Stone Age artists used rock art as a billboard

1/4. Forty-eight Stone Age petroglyphs include images of a reindeer herd, shown with all the animals moving in the same direction. It’s possible that the artist was trying to say that reindeer migrated this way 7,000 years ago. (Photo: Jan Magne Gjerde, Tromsø Museum - The University Museum)

 
A series of Norwegian Stone Age rock drawings suggests petroglyphs provided information, not art.

Six to seven thousand years ago, the road system in Norway was essentially non-existent. That meant Stone Age residents mainly used waterways as they moved from place to place, especially on the hunt.

One area called Gamnes, located between the outlet of a river and the mouth of a fjord that opens onto the Barents Sea, is particularly rich with rock art. There are petroglyphs of reindeer and moose, in herds and alone, with and without young animals.

In general, animals depicted in rock carvings are shown moving in all different directions. But in Gamnes, most of the reindeer have been drawn with their muzzles pointed in the same way.

“The reindeer are following the fjord inland. This may mean that the artist was trying to depict a migration route,” says Anja Roth Niemi, who is project manager for archaeological excavations for the University Museum in Tromsø, UiT – The Arctic University of Norway.

Niemi believes the drawings showed where the animals were located and how they moved around in the area. In short, these were vital messages from one hunter to another.

“Today, reindeer migrate with their calves in the autumn and move from the coast inland. It may have been like that in the Stone Age, too,” she says. [...] ScienceNordic


Reference: Anja Roth Niemi, Janne Oppvang og Erik Kjellman: Bergkunst på Gamnes, Sør-Varanger k. Avklaring av omfang (Trinn 1) Id. 214096. Arkeologiske rapporter 2015, Tromsø Museum - Universitetsmuseet.


Actualización: Hallan petroglifos en Noruega que podrían haber servido como carteles informativos para los cazadores
Hace seis o siete mil años, el sistema de caminos en Noruega era esencialmente inexistente. Eso significaba que los residentes de la Edad de Piedra utilizaban principalmente los cursos de agua cuando querían moverse de un lugar a otro, especialmente para cazar.

Una zona llamada Gamnes (Noruega), situada entre la desembocadura de un río y la boca de un fiordo que se abre hacia el mar de Barents, es particularmente rica en arte rupestre. Hay petroglifos de renos y alces, en rebaños y solos, con y sin animales jóvenes.
En general, los animales representados en los grabados de las rocas se muestran en movimiento, en diferentes direcciones. Pero en Gamnes, la mayoría de los renos se han dibujado con el hocico apuntando en la misma dirección...