Helleristninger

Allan Krill's new interpretations of Scandinavian petroglyphs

In June 2021, while visiting the Alta helleristninger with my geology students, I realized that they could not have been pecked with pointed stones. Stone points are brittle and shatter when struck. We can see that the pecking tool was very sharp and accurately positioned, and kept its shape, strike after strike. The pointed tool must have been wrought iron, and the petroglyphs must be from the Iron Age, not the Stone Age.

Some of the petroglyph images are Viking-style longships, with crews of more than 30 men. I reasoned that it would require iron nails to build and repair such large boats. The petroglyph artists could travel on longships, and use spare boat nails for engraving. The petroglyph artists probably visited Alta in the summers, like I did.

Nailpoint engraving technique. Left: Longship with animal-head prow and a crew of 30 men. Right: Cervid (reindeer, moose, or elk.)

From studying 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 great distances like the modern wall-artist Banksy. There are no pecked petroglyphs in Finland, or in much of central Sweden, or in Aust-Agder Norway, simply because no petroglyph artists went there.

Click here to see images of petroglyphs at the sites on this map.

I think that Steinn Stikkmann invented the nailpoint technique, and the other three artists got the idea from him. There are runes on three of his earliest rock panels (Stuberg, Tessem, Kårstad), written with characters of the Elder Futhark alphabet. They were in use about 400 CE, so I think that gives us the age of the oldest petroglyphs. All four artists sometimes showed longships with animal-head prows, like Viking dragon-head prows. But Viking longships had sails. Since none of the hundreds of petroglyph boats show sails, the petroglyphs must have been made before 800 CE.

It's fun to consider the skills, styles, and motifs of the artists, and speculate about their artistic careers and travels.

Steinn Stikkmann discovered how to use a wrought iron nail as a 'stabbing tool' (stikkvåpen) to engrave relatively soft rocks in Melhus and Foss in central Norway. He practiced engraving by making round cup marks, and sets of matching shoe prints that never show a pattern of walking. He also tried engraving with a knife point on a few soft rock panels (Melhus, Hagen). His art is highly stylized and easy to recognize. He drew lots of boats, with two stems fore and two stems aft, like the Iron Age boat that was buried at Hjortspring, Denmark in about 350 BCE. But most of Stikkmann's boats were bigger and probably later versions of that design. He drew extremely thin horses, men with exaggerated calf muscles, long necks, and often with phalluses—sometimes an obvious phallus, but otherwise disguised as a possible knife, sword, stick, or misplaced line.
Stikkmann's petroglyph sites show where he traveled. From Gauldalen (Melhus and Foss) in central Norway he went to Selbustranda, and then to Stjørdal, where he probably stayed for a year or so, producing petroglyphs at over 20 sites (Leirfall, Fordal, Hegre, and others.) Then he went to Steinkjer, where he worked at a few sites (Bardal, Hammer, Tessem) and took a trip to Nordland (Tro, Tjøtta). He left central Norway and went by longship along the coast of western Norway, leaving petroglyphs at Gurskøy (Roskar), Nordfjord (Kårstad, Austrheim), Askvoll (Staveneset, Leirvåg), Hardangerfjord (Jondal, Bakke, Etne), and Stavanger (Ølbør, Sola). From Hardangerfjord he traveled inland to Telemark, engraving panels at Sporaneset and Skien (Gjerpen). He did not go by boat around southern Norway. That is why there are no petroglyphs west of Skagerak.
Stikkmann then spent many years working with the Bohus granite, east of Skagerak. He made petroglyphs on over 3000 rock panels there, which could be an average of 100 panels per year for 30 years. The Bohus granite was ideal for his petroglyphs. It is hard and fresh, with no layering and relatively few fractures. (Vigeland carved his monolith and statues out of Bohus granite.) Stikkmann took some long trips beyond the Bohus granite. He visited eastern Sweden near Stockholm, the southern tip of Sweden, and the islands Gotland and Bornholm. He must have been famous, because he was asked to make the artwork for the 'King's Grave' at Kivik. I suppose that he owned no house or property, and that people gave him room and board wherever he traveled.

Bårdr Båtmann lived in the Stavanger area. He traveled the least of the four artists. He probably met Stikkmann or saw his work at Sola (Ølbør), and was inspired to use Stikkmann's nailpoint technique to make petroglyphs himself. He also practiced by making cup marks and shoe prints. He engraved many boats similar to Stikkmann's, but very few other motifs, and nothing specially fanciful.

Ingi Innrisser had the widest variety of motifs and artistic styles, and traveled the farthest. He worked from Finnmark (Alta, Slettnes) in the north to Oslo (Ekeberg) in the south, and from Vingen and Ausevik in the west to Russia (Kanozero, Vyg, Onega) in the east. He never went to southwest Norway or southern Sweden. He often drew cervids — deer, reindeer, moose, or elk — and decorated their bodies with various patterns, including geometric designs. He showed the internal organs of cervids in Sweden (Glösa), and also on a trip in eastern Norway (Ekeberg, Åskollen), and one or more trips to Finnmark. I think he got the idea of drawing internal organs from Oddr Omrisser, and they probably traveled together sometimes. Innrisser made elaborate story pictures: the migration of 100 cervids at Vingen and 30 at Gamnes, Sámi people in Alta gathering domestic reindeer in corrals, men hunting cervids at Nämforsen, men on skis hunting cervids and bears at Vyg and Kanozero, and fleets of boats harpooning beluga whales in the White Sea (Vyg).

Oddr Omrisser was the last of the four main petroglyph artists. He had the curious habit of cluttering rock panels by carving new and inappropriate images on top of others. He did that on most of his own panels, and on Stikkmann-panels at Bardal and Hammer, on Båtmann-panels at Åmøy, and on Innrisser-panels at Alta, Nämforsen, and Bogge. He usually made outlines of his objects — of animals, of boats, of people, and even of the antlers of reindeer and the penises of men. He made things large and life size when possible. His images are typically overlapping and incomplete. Early in his career he made petroglyph paintings in central Sweden (Fångsjön, Hästskotjärn). He used red ocher pigment, probably mixed with oil or fat that penetrates the rock surface and is still visible after more than a thousand years.
Omrisser was a naturalist, and his animal drawings were usually highly naturalistic. It is possible to identify the species of his cervids, birds, fish, and whales. He usually drew a line for the mouth, but no eye, and often ignored the feet. He sometimes showed internal organs.
Omrisser used four different petroglyph techniques during his career. He used red ocher stain in Sweden. After that he mostly used the nailpoint technique, but on one panel of soft rocks at Hell he engraved using the point of a knife. 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. He made life-sized and life-like animal petroglyphs using that technique at seven coastal sites in Nordland (Leiknes, Nes, Valle, Sagelva, Mjønes, Åmøya, and Fykanvatn). Although Omrisser was the last of the four main petroglyph artists, in later Viking times artists carved runestones using the same techniques.

Petroglyphs cannot be dated directly, and that has been a problem in archaeology. People expect archaeologists to tell how old petroglyphs are, and everyone appreciates artifacts more if they are very old. Archaeologists adopted the 'shoreline dating' method and misuse it to give Stone Age dates. Shoreline dating gives the times that land areas were lifted above the sea, but those are geological ages — the oldest possible times of human activity along the coasts. Shoreline dating and Stone Age archaeology became firmly established by the claims of Anders Nummedal.
Nummedal was a school teacher with an education in geology. I contend that he made artifacts himself, and then said he found them on uplifted beach terraces from 1909 to 1939. Many of those artifacts are beach cobbles of poor quality stone. There are no rust stains or lichens on the knapped surfaces, showing that the stones are freshly knapped (chipped). His goal was to create a belief in Stone Age inhabitants, and to create an archaeology career for himself. He fabricated finds on uplifted Stone Age beaches at over 200 sites in central Norway, and over 60 sites in Finnmark. He wrote that he easily found knapped stones, and that it was his fate to discover Norway's prehistoric settlements.
Archaeologists were fooled by Nummedal's deceit for many years. Then they avoided noticing it, so as to not damage the reputation of archaeology and their own careers. I have explained Nummedal's hoaxes in detail at Hoaxyz.com, and translated his most influential book Le Finnmarkien. My goal is to encourage archaeology students to read Nummedal's work and be aware of his falsifications.

My alternative paradigm is shunned by Scandinavian archaeologists, whose paradigm maintains that petroglyphs were made by local inhabitants during rituals over thousands of years. New students can accept whatever paradigm is taught to them, but professionals whose expertise lies within a paradigm naturally try to avoid a paradigm shift. (I know this from research for my book about the geological paradigm shift to plate tectonics.) I am a meddling outsider, and archaeologists do not communicate with me or come to my lectures, and journal editors return my manuscripts. But as a professor, I want to document my work and advise students. The links below record my evidence and evolving hypotheses, including hypotheses that I have abandoned.

Allan Krill, Professor of Geology
allankrill@gmail.com