The earth, the sky and the water's edge: changing beliefs in the earlier prehistory of Northern Europe.
There have been two kinds of study of ancient beliefs in the earlier prehistory of Scandinavia. One considers the impact of ideas which originated further to the south and east. It considers a cosmology based on the movements of the sun. A second tradition develops out of the ethnography of the circumpolar region and combines archaeological evidence with the beliefs of hunter-gatherers. It postulates the existence of a three-tier cosmology in which people could communicate between different worlds. This paper argues that certain elements that are thought to epitomize the 'Southern' system might have been suggested by existing ideas within Scandinavia itself. Both sets of beliefs came to influence one another, but they became increasingly distinct towards the end of the Bronze Age. This paper reconsiders the rock carvings, metalwork and mortuary cairns of that period and the Iron Age in relation to the process of religious change.
Keywords: Cosmology; ritual; Bronze Age; Scandinavia; rock art; decorated metalwork
Introduction: earlier prehistoric religions in Scandinavia
From south to north
The Danish archaeologist Flemming Kaul describes the study of prehistoric religion as 'barely feasible' (1998: 11), yet his book Ships on Bronzes is one of the most successful investigations in this field. It is hard to reconstruct ancient beliefs without the help of texts, but his answer is to study the visual imagery of the Bronze Age. He pays particular attention to the scenes on decorated metalwork. He also compares those images with the pictures carved on rocks in Scandinavia. In his interpretation many of them portray the passage of the sun across the sky (Kaul [19], [20]; Skoglund [37]).
The evidence studied by Kaul extends from northern Germany to sub-Arctic Norway and to some extent its distribution overlaps with images in a different style of rock art (Fig. 1). This 'Northern Tradition' is interpreted according to another source of ideas. Traditional accounts refer to a three-tier cosmology in the circumpolar zone, and the pictures place an emphasis on hunting and fishing (Helskog [15]; Jordan [18]). Other elements find echoes in local ethnography: the depiction of drums like those used by the indigenous inhabitants (Helskog [14]), and the importance attached to a sacred animal, the bear (Helskog [16]). The relationship between such sources and archaeology is discussed in detail by Helskog ([14], [15], [16]), Zvelebil ([45]) and Zvelebil and Jordan (1999).
Graph: Figure 1 The distributions of the Northern and Southern Traditions of Scandinavian rock art with sites mentioned in the text (after Bradley [6]). Except in Western Norway, the main density of sites in each tradition is outside the area of overlap.
Comparatively few scholars have investigated the two traditions together. Researchers in south Scandinavia generally look towards central Europe to interpret the ideas expressed by the decorated metalwork. Those in northern Scandinavia look eastwards to Finland and Russia where ancient images can be interpreted with the help of ethnographic evidence. The relationship between the two systems of belief is less often discussed, yet it is vital to any study of religious change.
The Northern Tradition
In a recent paper Peter Jordan describes 'The Northern Mind':
[A] distinctive 'northern cosmology' exhibits remarkable continuity around the entire circumpolar zone ... .[It] includes ... conceptual models of the world that enable 'shamanic' soul-flight to other levels of existence, including a lower under world of the dead and an upper world of spirits.
(Jordan [18]: 30)
The Northern Tradition of rock art began before its southern counterpart, and at Alta in the Arctic it extended from about 4200 bc (Helskog [14], [15]). A few panels can be dated because they show artefacts that occur in settlements and graves, but for the most part their chronology depends on their position on the coast. As the land rose and the sea retreated during the postglacial period, new areas of rock were exposed and became available for painting or carving. The study of shoreline displacement establishes the earliest date at which these images could be made. Drawing on ethnographic evidence, Knut Helskog ([15]) suggests that they were placed at the water's edge because that was where all three levels of the cosmos came into contact. Here the land met the sea and people could access the lower world.
The Southern Tradition
The Southern Tradition occurs in two media. From north Germany to the south of Sweden it is exemplified by decorated metalwork (Fig. 2). Its distribution overlaps with a series of rock carvings which extend as far north as sub-Arctic Norway (Kaul [19], [21]). They have a distinctive repertoire which includes drawings of ships, animals, humans, weapons and carts (Malmer [29]). More enigmatic designs feature foot soles, together with 'wheel crosses' and other circular figures which are interpreted as drawings of the sun. Most of the depictions of ships are along the coast or by lakes and rivers. Here all these motifs can be found together. Further inland the remaining design elements occur singly or in combination. A few portray types of artefacts that can be dated, but for the most part the chronology of the rock art depends on comparison with the motifs on decorated metalwork, the development of which was worked out in the nineteenth century. It was made between about 1700 and 500 bc. Recent work has tested this scheme against the evidence of shoreline displacement. Both methods gave similar results (Ling [27]).
Graph: Figure 2 The distribution of the Southern Tradition of Scandinavian rock art (after Bradley [6] and Capelle [8]) compared with the main concentration of 'Nordic' bronze razors with ship imagery (after Kaul [19] and Skoglund [37]).
Again this material must be understood in a wider setting. The characteristic imagery of the Southern Tradition is usually explained by the relationship between northern and central Europe (Kristiansen [23]; Kristiansen and Larsson [25]). A large amount of metalwork was used in Scandinavia but it is thought that it was made from imported raw material (Ling et al. [28]). There are stylistic links between Nordic artefacts and those found further to the south. For that reason the drawings of boats have been seen as a reference to seaborne trade.
New interpretations
Zvelebil and Jordan (1999) and Zvelebil ([45]) have used circumpolar ethnography to shed light on the prehistory of the north. They draw attention to the placing of prehistoric cemeteries on islands and an association between ships, the sea and the dead. The indigenous inhabitants consider that certain rivers lead towards the underworld. It is not clear whether such ideas were shared over the entire distribution of the Northern Tradition. On the other hand, coastal cemeteries and burials in boats are found at sites in south Scandinavia, and it seems possible that beliefs of this kind had a wider distribution before the adoption of agriculture (Skaarup [36]).
There have been more changes to interpretations of the Southern Tradition. Kristian Kristiansen ([23]) has suggested that bronze was introduced to northern communities in exchange for furs and perhaps seal oil. There are cairns on small islands along the coasts of the Atlantic and the Baltic Sea. He suggests that they provided seamarks for sailors engaged in long-distance voyages. Travel plays another role in discussions of the Southern Tradition. Following the work of Mary Helms ([13]), Kristiansen considers that journeys and the acquisition of exotic knowledge provided a way for chiefs to increase their power. Rock art depicting exotic kinds of vessels may have commemorated their visits to distant areas (Kristiansen [24]). Similarly, Johan Ling ([27]) suggests that concentrations of carved ships on the coast record the places from which expeditions had embarked.
Relationships between the systems
The initial phase
Ships are depicted in the southern style of rock art from the time that bronze artefacts first appear (Kaul [19]). While these objects are common in Denmark and the south of Sweden, they are distributed over a much wider area. It may be no accident that this particular medium was used, for in the north petroglyphs had been made for a long time. In south Scandinavia, on the other hand, they are not found before 1700 bc.
New research suggests that some of the first drawings of boats in the southern style are towards the northern limit of its distribution. It was here that the distributions of the two styles of rock art overlapped. Some of the vessels resemble examples in the Arctic, but others look like those recorded further to the south. They are assigned to the beginning of the Bronze Age, but a few may be even older. For that reason Kalle Sognnes ([38], [39]: 123–5) suggests that the style of rock carving associated with south Scandinavia could have originated in Norway.
Like the rock carvings, Bronze Age funerary monuments change their character from one region to another (Fig. 3). On one level they can be regarded as an extension of a distribution that reaches from Denmark into Sweden. In the south there are more round barrows, but in the north there are cairns. Some of these monuments follow the coastline, but, like the images created in the Southern Tradition of rock art, others are found further inland.
Graph: Figure 3 The distribution of cairns in Scandinavia. Many are known to be of Bronze Age date, but the unexcavated examples could also date to the Early and Roman Iron Ages (the periods in which the latest rock art was created). Information from Kulturarvsstyrelsen (Copenhagen), Riksantikvarieämbetet (Stockholm) and Riksantikvaren (Oslo). Similar cairns in Finland are not included in the map.
Along the Atlantic and the Baltic cairns were often built near the water's edge. Others were on offshore islands. Some of the monuments are associated with rock art in the southern style. In western Norway a few monuments cover decorated coffins or 'cists' (Jellestad Syvertsen 2002). These carvings show ships, circles and foot soles, but the designs were not organized with the same formality as the panels in the open air.
Some of the cairns in western Norway share another characteristic. Their structure makes an explicit reference to their position on the coast. They include selected deposits of beach pebbles and sand (Nordenborg Myhre 2004: 214–15). The emphasis on the sea becomes even more pronounced in the northernmost part of their distribution, for these structures are found further up the coast than the southern style of rock art (Baudou [1]). There are very few in inland areas, although Bronze Age artefacts have been found there. The same is true in south-west Finland (Lavento [26]). Hans Bolin ([3]) has argued that the coastal cairns in northern Sweden and Norway should be treated as a distinctive phenomena. They may not have been conceived as copies of the monuments in the south. Indeed, Lars Forsberg ([10]) suggests that they may have been built at least as early as their counterparts in southern Scandinavia and in regions in which local hunter-gatherers already practised a distinctive metal industry of their own.
Evidence of sequence
Although the chronologies of individual artefacts or images have been established, more general trends can easily be overlooked. They are especially important in studying how religious ideas changed in the course of the Bronze Age (which is divided into two main periods: an early phase from 1700 to 1100 bc and a late phase extending to 500 bc).
Like other researchers, Flemming Kaul has suggested that the earliest drawings of ships – whether rock carvings or decorated artefacts – were inspired by the role of these vessels in bringing bronze to northern Europe (2004: ch. 9). He suggests that it was only later that depictions of boats acquired a special significance. That seems doubtful because they have equivalents outside Scandinavia. The Nebra sky disc from southern Germany shows two ships, the sun, moon and stars. It dates from about 1600 bc (Meller and Bertemes [30]). Its interpretation remains controversial. It has been treated as a realistic map of the heavens, but Pásztor and Roslund provide a more satisfactory explanation that it was intended as 'a mythical representation of the cosmos' (2007: 276). Boats and wheel crosses also feature on the Wismar horn found in the north of the country; its exact age is disputed, but Kristiansen and Larsson date it to about 1500 bc (2005: 195). These artefacts raise the possibility that the association between ships and the sun was established early in the Bronze Age.
During the Late Bronze Age a quite different sequence is documented by Kaul ([19]) who has studied the influence of ideas from the Urnfield complex of Central Europe. Two elements are particularly significant: the use of cremation burial, rather than inhumation; and the large number of decorated artefacts which illustrate the daily cycle of the sun. In his scheme 'day ships' carry the sun from left to right; that is how it crosses the sky in the northern hemisphere. Depictions of 'night ships', on the other hand, illustrate its passage as it returns to its point of departure between dawn and dusk. In this case it travels beneath the sea. His scheme is further elaborated by Kristiansen and Larsson ([25]: fig. 167).
Contrasts between different media
So far this account has treated images in both these media together. Now it is time to reflect on the differences between the rock carvings and decorated metalwork.
The Late Bronze Age cosmology studied by Kaul ([19], [20]) is illustrated by decorated artefacts which refer to the sky and the sea. He compares this scheme with rock art in the Southern Tradition. There is no doubt that they share elements in common, but it is equally important to emphasize that some of the images depicted in the open air do not feature on the objects which provide the focus of his study. The metalwork lacks any designs that refer directly to the land. Thus hunting scenes, domestic livestock, footprints and ploughs are never represented. The only animals are those that accompany the sun on its journey, and the only humans are the crews on board the boats. It follows that the decorated bronzes describe the relationship between the sky and the sea, while some of the rock carvings of the same period refer to the sea, the sky and the land (Fig. 4; Bradley [4]). Thus they represent three layers rather than two. This observation applies to the carved rocks on the coast or beside rivers and lakes, for they are the only places where such pictures can be found. The petroglyphs further inland make little reference to ships.
Graph: Figure 4 Contrasts between rock art in the Southern Tradition and the images on decorated metalwork. They are illustrated by three widely distributed motifs taken from the rock carvings: a wheel cross; two foot soles; and a ship with its crew.
The relationship between these media may have been particularly complex. Glob ([11]) argued that in Denmark decorated razors became more common as rock carvings went out of use (see also Capelle [8] for sites in North Germany). The same may be true in Scania. The images in the two genres may have had separate meanings, and over time decorated objects seem to have assumed an increasing significance. On the other hand, concentrations of petroglyphs can be found far beyond the region in which ships are commonly portrayed on bronze artefacts (Kaul [21]), and here the open air sites obviously retained their importance. For the most part designs that depict the earth, the sky and the sea are more common towards the north, while those with a ship carrying the sun were preferred in regions to the south. That contrast is a particular feature of the Late Bronze Age.
Flemming Kaul considers that the images in these media were employed in different ways (1998: ch. 11). He argues that the metal objects recorded a mythological narrative. The fact that it was most commonly expressed on razors suggests that they were given to young men on their initiation as adults; it was then that the meanings of the pictures were explained. These artefacts retained their importance for a long time afterwards as they were eventually deposited with the dead.
Rock carvings, on the other hand, were where public rituals took place. While the images on metalwork were very small and had to be viewed by one person at a time, the decorated outcrops could accommodate a considerable audience. It seems possible that the contents of these carvings reflect their positions in the landscape. Many included footprints and wheel crosses, but for the most part the drawings of ships were made where the sun could be observed in relation to a body of water.
In some cases there are files of carved footprints which lead to, or from, the decorated rock. In a few cases they follow a path between a cairn and a bog or a pool. At Leirfall in Norway a similar arrangement of footprints defines a route leading uphill to a panel of rock art decorated in the same style as local burial cists (Sognnes [41]). To judge from their sizes, these footprints were those of young people rather than adults. Like the decorated razors, such sites may have played a part in the rites of passage.
There are other indications of how they were used. Whether or not they were near water, there are places where pairs of foot soles are directed towards the positions of the rising or setting sun. Perhaps they choreographed observations that were made at the turning points of the year (Bradley [5]: 195–7; Mörner [31]). There is evidence that fires were lit on the decorated surface or around the base of the rock. Excavation has identified layers of charcoal and burnt stone (Bengtsson [2]). This suggests that some of the carvings were the setting for public spectacles.
Changing beliefs in Scandinavian prehistory
This paper began by drawing a contrast between two systems of belief, one of them associated with the circumpolar zone and the other with south Scandinavia. It has also commented on the evidence of change over time. To what extent did the contents of these traditions influence one another?
Northern influences
Several important features are shared between the Northern and Southern Traditions, but in every case it is likely that they originated in the circumpolar zone.
The first is the selection of rock art as a medium for recording visual information. Apart from the cup marks on the capstones of Neolithic tombs, it lacks any precedent in south Scandinavia. In the north, however, a tradition of painting and carving already had a long history. Its chronology is uncertain and it not known when this style went out of use, but there are a few sites where designs in both traditions are juxtaposed (Nyland [33]; Sognnes [40]; Wrigglesworth [44]). For example, the extensive panels at Alta and Nämforsen include drawings of boats of south Scandinavian type. Moreover, some of the earliest carvings in the Southern Tradition are found in the area where the distributions of the two styles overlap (Sognnes [38], [39]).
A second observation is that south Scandinavian rock art features the land, the sea and the sky, while the decorated metalwork is primarily concerned with the relationship between the sun and the water. It may be significant that these artefacts are found over a smaller area than the distribution of rock carvings; most of the metalwork comes from Denmark or Scania, while the carved rocks extend into middle Sweden and western Norway. It is tempting to suggest that the more complex structure of the rock art was influenced by an existing belief in a three-tier cosmology. In the ethnographic record this is one of the features of the circumpolar zone.
Another was the special significance of the shoreline as the meeting place between different worlds. That characteristic is shared with the most complex rock carvings in south Scandinavia. They are the examples which depict the sea as well as the land and the sky. Recent fieldwork by Johan Ling ([27]) has shown that major panels of rock art in Sweden were closer to the water's edge than had previously been thought. The siting of the petroglyphs at Himmelstalund also recalls ethnographic evidence from the Arctic, as these sites were not on the shoreline but were associated with a series of cataracts (Bradley [6]: 171–3).
Such connections are not restricted to visual imagery. Cairns and round barrows were equally important. It is clear that there were differences between the distributions of these monuments from one region to another. In Denmark and the south of Sweden they occur in most parts of the landscape, but further to the north they are closely associated with the Atlantic and Baltic coasts. Here their chronology may extend into the Early Iron Age. At its full extent the distribution of these cairns approaches the Arctic Circle (Baudou [1]). Despite the evidence for settlement in inland areas, few of these structures are found there (Bolin [3]; Forsberg [10]). Other cairns occur on offshore islands. On one level this recalls the importance of the shoreline in circumpolar cosmology. On another, it emphasizes the link between the sea and the dead. Some of those islands would have been too small to support a resident population, for the sea level was higher in the Bronze Age. The implication is obvious. If bodies were buried there, they must have been taken across the water. That recalls the connection between boats and the dead in the ethnographic record.
It also provides an alternative to Kristian Kristiansen's idea that the cairns were intended as seamarks for travellers from the south. A recent study by Johan Callmer ([7]) makes an important observation. In south-east Sweden conditions in the coastal archipelago are dangerous for sailors who are unfamiliar with local conditions. The weather is volatile and currents are unpredictable. There is also a danger of striking submerged rocks. In the circumstances people from distant areas would probably have followed a course further out to sea. In that case cairns located on islands or the shoreline would be little help in navigation.
Southern influences
There were very different influences towards the south.
Scandinavia cannot be considered in isolation. The evidence of the Nebra sky disc suggests that the link between ships and the sun existed as early as 1600 bc. Indeed, Kristiansen and Larsson ([25]) contend that the visual culture of northern Europe drew on a range of contacts with regions further to the south and east. Such connections could have included societies in the Mediterranean. The notion of a solar barque is particularly well documented in Egypt, and Kaul ([20]) has discussed the possibility that it might have suggested a similar concept in other parts of Europe. It is difficult to decide how important long-distance links might have been, but there is no doubt that Baltic amber was used at Mycenae.
Connections with distant areas are more clearly documented in the Late Bronze Age when south Scandinavia was towards the periphery of the Urnfield complex. Again there was the same association between ships and the sun. This is evidenced by decorated metalwork but also by type of a model boat associated with cremation burials (Kossack [22]). A striking feature of such a vessel was its association with water birds; that is why it is called Vogel-Sonnen-Barke in German (or bird-sun-ship in English). There may have been a direct connection with the funeral rite (Gräslund [12]). When a body was burnt, smoke would have risen into the air. Perhaps these birds carried the soul of the dead through the sky. The same concept is found in many societies (Devlet [9]) and it may be no accident that it is represented on Bronze Age metalwork in Denmark and the south of Sweden.
So far this discussion has considered developments in southernmost Scandinavia. The most striking difference between that region and the north is rooted in everyday experience. The cosmology reconstructed by Kaul ([19]) is based on the movement of the sun. It would have explained the alternation between day and night as it was observed in the south, but it could not have done so in the Arctic where there is a period in the winter when the sun cannot be seen. In the same way there are times when it never sets. Beliefs that might be appropriate in Denmark would not have had the same attraction. That might account for the rarity of designs related to the Southern Tradition of rock art. It may also explain why some of the carved surfaces towards its northern limit depart from their conventional positions in the landscape. Panels with drawings of boats were no longer confined to the water's edge, and the range of motifs in this style departs from the usual repertoire (Sognnes [39]).
Wider implications
The interplay between northern and southern elements had a long history in Scandinavia, but by the Late Bronze Age a striking contrast had developed between the visual imagery displayed in different areas and the media in which it was expressed. This suggests the existence of two systems of belief which became increasingly distinct over time.
In the south, in north Germany, Denmark and Scania, metalwork became the main medium of expression, and it is possible that rock art lost much of the importance that it had enjoyed during the Early Bronze Age. The decorated artefacts refer to a single theme and present it to the viewer in a stereotyped manner. It takes a form that could be accessed by only one person at a time, and the message it conveys seems to be remarkably standardized. It summarizes one generally accepted narrative. This is similar to the 'doctrinal' mode of religious belief defined by the cognitive anthropologist Harvey Whitehouse ([43]) who associates it with a degree of political centralization.
These features are not apparent among rock art in the Southern Tradition, especially in areas that were outside the distribution of decorated metalwork. Here decorated outcrops remained important throughout the Late Bronze Age. The repertoire of visual images is more varied and their forms show less standardization. There is no evidence of a single master narrative. Instead, different scenes contrast with one another, their contents overlap and it often seems as if only parts of a story are shown on any one panel. Individual surfaces were carved and re-carved over a considerable period. These scenes could have been directed towards a large audience and may have been associated with rituals that included funeral ceremonies, processions and observations of the sun. There seems to have been more emphasis on public events, which are epitomised by the lighting of fires on and around the rocks (Bradley [6]: 180–5). This would have created a visual spectacle and the cracking of the stone in the flames would have been particularly impressive. These elements recall the defining features of Whitehouse's 'imagistic' mode of religious belief which acquires its special power through the memory of dramatic events. In his view it is associated with small-scale non-centralized societies (Whitehouse [43]).
The differences between the media in which visual images were expressed have implications for the character of the Nordic Bronze Age. They shed light on the relationship between religious practices and social organization. It would appear there was a greater degree of political centralization in the area that was in contact with communities in the Urnfield complex. That reconstruction is consistent with an idea put forward by Helle Vandkilde: 'At least for the early Urnfield period a hierarchical model with a smoothly graded and unpredictable system of ranking would seem ... fitting, whereas the end ... would perhaps seem compatible with more fixed positions of rank within the elite' (2007: 151).
In contrast, there was greater diversity in regions to the north, in Sweden and Norway where local communities were more resistant to religious ideas associated with central Europe.
From the Bronze Age to the Iron Age
The contrasts between those zones, with their different beliefs and means of expressing them, become even more apparent at the end of the Bronze Age. which provides the appropriate point at which to conclude this paper.
In the south the beliefs illustrated by decorated metalwork disappeared towards the end of the Bronze Age as the supply of raw material and artefacts from central Europe diminished. The production of images explaining the workings of the cosmos had begun with the introduction of metals, and it was discontinued once those contacts lapsed.
In the north, however, where Bronze Age material culture was influenced by traditional beliefs in the circumpolar zone, rock art retained its importance in the Early Iron Age. Carvings of ships continued to be made in western Sweden and Norway (Ling [27]). Here the idea of a three-tier cosmology remained important for a long time. It is because such ideas retained their power that the ethnography of this region has been used to illuminate the religious beliefs of the first millennium ad (Price [35]).
Richard Bradley
Department of Archaeology, Reading University
r.j.bradley@reading.ac.uk
Courtney Nimura
Department of Archaeology, Reading University
c.r.nimura@pgr.reading.ac.uk
[
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By Richard Bradley and Courtney Nimura
Reported by Author; Author
Richard Bradley has been Professor in Archaeology at Reading University since 1987. Recent publications include The Prehistory of Britain and Ireland, Image and Audience: Rethinking Prehistoric Art and The Idea of Order: The Circular Archetype in Prehistoric Europe. r.j.bradley@reading.ac.uk
Courtney Nimura is a PhD candidate in the Department of Archaeology at Reading University. Her thesis is based on a pan-Scandinavian analysis of prehistoric rock art. Prior to this she completed her MA, with distinction, in maritime archaeology at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London, and an MFA at Tufts University, Boston, MA. c.r.nimura@pgr.reading.ac.uk
