Rock art in Central Norway - Challenges with Chronology and Rock art Narratives

Abstract

This paper is about two rock art sites in Central Norway which is analysed in order to shed light on how complex and dynamic the creation of rock art can be within the same site. The sites are analysed and compared on how the figures are made, how they are positioned on the panel, and how types/styles are represented at two different sites from this area. The results show that the panels are greatly varied, and the animals presented are very heterogeneous. This can imply several different usages of the different panels throughout time, but also several different usages of the same panel. This may also have affected the narratives told throughout the single panels where adding a new image could have changed the whole story. In conclusion, there is reason to state that we have to be very careful when we interpret rock art panels. We do not know if the images documented are a part of one or several narratives. In such cases, we cannot treat one panel as one entity with one story, and we cannot expect the images to represent the same age. We need to acknowledge that one panel might be a complex medium of many narratives throughout time.