Anthropology

Judi Lynn

(160,451 posts) Sun Nov 10, 2019, 08:23 PM Nov 2019

'Stone age seafarers' depicted in newly discovered rock art in Sweden

Johanna Hillgren
Phys.org
Fri, 08 Nov 2019 12:00 UTC

South-west Sweden's best preserved rock painting has now been dated — it is from the late Stone Age. With the aid of new technologies, researchers at the University of Gothenburg have been able to reveal a number of previously unknown motifs that are no longer visible to the naked eye. The most important of these newly discovered motifs are boats with elk-head stems. This is the first time that these kinds of boats have been documented in southern or western Scandinavia and these motifs provide further evidence of the long-distance sea voyages undertaken by Stone Age maritime hunters.

Archaeology students from the University of Gothenburg have been visiting Tumlehed on excursions for many years. There — in the Gothenburg suburb of Torslanda, on the island of Hisingen and barely 15 kms from the center of the city — lies the best-preserved and most complex prehistoric rock painting in south-west Sweden.

Enhanced image

Archaeologist Bettina Schulz Paulsson was inspired to test the methods she wanted to use for a project on megalithic art in Europe (in a previous project she charted the origins of megalith graves and how they spread across Europe — a discovery that earlier this year was published in the high-ranking journal PNAS) on the rock painting in Tumlehed.

"I wanted to test the method I used for my last project at a site in my local area and it ended up generating spectacular results!" says Bettina Schulz Paulsson.

In recent years, what we know about prehistory has undergone quite a change thanks to ever-advancing technological development. Today, there are new technologies for documenting and analysing rock paintings that are many thousands of years old.

More:
https://www.sott.net/article/423644-Stone-age-seafarers-depicted-in-newly-discovered-rock-art-in-Sweden