important factors of rock art
distribution across the Scandinavian peninsula is the changing level of
the sea, effectuated by the Ice Ages. The enormous weight of the
M. van HOEK: 119
GEOGRAPHY