Picturing the Bronze Age (Swedish Rock Art - Picturing the Bronze Age

Published in the United Kingdom in 2015 by
OXBOW BOOKS
10 Hythe Bridge Street, Oxford OX1 2EW

and in the United States by
OXBOW BOOKS
908 Darby Road, Havertown, PA 19083

Oxbow Books and the individual authors 2015

Hardcover Edition: ISBN 978-1-78297-879-4
Digital Edition: ISBN 978-1-78297-880-0; Mobi Edition: ISBN 9781782978817; PDF Edition: ISBN 978-1-78297-882-4

A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Picturing the Bronze Age / edited by Peter Skoglund, Johan Ling and Ulf Bertilsson.
1 online resource. -- (Swedish rock art series ; 3)
Includes bibliographical references.
Description based on print version record and CIP data provided by publisher; resource not viewed.
ISBN 978-1-78297-880-0 (epub) -- ISBN 978-1-78297-881-7 (prc) -- ISBN 978-1-78297-882-4 ( pdf) -- ISBN 978-1-78297-879-4 1.
Petroglyphs--Europe. 2. Rock painting--Europe. 3. Art, Prehistoric--Europe. 4. Bronze age--Europe. I. Skoglund, Peter, 1967- editor
of compilation. II. Ling, Johan, 1968- editor of compilation. III. Bertilsson, Ulf, editor of compmilation.
GN803
709.0113094--dc23

2015015822

The printing of this book is financed by The Swedish Foundation of Humanities and Social Sciences (Stiftelsen Riksbankens Jubileumsfond)

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the publisher in writing.

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Front cover: Catarina Bertilsson () Three palstaves associated with cupmarks and foot images at Jrrestad, RA 13, Scania.

Contents

Johan Ling, Peter Skoglund and Ulf Bertilsson

Ulf Bertilsson

Lynne Bevan

Richard Bradley

R. Fbregas Valcarce and C. Rodrguez-Relln

Louise Felding

Andrew Meirion Jones

Johan Ling and Michael Rowlands

Alberto Marretta

Jarl Nordbladh

Umberto Sansoni

Manuel Santos-Estvez and Alejandro Gimil-Faria

Peter Skoglund

Andreas Toreld

Contributors

ULF BERTILSS ON

Swedish Rock Art Research Archives, Vitlycke Museum, Vitlycke 2, 457 93 Tanumshede, Sweden

LYNNE BEVA N

Pembrey, Carmarthenshire, Wales SA16 0TY, UK

RICHAR D BRA DLEY

Department of Archaeology, University of Reading, Whiteknights, PO Box 217, Reading RG6 6AB, UK

R. FBR EGAS VALCAR CE

Facultade de Xeografa e Historia, University of Santiago de Compostela, Praza da Universidade, n 1, 15782 Santiago de Compostela, Spain

LOUISE FELDING

Vejle museums, Kulturmuseet, Spinderigade 11, 7100 Vejle, Denmark

ALEJANDRO GIMIL-FAR IA

Laboratorio de Patrimonio, Paleoambiente e Paisaxe (LPPP), Universidade de Santiago de Compostela (USC), Edificio Monte da Condesa, s/s, Campus Sur, 157 82 Santiago de Compostela, Spain

JOHAN LING

Swedish Rock Art Research Archives, Vitlycke Museum, Vitlycke 2, 457 93 Tanumshede, Sweden

ALBERTO MARR ETTA

Parco Archeologico Comunale di SeradinaBedolina, Via Nazionale, 1250 yy Capo di Ponte (Bs), Italy

ANDREW MEIRION JONES

Department of Archaeology, University of Southampton, Avenue Campus, Highfield, Southampton SO17 1BF, UK

JAR L NORDBLADH

Department of Historical Studies, University of Gothenburg, Box 200, S-405 30 Gothenburg, Sweden

C. RODRGUEZ-RELLN

Facultade de Xeografa e Historia, University of Santiago de Compostela, Praza da Universidade, n 1, 15782 Santiago de Compostela, Spain

MICHAEL ROWLANDS

Department of Anthropology, University College London, 14 Taviton Street, London WC1H 0BW, UK

MANUEL SANTOS-ESTVEZ

Grupo de Investigacin Prehistoria Social y Econmica, Instituto de Historia, C/Albasanz 2628, Madrid 28037 Madrid, Spain

UMBERTO SANSONI

Dipartimento Valcamonica e Lombardia Ccsp, Via Sommavilla, 1225050 Niardo (Bs), Italia

PETER SKOGLUND

Swedish Rock Art Research Archives, Vitlycke museum, Vitlycke 2, 457 93 Tanumshede, Sweden

ANDREAS TORELD

Stiftelsen fr dokumentation av Bohuslns hllristningar, Vitlycke museum, Vitlycke 2, Tegneby 5, 457 93 Tanumshede, Sweden

The Swedish Rock Art Research Archives and Picturing the Bronze Age an introduction

Johan Ling, Peter Skoglund and Ulf Bertilsson

The Swedish Rock Art Research Archives (SHFA) was established in 2006 as an infrastructure to further documentation and research on Swedish rock art. The archive strives to store and present the existing rock art documentation for public access and for research. It has developed into a national archive at the University of Gothenburg, largely funded by Riksbankens Jubileumsfond (an independent foundation funded by the Swedish Central Bank), and from contributions made by the Swedish National Heritage Boards Forskning och Utveckling (FoU, which translates as Research and Development) and the Swedish Research Council. The funding was dedicated to the construction and establishment of a new database for all rock art research, thus allowing for a new online infrastructure of rock art documentation that could be accessed worldwide.

The initiative was undertaken as a consequence of the strong tradition of rock art documentation in Sweden and the other Nordic countries. As far back in history as 1627 the famous rock art Skomakaren at the Backa in Brastad site in Bohusln (at that time belonging to Norway, but since 1658 in Sweden), was documented and depicted by the Norwegian priest Peder Alfssn. During the seventeenth century a Swedish national survey (Rannsakningarna) took place, and the rock arts at Boglsa (Enkping) and Glsa (Jmtland) were documented and depicted. Two centuries later, in the nineteenth century, the curious rock arts in Bohusln were subject to a widespread documentation campaign. Thanks to this, there is already a large quantity of valuable documentation available. In this particular collection there are more than 100,000 documents, ranging from depictions made on paper, rubbings (frottage), tracings on plastic sheets, and castings, to photographs, maps, and descriptions.

Since 2007 the Swedish Rock Art Research Archives has undertaken an extensive survey of rock art documentation collected in museums, by researchers and scholars, and in private collections, totalling approximately 80 institutions to this date. The material is scanned and registered in SHFA Archive and images are added to the image database SHFA Images. Already a large amount of material deriving from a variety of institutions has been digitalised. By January 2015, digital files amounted to about 120,000 of which 11,000 have now been made publicly available online at www.shfa.se. There is also information available in English.

The infrastructure includes the website with image archive, database, and other rock art information, and also links to the Swedish National Heritage Boards Archaeological Sites and Monuments database (FMIS) with pertinent maps, and other search engines, e.g. Samsk i Kringla, K-Samsk, and Europeana. The latter are large search engines to which both national and international institutions link. Additional maps are available including Eniro and Google Maps. Since its beginning, the web portal has had approximately 130,000 visitors yearly.