Helleristninger

Allan Krill's new interpretations of Scandinavian petroglyphs

About three years ago I realized that petroglyphs (Norwegian: helleristninger) at Alta, northern Norway, could not have been pecked (chiseled) with pointed stones. Rock points are brittle and shatter when struck. One can see in the unweathered petroglyph panels that the tool for pecking could be accurately positioned, and its point did not change, strike after strike. The point must have been made of iron. A common motif of petroglyphs is the longship, and some have a crew of more than 30 men. I hypothesized that it would require iron nails to build and repair such large boats. The petroglyphs must be from the Iron Age, and the artists probably used spare boat nails for engraving. The oldest carbon 14-dated boat that has been found in Scandinavia is from about 350 BCE, and the oldest boat with iron nails is from about 300 CE.

Fresh (unweathered) petroglyphs at Alta

From studying published photographs and tracings of petroglyphs, I now think that only four artists—whom I call Steinn Stikkmann, Bårdr Båtmann, Ingi Innrisser, and Oddr Omrisser—made nearly all the petroglyphs in Norway, Sweden, and NW Russia. They traveled around like the modern wall-artist Banksy. There are no pecked petroglyphs in Finland, or in central Sweden, or in Aust-Agder Norway, simply because none of the artists went there.

I think that Steinn Stikkmann invented the nailpoint pecking technique, and the other three artists got the idea from him. He began by engraving soft rocks in central Norway. To practice, especially in the beginning, he made lots of circular 'cup marks' and pairs of matching shoe prints. There are runes on two of his rock panels, written with characters of the Elder Futhark alphabet. They were in use about 400 CE, so I think that gives us the date of the earliest petroglyphs. All four artists sometimes showed longships with animal-head prows, like Viking longships. But no petroglyphs show masts or sails, so sails had not yet been invented. Oddr Omrisser was the last of the four artists. He had the curious habit of spoiling rock panels by carving new and inappropriate images on top of others. He did that on most of his own panels, and on a few of the other artists' panels as well.

It's fun to speculate about the order of the artists' works and travels. I think that Steinn Stikkmann's earliest petroglyphs were at Foss in Gauldalen. There he made mostly cup marks. He engraved a few boats using the point of a knife, not pecking. He went on foot and boat to Selbustranda, and then to Stjørdal and Steinkjer. He probably stayed in the Stjørdal area for a year or so, because he worked many sites there. Then he went by boat and by foot via Okkenhaug to Steinkjer, and took a quick trip to Tro in Nordland. He went by longship around western Norway leaving petroglyphs at Roskar (Gurskøy), Staveneset (Askvoll), Kårstad, Jondal, Etne, and Sola. He went from Hardangerfjord inland up to Telemark, engraving at Sporaneset and Skien. He did not go by boat around the coast of southern Norway, which would have been faster. He spent most of his life working in the area Østfold (Norway) - Bohuslän (Sweden). He made petroglyphs at over 2700 sites there. Maybe he averaged 100 sites a year for over 27 years. I suppose he had no family or property, and his art was so appreciated that people gave him room and board wherever he went. He traveled to southeastern Sweden, as well as the islands Gotland and Bornholm. We can be sure that he was quite famous, because he was given the honor of making the artwork for the 'King's Grave' of Kivik.

Bårdr Båtmann was from the Stavanger area. He traveled the least of the four artists. His boats look much like Stikkmann's, but he engraved almost nothing other than boats. He probably met Stikkmann or saw Stikkmann's work at Sola, and was inspired to make petroglyphs himself.

Ingi Innrisser had the widest variety of motifs and artistic styles, and traveled the farthest. He worked from Finnmark in the north to Oslo in the south, and from Vingen and Ausevik in the west to the White Sea and Lake Onega in the east. He never visited southwest Norway or southern Sweden. He mostly drew deer, and often decorated their bodies with geometric designs. He showed some internal organs of deer at Glösa, and in Oslo, Drammen, and sites along two major rivers of central Norway. He made story pictures depicting Sámi people herding reindeer in corrals at Alta, deer migrations at Gamnes and Vingen, and bear hunting, moose hunting, and beluga whaling in Russia.

Oddr Omrisser used four different petroglyph techniques during his career. I think he began by using red ocher paint on rock panels at Fångsjön, Hästskotjärn and many other sites in central Sweden. He was interested in anatomy and naturalistic art. He drew outlines of animals, but sometimes also the internal organs. He drew mouths, but not eyes, and often ignored the feet. Innrisser got the idea of drawing internal organs from Omrisser's work. After Omrisser learned the nailpoint technique, he used that most, but he often left animals only partially engraved. He also tried engraving by knifepoint. Late in his career he discovered that he could quickly and easily make large petroglyphs by scraping away black lichen on the surfaces of white granites. His animal petroglyphs using that technique are highly naturalistic and life-sized.

I think Omrisser was the last of the four artists, and after he died, no one continued making petroglyphs.

Petroglyphs cannot be dated directly. The 'shoreline dating method' used by Scandinavian archaeologists gives old ages, which are desired by archaeologists and the general public. That method has been misused. It gives the times when land areas were lifted above the sea, but those are the maximum possible ages of human activity, not the likely ages. Shoreline dating became firmly established by the claims of geologist Anders Nummedal. I contend that he made his own false artifacts and 'found' them on uplifted beach terraces from 1909 to 1939. His goal was to create a false belief in Stone Age Norwegian inhabitants, and to create an archaeology career for himself. He found artifacts at over 200 sites in western central Norway, and over 60 sites in Finnmark. He wrote that he easily found chipped stones on those terraces, and that it was his fate to discover Norway's prehistoric settlements. Archaeologists were fooled by Nummedal's deceit at first. Then they avoided noticing it, so as to not spoil their own careers. I have scrutinized Nummedal's hoaxes and discussed them at Hoaxyz.com. I translated his magnum opus from French, so that it will be more widely read by Scandinavian archaeologists, who should now openly discuss his findings.

My new paradigm confutes Stone Age archaeology, in which petroglyphs record the existence of local inhabitants and their rituals over thousands of years. New beginners can work within a new paradigm, but established professionals, who have publications, cannot. They do not communicate with me or come to my lectures, and their journal editors return my manuscripts. But as a professor, I want to document my work. People will eventually help me to test my hypotheses. The links below describe my discoveries with links to internet sources, and show how my hypotheses have evolved since October 2022.

Allan Krill, Professor of Geology
allankrill@gmail.com