Christopher Chippindale

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Bradley, Richard, Christopher Chippindale & Knut Helskog. In press. Post-Palaeolithic rock art in Europe, in David Whitley (ed.) Handbook of rock art studies. Beverly Hills (CA): AltaMira Press.

The European continent stretches from the Arctic to the Mediterranean, from the Ural mountains to Ireland, and embodies a large variety of ecological and topographic areas. Rock art is found in all the main regions.

The interest in rock art extends back into the 17 century, and includes a variety of scholarly milieus. Communication is coloured by cultural and political differences, and language barriers. For example, the 70 years intermezzo of Soviet Union acted as a barrier of academic dialogue to western Europe. English tend to be the main international conveyor of knowledge and ideas cross-culturally. In essence, Europe obviously is complex. The many academic milieus and traditions, in so many languages make it formidable challenge to present the rock art of Europe as a unit. Therefore, this chapter of the handbook has three authors, who each focus on the area they know the best, areas where they have conducted research. Richard Bradley writes about rock art in Atlantic Europe, Christopher Chippendale about rock art in the Alps , and Knut Helskog about rock art in Northern Europe. The division also reflect the areas with the majority of the known European rock art. Quite clearly some areas are omitted, yet we hope to give a general idea of the variety of rock art within the region of Europe.

The area defined as northern Europe includes the Nordic countries and northern Russia.

The topography ranges from the mountainous Norway in the west to the low laying forested Karelia in the east. From the barren region of Barents sea in the north to the low laying Danish grasslands, previously forested, to the south. Lakes and rivers are numerous except for Denmark. The rock art is found in all main parts of this vast region, in the costal areas and in shore areas of rivers and lakes. The majority is located adjacent to old and present the coasts and appear to have been intentionally made close to the shores, whether innland or coast. (Helskog 1999, Bertilsson 1987). The largest concentration of carvings is connected with stratified agricultural societies in northern Bohuslän dated to the Bronze Age in south west Sweden (Nordbladh 1980,Bertilsson 1987). The second largest concentration is probably the carvings in Alta in Northern Norway (Helskog 1988) which is associated with 'egalitarian' societies froom the Stone Age and the Early Metallic Period whose subsistence was based on hunting and fishing. All the sites in Alta have status as UNESCO World Heritage while in Bohuslän this status is associated with the rock art at Tanum. These are the only two areas in northern Europe with carvings of this status.

The first description of rock art was in 1627 in Sweden, in Norway in 1823 (Walderhaug 1994:4), 1830 in Denmark (Glob 1969), in Finland in 1911 (Kivikas 1994) and in northern Russia in 1848 (Poikalainen and Ernits1998). There are three types of art: 1. the carvings , 2) the ground figures and 3) the painted figures. The few (8) panels with ground figures are all located in a small geographic region along the North Norwegian coast while the paintings, approximately 100 panels are found in all countries. In Finland the paintings ( 61 panels) dominate and only one carving has been discovered. The majority of the research are connected with the carvings simply because they are the most numerous (approximately 2000 (?) panels) and found all over northern Europe with the exception of Finland. Most are on solid rocks except in Denmark where the carvings are mainly on boulders, often in Neolithic and Bronze Age grave mounds(Glob 1969: 11, Malmer 1989:14).

It should also be noted that in northern Europe, rock art studies have always been an integrated part of archaeological research. Seldom one finds archaeologist who only focus or focused on rock art alone. The history of research in the region is interconnected because the interest of researchers normally extend and extended beyond national boundaries. However, due to language problems and national and international politics, Russia and to a lesser extent Finland had a more separate history of research. The contact was normally initiated from the Nordic side while Finnish and Russian researchers seldom conducted research towards Scandinavia. The contact between Russia and Finland was closer than towards the rest of the region. Therefore the art of Northwest Russia is discussed separately.

It was in the 19th century that systematic research first began and of course it is in the history of research one finds how the rock art was and is understood. From the early 20th century it was recognised that the art was and is associated with cultures whose subsistence was based on hunting and fishing from the Early Stone Age into the early Metallic Age( 5000 - 1800/500 B.C., and those of the farmers of the Bronze Age (1800 - 500 B.C.). The South Scandinavian art which was the focus of research in the 19th century represented what later is termed Bronze Age agricultural art, while the research on the art of the earlier hunting gathering populations did not commence before in the early part of the 20th century. The duality, launched in 1904 as a difference between arctic and south Scandinavian type carvings (Hansen 1904) and later as the art of hunting versus the art of agricultural populations (Gjessing 1936), had a major influence on interpretation, in the sense that in the interpretation of hunters art anthropological analogies dominated, while the Bronze Age 'agricultural' art were dominated by interpretations linked to Norse/Indo-European mythology. There is a clear different geographic distribution between the two main forms, the art of the hunting and fishing populations dominate in the north while the art associated with agricultural societies dominate in the south-east Norway, southern Sweden and totally in Denmark. In some areas, especially in northern and western Norway and northern Sweden there are panels where both categories are represented.

The content of the two categories of art is quite distinct in the sense that the art associated with the hunting fishing population is dominated by reindeer and moose, boats, human figures, some scenes of hunting and fishing ,and geometric patterns ( Gjessing 1936, 1932, Hallström 1960, Hagen 1990), while that of the agricultural population is dominated by boats, human figures sometimes associated with identifiable weaponry, scenes of ploughing, wheeled vehicles, hands, footsoles, feet, discs, circles, animals and cup marks, net like figures (Bertilsson 1987). Stylistically the figures of two categories are often quite distinct but the presence of both categories at some panels indicate that they are not exclusively associated with the one or the other type of culture. A similar mixture can be observed among the carvings in Onega, in Karelia .

The predetermined association between content/form and culture and economy has been criticised for setting too strong predetermined parameters for interpreting the different types carvings (Althin 1945, Helskog 1993, Sognnes 1992), yet the significance of this cultural division might always be recognised when interpreting meanings.

In the 19th century the research focused on the origins of the South Scandinavian carvings. The carvings in the north were not yet known. Montelius in 1874 connected the art with the west European — especially with the boat pictures and the axe figures in Bretagne and Irland. The idea of the south-western connection was later supported by Fett and Fett (1977). Worsaae (1882) and Almgren (1926) looked for the origin in the eastern Mediterraenean and the near East. The influence came through the rivers from the Black Sea. Althin (1945: 177, 236,)rejected the orient influence and claimed that the carvings/motifs grew from the Nordic peoples own rituals. Glob (1969:156), for example, argued that the Danish carvings belong to the Bronze Age, some which continues into the early Iron Age, developed local idiosyncrasies and only a few specific single features indicate any connections between these. The distribution appear to be associated with the distribution of the early metallic culture and follows the way from western Europe to the northern countries.

At the present origins are less of a focus although influences between regions and cultures are important aspects in interpreting and understanding cultural contact and meanings. For example carvings in Alta in Arctic Norway, and Nämforsen in northern Sweden demonstrates similarities to carvings in other areas that do reflect forms of cultural contact between the north and the south of Scandinavia, contact which involve not only the diffusion of ideas but also of people. The panel Ausevik on the west coast of Norway (Hagen 1969) and at Namforsen in northern Sweden (Malmer 1975, 1981), for example, it is argued, is a mixture of the art of the hunter and the art of the farmer.

The first interpretations in the 19th century saw the carvings in the southern part of Scandinavia as documentation of historic events, fights and war. The Vikings had been there (Mandt 1991: 115). Åberg ,e.g. in 1838 equalised the ship figures in Bohuslän with Tacitus description of the Germanic boats. He described the carvings as individual works of art, believed they might depict wars, and that also wheel and circles were not only shields but also a representation of the sun and moon (Glob 1969:157). Holmberg (1848), and later Montelius (1874) suggested that they depicted real historic events, although Montelius also argued that boats, foot prints andcircles have a symbolic meaning. Brunius (1838) argued that carvings as e.g. the ox symbolised strength, the snake cunning, the birds partly luck. Worsaae (1882: 8) suggestion that the art was connected with religion did not really catch hold before 34 years later with the work of Almgren (1926). Almgren, (1926) with reference to the history of religion and folklore asserted that the carvings in graves represent a cult of life, fertility cult and also death cult. The carvings are a picture language directed towards the gods to improve human life and happiness, also after death. This is considered a breakthrough for interpreting the religious connection of the carvings. Ekholm claimed that the carvings mainly represented cult associated with the cult of the dead. Ships on rock surfaces could have been associated with fertility cult (Ekholm1916: 288, 1935:158). Bertil Almgren (1960:62-64) interpreted the carvings as pictures of sacrificial gifts and believed they at the same time could be symbols for different gods. In later works Marstrander (1946, 1963) argued that the carver depicted scenes and motifs from cultic ceremonies.

The motifs in the Danish carvings was to a large extent represented on stones in burial mounds and associated with death cult although some of the stones are secondary in the graves (Glob 1969: 160). Also, in Norway and Sweden there are decorated stones in graves which clearly connects to rituals and beliefs associated with death. The presence in graves also connect the carvings to a wider cultural context.

The breakthrough for dating the carvings in southern Scandinavia was provided by Hildebrand (1869) when he on the basis of the comparison of weapons in the carvings with bronze weapons, and drawings of boats on bronze razors, presented a strong argument for that the carvings were dated to the Bronze Age. A relative chronology based on style such as the finely tuned development style and distribution of style as illustrated by Burenhult ( 1980), Malmer (1981) and Sør-Reime (1982) or on the art of the hunters as illustrated by Lindqvist (1994), Simonsen (1979) in general is of course problematic but yet it illustrates the large diversity in the art form as well as content, from e.g. presumed early large nature-like forms to the later smaller stylised and geometric forms, from simple to complex.

The post glacial uplift of the land and location of the carvings in the shore

has long provided a bases for a giving a maximum date for carvings. Probably the best example of this method is from Alta North Norway where carvings are located at different altitudes above the shore line along the same isobase line and as such provides a basis for a relative chronology and an absolute chronology where the dates are provided by the dates of the different shorelines. The Carvings in Alta for example, appear to have been made adjacent to the shore and as the shore rose out of the sea the older panels tended to be located at the higher altitude Helskog (1998,1999). In Alta the four phased sequence is exceptional but the method forms one a several basis for the chronological sequences of rock art in Scandinavia (Bakka 1979, Baudou 1977, Bertilsson 1987) and Onega ( Savvatejev 1977, 1988, Lobanova 1993), Poikalainen & Ernits 1998) in Karelia, Russia. Of course there are problems in establishing such relationships, but at least the method tells us that the oldest carvings in Alta are not older than the late fifth millennium B.C. and Nämforsen in Sweden not much older than the late fourth millennium B.C. , the carvings in northern Bohuslän maximum 1800 years B.C., and so on.

In general there is a change in the content of the art in the early Bronze Age with the influence of more stratified societies and the changing beliefs which are believed to be associated with the societies associated with agriculture and animal husbandry, all over Scandinavia. In the northern area, where agriculture and animal husbandry was introduced after rock carvings ceased to be made and used, one of the changes in style and content appear to be contemporaneous with the beginning of the Bronze Age, or Early Metallic Age as it is called in the northernmost parts of Scandinavia.

The largest and most complex panels connected with the Stone Age hunting and fishing societies are those at Alta and Vingen in Norway and Nämfosen in Sweden. However the larger panels are not necessarily the most significant but they tend to be subjected to more research than most others

Another of the northern sites which must especially be noted is the large panels at Nämforsen (Hallström 1960) in northern Sweden which has been a focus of research since the turn of the century. The site, located along a waterfall, with its high percentage of moose figures was primarily believed to be connected with rituals to secure the exploitation of this fauna during winter. It was not really before Tilley´s (1991) research on Nämforsen with a variety of methods and interpretations, 'reading' the art, that there was a renewed dynamism in the discussion of the interpretation of this and other sites, interpretations connecting the art with clan systems and mythology, transition rites, ideology and power, and so on.

The rock art of Scandinavia is often associated with shamanism, leadership, power and control of meaning in rituals, power, as symbols of power, gender issues, in complex and many-sided ways. For example, for arctic Norway it is argued that the art is associated with shamanism throughout the entire Stone Age and Early Metallic period (Helskog 1988, 1990) or that the appearance of shamanism, the power of shamans were, is associated with the increased stylisation to mask of meanings in the art in the last half of the third millennium B.C, towards the Early Metallic Period (Hesjedal 1994).

A distinguishing criteria for the earliest phase of the Alta carvings are the presence of compositions a feature which associates them to the carvings in the White sea although the compositions themselves bear little likeness. For example there are two compositions illustrating large scale reindeer drives into corral while at the White Sea carvings, especially Zalavruga there are large scale co-operative hunting of Belugas (white whales) from boats, or the skiers hunting moose and reindeer. But, quite clearly the matter of compositions is also one of recognition, and they are, as such, probably everywhere. The recognition of compositions, and relationships between figures and meaning in contemporary societies in southern Scandinavia are also seen in semiotic (Nordbladh (1978), structural (Nordbladh 1980), and spatial analysis (Bertilsson 1987, Mandt, 1991, Walderhaug 1994, Sognnes and Haug 1998).

It is problematic to connect carvings directly with prehistoric settlement sites. Yet there are a number of instances where there are good arguments for the association of sites and carvings, such as at Alta in Norway (Helskog 1988) and Namforsen in Sweden (Hallström 1960), in Østfold, Norway (Johansen 1979, and Zalavruga on the White Sea in Russia (Savvatejev 1984). The association cannot be proven, rather it is a matter of arguing for the probability that adjacent or close laying sites are directly connected. In some cases sites are used as a basis for dating the carvings as for example at Zalavruga and also at some sites in the Onega area, or in at the later Bronze Age carvings in Bohuslan or Østfold. Yet , to interpret the art, the art is in a broad general way framed within the context of general 'contemporary' populations and settlements.

The ground art consist of 8 panels limited to a small region of north Norway close to the Arctic circle. The figures are outlined by lines ground onto the rock surface (Gjessing 1932, 1936). They are smooth to the touch while the surrounding rock surface is uneven and abraded. At the present the ground lines are disappearing,- causes unknown, and the situation is extremely serious because this type of rock art is extremely rare in a global perspective. The art is considered Mesolithic in age based on their spatial association with the adjacent shore lines (Hesjedal 1994) or early Late Stone Age ( Bostwick et al. 1998), and focus on large animals, mainly reindeer and moose, in full scale naturalistic representations. The largest figure is a 6 meter long killer whale. This art, similar to the other art of the region is, among others, understood to be connected with hunting and fertility rituals and represent totemic animals (Gjessing 1936, Hesjedal 1994).

The paintings, most of which are found in Finland (Kivikas 1994) with a smaller number in Norway, Sweden and Russia, is coloured by red ochre. They are dated within the period 5000 - 100 BC. (Taavitsainen 1978, Kivikas 1994) and includes mainly human figures and moose, a few boats and geometric figures, alone or in compositions. The largest numbers are in central and southern Finland, in southern Sweden and Norway,-mostly the northern part, in Russian Northwest only on the Fisher Peninsula on the Barents sea. In Norway, they are found mainly in caves and in a few cases on sheltered vertical surfaces. Inside the caves and shelters human figures are dominant while on those on the open air are more a mixture of human figures and animals (reindeer and moose. The location inside the caves is associated with sacredness and initiation rituals (Bjerk 1997). In Sweden and in Finland they are only found on vertical sheltered rock surfaces in the open. They are, like the carvings interpreted as parts of e.g.rituals connected with hunting, spirits and cosmic stories and shamanism (Siikala1981, Taavitsainen 1978).

The majority of the rock art in Northwest Russia is located in forested Karelia, on the central west shore of Lake Onega (Ravdonikas 1936, Savvatejev 1984, Poikalainen and Ernits1998), and on the shore of the river Vyg in the south west corner of the White Sea (Savvatejev 1970) and in the slightly more rocky Kola peninsula (Gurina 1980), also here in the shore area. Altogether there are approximately 2000 figures, the majority in Onega and the White sea. On the outer coast of the Fisher Peninsula on the Barents sea there are two small panels with paintings (Shumkin 1990). They all are dated within the time period 4000 - 500 B.C. on the basis of content, style, and association to archaeological sites. As in Scandinavia there are distinct differences between panels, some are dominated by boats, others by hunting scenes, swans, reindeer or moose, human figures, sun signs, and then there are those which with a large variety of separate figures or compositions. For example, those at the boulders on the shore of the river Ponoi are almost solely reindeer/moose and human figures. At Zalavruga (Savvatejev 1970), there are exquisite compositions of people in boats co-operating in large scale whale hunting and there are human figures on skis sometimes hunting. In Onega there are e.g. Swan Cape dominated by small and large (2m) swans, then there are one dominated by sun signs, and the larger ones with a more composite variation of figures. As in the rest of northern Europe the tradition of making carvings appear to end during the early part the last millennium B.C.

The first cavings at Laka Onega was discovered by the geologist Constantin Caspar Grewingk in 1848 from the Mineralogical Museum in St.Petersburg. He found swans, reindeer and moose, a few fish and snakes , human figures, boats and geometric figures, and noted that the animal figures were rather nature-like. Surprisingly, the first archaeologist researching the carvings was the Swedish archaeologist Gustav Hallström ( Poikalainen and Ernits 1998) whose main interest was documentation. However, the Russian milieu were and are very active on the side of interpretation. As summarised by Poikalaiinen and Ernits (1998), Grewingk, in 1855. suggested that the art at the site Besov Nos were connected with magic while those at the Peri Nos, a peninsula a few hundred meters to the east were memorial figures. A few years later the Norwegian archaeologist Anaton Brøgger (1909) connected the art to hunting magic and the Russian ethnographer A.Linevski (1928) applied the ethnographic analogies from Siberia to support his rejection of cosmic cult and totemism and focused on style and topographic relationships. Poikalianen and Ernits (1998) inform that Bryusov (1940) repeated the connection to hunting ceremonies and the narration of myths. Ravdonikas (1937), on the other hand, rejected hunting magic and depictions as representative of real life and saw totemic cults, while Pankrushev (1964) rejected totemism but advocated an association to fertility cult. Gurina in her work saw animal cults and celestial bodies, ancestor cults and that the area with carvings were sanctuaries (Poikalainen and Ernits 1998). The interaction with the natural elements were noticed by Laushkin (1962), an ethnographer who noted that the changing/'rotating' light of the sun gave an effect as if the carvings were moving. He, and later Valonen (1984), rather uncritically connected the carvings with the several thousand years younger Finnish epic Kalevala, as doubtful as such a connection might be. At the present, besides working on description and documentation (Poikalainen and Ernits 1998), and chronology and site relationships (Lobanova 1993) there is a strong and active group of researchers, as exemplified by Abram Stoljar (1994,1995) who investigates the semantics and the genesis of the carvings themselves and sees a connection to the Mesolithic burial ground at Oleni Ostrov a focal point for the entire population in this part of Onega lake. In essence the Russian research of the rock art was and is as dynamic and varied as in the rest of Europe

The discoverer of the Onega carvings, Grewingk considered the carvings to be medieval in age, but already in 1877 the were dated to the Bronze age. At the present the carvings are dated according to their content, style, shore displacement, adjacent settlements. Most researchers argue the carvings fall within all or a part of the period 4800 to 500 B.C.. Also, Stolyar (1995) e.g sees a deveolpment from a central large figures to smaller periphral figures, while Poikalainen and Ernits (1998), on the basis of superimpositions suggest a development of the different types of figures, from what they call astromorphs throught anthropomorphs and from small to large ornitomorphs.

The carvings at the river Vyg further north were first reported by Linevski in 1928. In 1936 Ravdonikas discovered Zalavruga I with, among others, the first human figures on skis to be observed. Some, like Ravdonikas and Savateyev find similarites in a few single figures to the carvings in Onega but the compositions at Zalavruga are strikingly different. Compositions showing Belugas (white whales) harpooned by human figures in boats in co-operate hunts, or groups of human figures on skis, soometimes hunting elk are very striking. They depict aspects of contemporary outdoor life, although the meanings of the carvings and the reasons for them being depicted are as many as those suggested for those further south in Karelia (Savvatejev 1984). The date of the carvings is a problem but judging from a radiocarbon dates from adjacent sites (Savvatejev 1984:41 ) the carvings on the river Vyg should be from approximately the same time range as the earliest carvings at Onega lake, the early part of the fourth millennium B.C. to the middle of the last millennium B.C, approximately.

Further north, in the interior of Kola Peninsula there is an area with rock carvings on boulders in the shore of the Ponoi river (Gurina 1980, Shumkin 1990). Even further to the north, close to the shore of the Barents Sea on the northern coast of the Fisher Peninsula there are two small locations with painting , one a boatand two human like figures in a small cave, the other a shelter with reindeer and geometric patterns. (Shumkin 1990). As such paintings are found in almost all of the major regions of northern Europe, with the exception of Karelia and Denmark

There is obviously still much which should be written about the rock art of northern Europe, the variety of local chronologies, complexities, contexts, methods and interpretations. This has been a taste of history and content. A general conclusion is that the long, rather intense, research on north European rock art with its many avenues of ideas and methods, give a solid foundation for exploring new understandings. The gradual closing of the historic divide between the western and eastern part of the region can nothing but open new avenues, within the increasing global exchange of ideas between those who take a particular interest in understanding the meanings behind the art.

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Figures:

1. The ground carvings at Leiknes, northern Norway

2. Bergbukten I, Alta, northern Norway. The reindeer corral to the left is one of two corrals

3. Tanum, southwest Sweden, with carvings of the south-Scandinavian type.

4. The composition with human figures skiing and hunting moose. Zalavruga, at the river Vyg, White Sea, Russia

5. One of the panels at Nämforsen, northern Sweden.

6. Paintings at Astuvansalmi, southern Finland.

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Rock art in Atlantic Europe

The rock art of Atlantic Europe extends from Scotland and Ireland, to the north, as far as the Straits of Gibraltar, to the south, and is principally a feature of northern Britain, Ireland, Portugal and Spain, although there are less significant concentrations of rock carvings in south-west Britain, north-west France and the western Pyrenees Abélanet 1986, Bradley 1997). That area contains a dense distribution of megalithic tombs, in particular the variety known as passage graves, and these had also been decorated (Shee Twohig 1981).

The art of these regions was not investigated systematically until the early years of the twentieth century and then its study was a development from other spheres of research. The first of these influences came from the analysis of Upper Palaeolithic paintings in the caves of south-west France and northern Spain, and it is no coincidence that so much of this work was carried out by the Abbé Breuil who published four volumes on the later prehistoric rock art of the Iberian peninsula (Breuil 1933-1935). In the north west of Spain another important figure was Hugo Obermaier who is also better known for his studies of Palaeolithic art (Obermaier 1925). Anati (1968) has also published a controversial account of the rock art of the western part of the Iberian peninsula.

The other major influence was the study of megalithic art, and here again Breuil played an important role. He considered that the carved motifs found inside these monuments were anthropomorphic and that many of the supposedly abstract images in fact showed the human face. He applied that interpretation to the carvings found in passage graves extending along the Atlantic coastline and, more important, he argued that related forms could be found among the petroglyphs that had been recognised in the open air (Breuil 1934). As a result, he claimed that there were direct connections not only between the megalithic art of Iberia, France and Ireland but also between the open air rock carvings encountered in north-west Spain (Galicia) and those on either side of the Irish Sea.

In fact it would be true to say that the study of megalithic art overshadowed the discovery and recording of the images in the open air. There is a doctoral thesis on the rock carvings of prehistoric Ireland (Johnston 1989) but so much attention has been paid to tomb decoration in Brittany that little has been written about the other designs that are known to exist in the same area (Péquart, Péquart and Le Rouzic 1927, Briard 1989). The situation is more favourable in northern Britain where most of the decorated surfaces have been found and published by amateur archaeologists (good examples are Ilkley Archaeology Group (1986) and Beckensall and Laurie (1998) and in Iberia where Breuil's early work has been followed by a series of important regional studies (Costas and Novoa 1993, Diáz 1992, Gómez 1992, Grande 1987, Sanches 1997).

For the most part this work has followed a traditional agenda. It has been concerned with the classification of individual motifs, their grouping into broad traditions or styles, their chronology and their distribution. All this work has followed the same principles as studies of portable artefacts. The main concern was with defining prehistoric cultures and with investigating the connections between them. In Atlantic Europe this approach has been closely integrated with the study of stone-built tombs and there have been important discussions of the interconnections between the megalithic art of Ireland, Brittany and the Iberian peninsula (Shee Twohig 1981, Le Roux 1992, Bueno and Balbín 1998). In the same way, ever since the work of Breuil attention has focused on the apparently close relationship between the open air rock art found in north-west Spain and that associated with sites in northern Britain and Ireland. Other widely scattered sites along the Atlantic seaboard have been drawn into this discussion (MacWhite 1946, Bradley 1997). The open air rock art of Northern Britain. Ireland and Galicia dates from between about 3000 and 2000 BC, whilst the tomb art is generally older and much of it is assigned to the fourth millennium BC

By contrast, the rock art that characterises the major part of the Iberian peninsula ('Schematic Art') has closer stylistic links with the West Mediterranean and possibly with sites in southern France and Northern Italy. There is clearly much regional variation within this body of material, but research has tended to focus on the distributions of individual motifs (Acosta 1968, Gómez 1992, Bueno and Balbín 1996). In contrast to the open air rock art found elsewhere in Atlantic Europe, these designs occur as both paintings and carvings and some of them are shared with portable artefacts including pottery. Because Schematic Art has been found in caves and rock shelters, archaeologists have turned to excavation in order to establish its chronology. This work has been rather inconclusive, but this style seems to have a long history spanning the fourth and third millennia BC Rippoll 1990, Bueno and Balbín 1996).

The definition of these different traditions is by no means secure. In Iberia, there is a basic disagreement over the separate identities of Schematic Art and megalithic art and Bueno and Balbín (1996 and 1998) have recently argued that both were simply variants of the same symbolic system. It is certainly true that both 'styles' show a significant overlap, although there is less support for their argument that the 'Galician' style of rock art found in north-west Spain formed part of the same tradition. At a more detailed level, recent work has broadened the definition of these separate styles. 'Galician' rock art has now been found extending southwards from the Spanish / Portuguese border for 150 kilometres, although its distribution still follows the Atlantic coast (Lara Alves pers. comm.). Moreover, the characteristic repertoire of Schematic Art is complemented by many finds of cup marked rocks which have not been recorded systematically (Abreu and Jaffe 1995). Their chronology remains to be established. In addition, a distinctive group of rock carvings has been identified in the Tagus Valley (Baptista 1981). This raises many problems, for the motifs seem to combine elements taken from Galician and Schematic rock art and also suggest wider connections with the repertoire of Alpine rock art.

There are similar problems in the archaeology of Britain, Ireland and western France. Ever since the work of Breuil, research workers have talked of a 'Galician - Atlantic' style of rock art, extending across these areas but most common in Britain and Ireland MacWhite 1946). A few sites in Brittany and the Pyrenees share similar imagery( (Bradley 1997: 159-68), but there is a problem in placing so much emphasis on these connections for some of the individual motifs may have their origins in states of altered consciousness. For that reason similar images could have developed quite independently in some or all of these areas. The same argument applies to the apparent similarities between the decoration associated with passage graves in Brittany and Ireland (Lewis-Williams and Dowson 1993). The links between the main groups of open air rock carvings may be more convincing, however, as recent work has suggested that the separate elements were combined according to the same conventions in each part of their distribution (Bradley 1997: chapter 14). Again the more complex images are complemented by a distribution of cup-marked rocks which are mainly found in south-west Britain and western France (Bradley 1997: 146-50). These have still to be investigated in detail.

At a more general level it is possible to recognise two quite different forms of rock art in Atlantic Europe. From the north-west of Spain to northern Britain and Ireland, it consists entirely of carvings. These were completely abstract and the different compositions are built up around a series of cup marks and more elaborate circular motifs known as 'cups and rings'. They are generally found on horizontal surfaces. Only In Galicia are these images associated with any naturalistic motifs, and here the petroglyphs include numerous depictions of animals, mainly red deer and horses, as well as less frequent drawings of people and weapons (Costas and Novoa 1993, García and Peña 1980, Peña and Vázquez 1979).

By contrast, Schematic Art occurs in two quite different media - painting and carving - and is mainly discovered on vertical surfaces like cliffs or the walls of caves and rock shelters (Diáz 1992, Gómez 1992, Grande 1987) . Apart from a limited area of overlap close to the Spanish / Portuguese border (Bradley and Fábregas 1998), the repertoire of Schematic Art is quite distinct from the motifs found in Galicia and in areas further to the north. It includes a wide variety of stylised humans and animals, pairs of eyes ('occuli'), hand prints, motifs that are interpreted as suns, and a number of abstract devices including zigzag lines (Acosta 1968). Some of the individual images could refer to states of altered consciousness, but this possibility has not been investigated systematically. The same images can be found as painted or carved designs inside megalithic tombs, but here the designs are organised with much greater formality and naturalistic drawings are less common (Shee Twohig 1981, Bueno and Balbín 1998). These designs seem to occur mainly in the deepest spaces inside these monuments, and, in particular, towards the back wall of the burial chamber (Jorge 1998). Some of the same motifs, especially animals, suns and 'occuli', occur on portable artefacts such as ceramics. These can be found in megalithic tombs but they are also associated with fortified settlements (Almagro and Arribas 1963).

For the most part, research has been concerned with documenting the images found in Atlantic Europe and there have been few detailed interpretations of this evidence. One reason is because so many sites have been recorded without considering their setting in the wider landscape. Again this is an approach that can be traced back to the Abbé Breuil, whose interest was in the designs rather than their wider context. This tendency has been exacerbated by the practice of amateur archaeologists who record the rock carvings as a self-contained exercise. Apart from thedecoration found in megalithic tombs, rock art has rarely played a significant role in the prehistory of Atlantic Europe.

For the most part, interpretations of this material have tended to be impressionistic. Iberian Schematic Art is often discovered in quite remote positions although it was not always created at the edges of the settled landscape (Bueno et al. 1998). Sometimes its location seems to have been influenced by what were obviously non-utilitarian considerations. For example, in Caceres the painted surfaces were selected because they had a striking natural colour that was not found in the surrounding area (García 1990). In Northern Portugal, particular rocks could be chosen for special treatment because they contained an unusual quantity of quartz (Lara Alves pers. comm.).

Opinion is divided over the interpretation of the sites associated with Schematic Art. On the one hand, it could be created in places that commanded extensive views over the surrounding country, making them particularly suitable for people engaged in hunting or pasturing animals. This has sometimes been suggested as the explanation for these sites, but there are cases in which these locations were simply too remote for this interpretation to be convincing. It may be no coincidence that some of the same locations were used by pilgrims or hermits during the Christian era - in fact numerous sites include Christian images which are sometimes mistaken for elements of Schematic Art (Costas 1998). The contents of the caves and rock shelters are very varied. Some include artefacts of types that can also be found in megalithic tombs and one recently excavated site even included paintings of the distinctive idols that are associated with these monuments (Collado at al.1997). The painted cave at Buraco da Pala in Northern Portugal is especially revealing in this respect (Sanches 1997). It included a rich assemblage of artefacts including gold work and a wide range of ceramics associated with the storage and consumption of food, most probably for use in feasting. The filling of the cave contained traces of opium poppy. At El Pedroso in Castille, there were two stone-built platforms outside the mouth of a decorated cave, whilst a Copper Age defended settlement occupied the summit of the same hill (excavation by Richard Bradley, Germán Delibes and Ramón Fábregas 1998). A similar pairing of decorated caves and hilltop settlements has been observed at other sites of the same date. The caves are usually interpreted as sanctuaries.

That interpretation is certainly suggested by the sites associated with Schematic Art around the Spanish / Portuguese border where the position of the of rock art has been investigated by field survey (Bradley and Fábregas 1998). In this area the decorated surfaces are generally found in remote and often spectacular settings, with extensive views over the surrounding country. A number of the caves and rock shelters are difficult to find and dangerous to approach without a detailed knowledge of their location. It would have been easy to control access to these places and they could never have accommodated many people at the same time. On a more detailed level, it seems if the most remote locations can be associated with the most complex images. In one case, fieldwork has shown that the painted caves contained virtually no artefacts, in contrast to undecorated caves nearby which seem to have been inhabited (Sanches 1997). Again it is likely that the decorated sites had a specialised role. That would certainly explain why they should share so many images with the chambers of megalithic tombs. The distribution of sites associated with Schematic Art contrasts with that of cup-marked rocks in the same region, many of which were located in low-lying areas better suited to year-round occupation (Sanches et al. 1998).

By contrast, In Galicia there is well established school of landscape archaeology. In recent years it has investigated the role of rock carvings in the prehistoric pattern of settlement (Bradley, Criado and Fábregas 1995, Santos 1998). In this case there is less to be learnt from their relationship to megalithic tombs, for the decoration inside those monuments is likely to be older than that found in the open air. That is not to say that the two phenomena were completely separate from one another, as the two styles do have a few motifs in common (Peña and Rey 1997).

Although there are some outliers, the distribution of Galician rock art focuses on a compact area extending along the Atlantic for 120 kilometres and reaches inland for about 60 kilometres (Costas and Novoa 1993, García and Peña 1980, Peña and Vázquez 1979). . This is one of the most productive parts of northern Spain, but it is also a region which experiences abrupt changes of rainfall and ground temperature over the course of the year. During the currency of the rock art the pattern of settlement may have relatively mobile and people and animals may have moved between the coast and the higher ground of the interior (Bradley, Criado and Fábregas 1995). That distinction may be marked by the images themselves, which are predominantly abstract towards the Atlantic and include more drawings of horses and red deer in inland areas.

With only rare exceptions, the rock carvings were created on quite inconspicuous rocks even when more prominent outcrops were available in the vicinity. Their distribution is closely related to that of well watered basins (brañas) and the paths leading between them. The carved rocks are normally found beside these trails and there are many instances in which the files of animals illustrated in the petroglyphs travel in the same directions as the horses that live in the same landscape today. The simpler motifs generally occur alongside these routes whilst more complex decorated panels are found where they enter or leave the brañas. Others are found around their outer limits. The carved rocks command views along the paths and into these basins but they are only rarely located in places with more extensive vistas across the surrounding country. They seem to define the main settled areas in the Galician landscape, and this view is supported by the results of recent fieldwork (Santos 1998).

Certain motifs are quite distinctive and suggest another dimension in the organisation of the carved panels. Santos (1998) has recently suggested that stags with a full set of antlers and people riding horses tend to be found towards the top of these drawings. In the lower part of the same compositions the human figures are standing or walking and the animals are shown without antlers. Some of the same conventions extend into the wider landscape (Bradley 1997: chapter 13). Beyond the limits of this system of paths and basins there are other carvings which are usually found on more conspicuous rocks. They depict enormous stags with exaggerated antlers or weapons of Copper Age and Early Bronze Age types. Their positions dominate the areas where the other rock carvings are found and they command much more extensive views. The weapon carvings tend to occur around the outer edges of the distribution of Galician petroglyphs and were sometimes created on steeply sloping surfaces so that these images appear to confront anyone approaching them. They may represent votive deposits of metalwork, as hoards containing the same range of artefacts have been found in the Galician landscape, and in one case close to a carving of this type (Bradley 1998).

It is only recently that the British and Irish petroglyphs have come to play much part in prehistoric archaeology (Johnston 1989, Morris 1989, Bradley 1997). Their repertoire overlaps with that of megalithic art in Ireland but the extent of this convergence is sometimes exaggerated (Johnston 1993; Bradley in press). Although there is some similarity between open air rock art and the circular motifs in the tombs of the Boyne Valley, it seems likely that most of the carvings found in the open air are of a rather later date, although some writers favour an earlier beginning (Burgess 1990, Waddington 1998). British and Irish rock art varies in significant ways from one region to another, but its basic design grammar seems to be consistent over its entire distribution (Bradley 1997: chapter 5). The most basic element is the cup mark. This might be left in isolation but otherwise it could be embellished by one or more concentric rings, often broken by a radial line. The larger the number of these rings - and thus the larger the individual motifs - the more likely it is that they will be joined together in a more complex design. Either separate images are linked to one another by a network of wandering lines or different circular devices abut one another and are combined in that way. The most' complex' carvings also include less standard motifs like the spiral which are also found in megalithic art. There is sometimes a direct relationship between the size and spacing of the individual design elements, so that the larger circles tend to be placed further apart, and there are many sites where the entire group of carvings fills only part of the available surface. As in Galicia, superimposed designs are very rare indeed.

That design grammar may be broken down into different 'stages' which are represented by carvings found in particular positions in the landscape. Although there are some exceptions, the simpler motifs - cup marks and cups with single rings - are found in low-lying positions in areas that could sustain year-round settlement. Field survey has identified scatters of lithic artefacts in these places. By contrast, more complex images occupy higher ground and are often found at viewpoints overlooking the surrounding area. They may have been located on the limits of the settled land, and these carvings are not associated with artefacts. The cup marked rocks tend to be less conspicuous than those with more elaborate carvings, which can be identified from some distance away. Striking natural land forms such as caves and cliffs were rarely decorated (Bradley 1997).

A similar 'gradient' in the organisation of the rock carvings can be observed in the vicinity of ceremonial centres, where even the images on low-lying exposures tend to be more complex than those in other areas. In two cases the ceremonial monuments occupy the floor of an enormous natural basin. The most complex carvings are located around its edges and where routes across the landscape provide access from other areas. In north-east England, rock carvings located along one such route are visible from one another, and the density of these sites increases with proximity to the ceremonial centre. At the same time, the carvings themselves become steadily more elaborate. Even though the imagery is entirely abstract once again there seems to have been some order in its distribution (Bradley 1997).

The Alpine region and its rock-art

The Alpine chain is a third archaeological region in Europe known for its post-glacial rock-art engraved on open surfaces, rather than protected in shelters or caves. The Alps run in a flat arc across western Europe, dividing the Mediterranean zone to their south from the more temperate lands of the north. From south-west France they pass across Switzerland and north Italy into Austria to the east. The Alps are comparatively young mountains, high and abrupt, with active glaciers and much active erosion. Geologically, the chain is largely of calcareous rocks. The rock-engravings are not generally found there but largely on the metamorphic rocks, the sandstones and schists, which occur sporadically across the mountain chain. Like rock-surfaces all along the Alpine chain, these have been scraped and shaped by glaciation. Where these yield smooth and curving rock surfaces — moutonnée in French (and they do resemble in shape the rounded and long backs of giant buried sheep) — attractive sites offer themselves for rock-engraving. A feature of the region's rock-art is the fine-line technique of rock-engravings; their lines only a very few millimetres wide and deep in these fine-textured rocks, these are preserved in clear condition even after many hundreds of years.

There are between 20 and 30 recognized regions of rock-art in the Alps, the number depending on whether neighbouring occurrences are grouped together; many engravings, a very few paintings. They are overwhelmingly in the southern Alps; the bulk are on the slopes of the southern, Italian side of the chain; those in France are also on the southern aspect; there are few in Switzerland; there are none known in Germany or elsewhere in the northern approaches and foothills. Two concentrations stand out. Mont Bego, just over the border into France from Italy, in the south-west is a single mountain with over 30,000 figures in adjacent valleys and a few outliers. In Italy are Valcamonica and Valtellina, neighbouring valleys in the centre-south zone of the Alps, rich in rock-engravings, estimated as some 300,000 figures. These two singular groups, which far outnumber the rest, are described here individually, with some more general remarks made about the small balance.

As elsewhere in Europe, there are no physical-science methods by which to date the human marks on these exposed rock-surfaces. Indications of sequence, not often clear even when figures cut across each other, may help in a relative chronology. Fortunately, there are strong links to the local archaeological sequences, since many repeated motifs — ox-ploughs, horses, metal objects of distinctive shape, warriors' weaponry — represent subjects known archaeologically and thereby with a reasonably clear date. It is on these that the chronologies for Valcamonica—Valtellina and for Mont Bego are built. Some of that iconography is shared by the 'statue-stele', free-standing carved rocks found in several regions of north Italy and the broader region, so those provide another 'bridging' across from the art to the archaeology as a means to chronology. Some fortunate stratigraphic relations between rock-art and archaeology assist.

There is no single up-to-date account in English of Alpine rock-art collectively. Instead, Arcà & Fossati (1995), in Italian, is an excellent field guide which includes first-rate and well-illustrated summary accounts.

As befits a high mountain chain dividing two distinct zones of climate and of human cultural adaptation, the Alps have a distinctive prehistory and archaeology (Pauli 1984). Its identified culture-history units link with the regions both to the north and the south. The 'Ice-man', the famous frozen human body found in 1991 on the summit ridge at the Italian—Austrian border, had singularly well-designed Alpine equipment, evidence of a precocious skill in high mountain living (Spindler 1994). Epi-Palaeolithic exploitations at high elevations, the Neolithic 'lake-dwellings' so important in 19th-century pioneer research on prehistoric Europe, and the mining of copper in the early metal age are distinctive elements. The Alps have a long and complex subsequent history. Some traditional or traditional-seeming features of the landscape, such as the agricultural terraces on slopes, may not be so ancient; potatoes, mountain plants in their native South America, changed economic subsistence when they reached the Alps. Twentieth-century abandonment of the hard manual work farming tiny plots on steep slopes in the high valleys is decisively changing the landscape once again, now that it is winter and summer tourism on which the upland Alpine economies more depend.

Discovery and research

The Mont Bego figures, mentioned in the 15th or 16th centuries, were first systematically studied late in the 19th century by an expatriate Englishman, Clarence Bicknell, whose work of startlingly high standard was surely due to his experience as an amateur naturalist and fieldworker (Chippindale 1984; 1998). Bicknell began the large task of making a full inventory and field record, an ambition repeated in the 1930s by Carlo Conti, and finally achieved from 1967 by a team led by Henry de Lumley who totals the figures as numbering 32,382 (Lumley et al. 1995).

Two surfaces in Valcamonica, where figures had been signalled in 1914, were published in 1930; other pioneer work followed. In the late 1950s, Emmanuel Anati recognized the scale, richness and potential of Valcamonica; he began a remarkable series of studies using new recording methods and building a robust chronological framework from his own research centre in the valley. Anati's 1961 book Camonica Valley, is today ubiquitous on the archaeology shelves of second-hand bookshops, proof of its success at the time (Anati 1961). Anati presents the valley's rock-art as a 'cycle' showing fundamental stages in European social evolution (Anati 1980), a kind of model he sees as fitting for rock-art very widely. Later work has much developed also knowledge of the neighbouring Valtellina valley, where a single great rock has over 5000 individual figures; and other research centres have grown alongside Anati's, recently the archaeological co-operative 'Le Orme dell'Uomo'.

Excavations at Sion (south-west Switzerland) 1961—1973 and at Aosta (near by in north-west Italy) from 1969 have been key in relating rock-art to archaeological sites and sequences, as has study of the statue-stele.

In the present author's view, the rock-art of the Alps — like that of Iberia and of Scandinavia — is known less and contributes less to our understanding of later prehistoric Europe than it could and should.

Mont Bego

Mont Bego is a single peak in the French Maritime Alps, close to the watershed and to the modern border with Italy; to the north are the plains of Italian Piedmont, to the south the region drains through the defile of the Roya valley to the Mediterranean. Bego, at 2872 metres (close to 10,000 feet), is not the highest of the region's mountains, but it is striking in its schist and sandstone geology, and in the grandeur of its landscape. The schists, patinated and lichen-covered, are often in striking colours of beige, green and red, against which the rock-engravings often stand out in bright and contrasting tones. The Bego slopes, free of snow only from June to September, are far above agricultural land, and nowadays support grazing sheep-flocks only in the brief weeks of its summer.

Two of its high valleys contain most of the figures, on surfaces between 2000 and 2700 m in altitude, 70% on schist, 30% on sandstone. The Vallée des Merveilles ('Valley of Marvels') sector on the south and west holds about 17,000 figures on about 1950 surfaces; the Val Fontanalba sector to the north-east about 15,000 figures on about 1650 surfaces. A few hundred more figures are in scattered and outlying groups.

The figures are pecked, often deeply. The present French campaign of fieldwork involves a detailed record of every single figure, permitting exhaustive study of the exact size and consistency of the peck-marks. The repertory of motifs is singular, repetitive and restricted: 47% are lines, varied areas of pecking, and other unclassified figures seen as non-representative, plus 9% termed geometric in form. The 44% of figures that are of recognized subject divide into five classes only: 37% of horned 'corniforme' figures, representations of cattle, plus a further 2% in which the horned figures are yoked and draw ards; 3% daggers and 1% halberds, both characteristic implements of the early metal age in the Alps; 1% anthropomorphic figures.

Figure 3. Mont Bego landscape.

Figure 4. Common motifs in the Mont Bego repertory.

Figures are consistently placed running up and down the rock surface, sometimes overlapping, more often seeming to respect each other's place. A certain number of figures are repeatedly placed together; halberds are held by human figures, and ploughs are accompanied by ploughmen. One can see a kind of group likeness in some surfaces, with two or more closely similar halberds or horned figures placed close together: that apparent pattern of similarity may indeed be shown to exist through systematic analysis of the new corpus of records.

Daggers of the European Copper and Bronze Ages are dated with good confidence by their blade-shape, from squat triangles at the start to more elongated forms, and finally to the narrow swords and rapiers of the later Bronze Age. By this means, the Mont Bego daggers are allocated to the later Copper Age and earlier Bronze Age. The halberd, rare as a physical object found archaeologically, is also seen as characteristic of that era in the Alpine and north Italian region. Oxen, singly or drawing ard-ploughs, are not so diagnostic of any era, but clearly images of them will post-date the Neolithic introduction of plough agriculture. Since all these figures are broadly similar in execution and in their state of preservation, it is reasonable to suppose the whole group belongs to that period, 2500—1700 BC and concentrating around 2000 BC. One distinctive kind amongst the geometrical figures combines solid areas of pecking with lines and with areas of scattered dots, for all the world like a coded map. These 'topographic' figures (if so they be) are closely matched in form by figures in the Valtellina, where they are placed in the Copper Age or before.

There appears then to be a gap in the sequence, spanning the later Bronze and Iron Ages. A single obscure and obscene inscription is dated to the Roman era. The next group in the Bego repertoire of rock-engravings are very different figures of later date, many of them fine-line scratchings made with a technique quite unlike those of the Copper/Bronze Age. Known elsewhere in the Alps and little studied, this distinct group is dated to the medieval period. Finally there are post-medieval engraved figures and names, both fine-line and deeply cut, until and into the present century.

Interpretation of the prehistoric Bego figures begins with their strange placing, in a high and wild landscape far above any place of year-round settlement; Lumley et al.'s (1995) account is fittingly entitled 'Le Grandiose et le sacré', the grand and the sacred. The repetition of the ox motif is striking, and the repeated imaging of daggers and halberds is congruent with the importance of metal objects in the ritual of the early metal age across Europe, and with the special emphasis on halberds evident in Valcamonica-Valtellina and on the statue-stele (below). Lumley (1991), taking special notice of a handful of extra-ordinary anthropomorphic figures, sees Bego as a landscape where a bull-god of thunder and lightning meets and fertilizes a goddess of the earth. Others see the patterns as diagnostic of the ubiquitous structures of Indo-European religion (Dufrenne 1985). In a quite different approach, Barfield & Chippindale (1997) link the iconography to distinctive elements in the north Italian Copper Age demonstrably linked to the masculine role in society, and therefore see Bego as a gendered place for men's concerns and business. In all the interpretative schemes, one sees a gap between the field record with its painstaking care for the minutiae in detail and the rather broad-brush theorizing, which depends on parallels with archaeological contexts rather removed in space and/or time and on generalized and imprecise anthropological expectations as to what ritual knowledge in the context of European Bronze Age society might be.

There is no up-to-date book in English on the Bego figures. Lumley et al. (1995) in French is first-rate — a large, detailed and well-illustrated account of the site, as known by recent work. A yet fuller publication, in which every single figure will be reported on in the detail, is planned. Le mont Bego..ª (1991) offers also varied research perspectives on the site.

Valcamonica—Valtellina

Valcamonica is a different kind of montane landscape. It is a narrow valley in north Italy, over 80 km long, running due north from Lake Iseo at about 200 metres elevation up to a high pass; many of the figures are at between 300 and 600 m elevation. Its profile is that of the characteristic glaciated valley, U-shaped with steep walls, and some high pasture-land — 'altepiani' — on the valley shoulders. Winters are cold, but permanent year-round settlement is normal at these heights in the Alps. This is a densely populated landscape, of farms and orchards, terraced fields, woodland, and even heavy industry.

The Valcamonica rock surfaces, of black and grey metamorphic sandstones and schists, were scraped clean and smooth by glaciation; since they were engraved, nearly all have been swallowed up by lichen, by vegetation and by a rising soil surface. They have been cleared and cleaned by researchers to reveal the figures. For some years, it was the practice temporarily to colour the surfaces so that the engraved figures stood out as white areas against a black ground; an unmatched method by which rapidly to identify and to record figures in detail. An unknown number of surfaces and figures are still buried; there are sure to be well more than 100,000 figures in the valley. Figures occur through the valley, with particular concentrations in certain portions.

Figure 5. Valcamonica figures (photograph).

Figure 6. Valcamonica figures (drawing).

The figures are largely pecked; some are scratched with a fine-line 'filiform' technique. The ards, daggers and halberds of the Mont Bego repertoire recur, as a small part only of a wide-ranging variety of motifs. There are great number and variety of human and of animal images, feet or footprints, images of steep-roofed buildings and of wheeled carts, meandering lines, spirals, geometrical figures which have the appearance of topographical maps, other distinctive shapes such as square 'paddles', crosses, a few pictures apparently of boats (Fossati 1999). The human figures take many forms; there are simple stick figures, and humans stand with arms raised as if in prayer or adoration ('orant'). Warriors — mounted or on foot — depicted with large bodies are armed with swords, spears and axes; they defend themselves with shields of varied shape. Amongst the animal figures, deer are abundant, often provided with extravagantly large antlers. There are dogs, cattle drawing ploughs, water-birds. Unusual figures appear to depict all manner of activities, a smith working at the forge, a man sexually involved with a donkey or horse. Lettering is of an Iron-Age north-Etruscan type, as well as the distinctive Roman and later forms.

Groupings and compositions appear frequent. 'Orant' figures are placed in lines or massed in groups to be numbered in tens. Deer run in herds. Footprints are placed in their pairs side-by-side. Warriors fight in opposed couples. Pictures of buildings are set close by each other, as if representing the houses of a village standing side-by-side.

Next to Valcamonica over a pass to the west is Valtellina, another long and narrow Alpine valley, with a major zone of rock-art (Fossati 1989) and a notable concentration of statue-stele.

Some explanation of the variety of images, by contrast with the uniformity of the Bego repertoire, is found in the time-span identified in Valcamonica. A handful of large animal figures, seen as having the style of European Palaeolithic art, are tentatively placed somewhere in the post-glacial. From the late Neolithic onwards, the sequence then appears continuous or nearly so: a limited number of motifs in the Neolithic (including 'orant' human figures), many from the Copper Age (with daggers and halberds), from the Bronze Age, and from the Iron Age (where figures are most numerous); in the historical period, from Roman times when the people of the valley, the Camuni, came under the empire; and from medieval times.

The established chronology (Anati 1976: 45) recognizes:
• 'proto-Camunian', about 8000—9000 BP
[hiatus]
• Camunian I, about 6800—5800 BP
• Camunian II, about 5800—4800 BP, subdivided into A, B, C plus transition into
• Camunian III, about 4800—3200 BP, subdivided into A, B, C, D plus transition into
• Camunian IV, about 3200—2000 BP (BC/AD transition), subdivided into A, B, C, D, E, F and 'final'
• 'post-Camunian, about 2000 BP (BC/AD transition) to about 1500 AD, subdivided into A, B, C.

A small number of whole surfaces have been published, among them: the largest surface in the group at Naquane (Anati 1960; in French); the two blocks across the valley from Naquane at Cemmo, the massi di Cemmo, which were discovered early and are key evidence of sequence in building the relative chronology (Anati 1972a; in Italian); the set of surfaces at Luine (Anati 1982); and those at Sellero (Sansoni 1987). There are monographs on some distinct motifs, Anati (1972b; in Italian) on the dagger, van Berg (1982; in French) on the wheeled vehicles. Anati (1994) is the most recent survey in English of Valcamonica rock-art as a whole (before, also, Anati (1976), characteristically subtitled 'an inquiry into the formation of European civilization'); briefer, in English, is Fossati et al. (1989). Immagini...ª (1991) presents the figures from the Iron Age as the images of a warrior aristocracy. But there is neither a great quantity of individual figures and surfaces published, nor a recent synthesis presenting a mass of systematic information, as fortunately exists fro Mont Bego.

Dominant amongst the Valcamonica researchers has been Emmanuel Anati, who sees the 'Valcamonica cycle' as closely indicative of changing human perceptions and world-views as the later prehistoric people of Europe make their social evolution. Central to this approach is a strong correlation that links a particular art subject and style to a certain social state, and a confidence the meaning of figures can be immediately discerned. In a group of three anthropomorphic figures, for instance, two standing opposed are identified as warriors, and the third and larger one between them as a 'mythological figure'; two figures behind partially depicting human forms are seen as 'busts of spirits' (Anati 1976: 141). In another, where four anthropomorphs are grouped together, one is identified as an evil spirit, the other three as human (Anati 1976: 114). There are now a certain number of studies approaching Valcamonica imagery from other research viewpoints (e.g. Fossati 1991; Frachetti & Chippindale in press), alongside further new discovery (e.g. Piombardi 1992). In Valtellina, for instance, there is now report of geometric figures, of the 'topographic' type known before only from Mont Bego; there dated to the Neolithic, they hint at an earlier date for an element in the Mont Bego series than previously deduced (D'Arcà REF).

Other Alpine rock-art groups, and the statue-stele

Complementing the two great groups, Mont Bego and Valcamonica—Valtellina, are other regional groupings, much smaller in their numbers of surfaces and figures, each with their own features (e.g. Schwegler 1992 for the Swiss sites): around Aosta (Daudry 1982; Archeologia...ª 1982) and in other valleys of far north-west Italy (e.g. Coisson & Jalla 1969; Petitti 1992—93) such as Valle di Susa (Arca 1990), Switzerland (Gallay & Chaix 1984); in other valleys of central Alpine Italy, the region around Valcamonica (e.g. Gaggia 1982); around Salzburg in central Austria (Alpine Volkskunst...ª 1993; Burgstaller 1972). Carschenna, central Switzerland, is notable for its cup-marks (Zindel 1970), known across the Alps as well as being the characteristic rock-art motif of the British Isles; Valle di Susa is a locality with the paintings that are rare in the Alps (Fossati & Arcà 1992).

Not strictly 'rock-art' are the statue-stele (Casini 1994), because these boulders engraved with figures, with a technique just like that of fixed rock-engravings, are portable artefacts. Typically, the statue-stela is a rounded stone, over a metre tall, towards a metre wide, perhaps a half-metre thick, so usually resembling broadly the proportions of a human body. A number, equipped with heads and sometimes with breasts, are more fully anthropomorphic. As well as 18 in Valcamonica and 5 in Valtellina, statue-stele occur in Alpine Italy in the Trento-Alto Adige region to the east and the Aosta valley to the west, and in the Sion region of Alpine Switzerland (Bocksberger 1976; Gallay & Chaix 1984); also in the Lunigiana region of north Italy (Anati 1981) and Apulia to the south; further afield in the Iberian peninsula, in northwest and in southern France, in southeast Europe, and north of the Black Sea. They deserve mention, for they have the closest links in their iconography with the rock-art, particularly that of the Copper Age, the period to which most of the statue-stele belong; halberds and daggers, common on the statue-stele, are key. The motifs on them are clearly composed, rather than set down apparently at hazard. A couple of Valcamonica surfaces, rock-engravings rather than portable objects because pecked into the solid rock, are compositions of motifs on the model of the statue-stele. Excavations at Ossimo, Valcamonica, usefully relates statue-stele to a complex sequence of events at some kind of ritual site in the Copper Age (Fedele REF), and Sion images are related to complex built monuments.

Discussion

Figure 7 summarizes the pattern of characteristic motifs as they vary over time, following Arcà & Fossati (1995). Most of these distinctive examples come from Valcamonica, in recognition of its dominant place amongst the corpus.

Figure 7. Table of themes in Alpine rock-art over time.

Adapted and a little revised from Arcà & Fossati (1995: 14—15).

Paul Taçon and I (Taçon & Chippindale 1999; also Chippindale & Taçon 1999 in general) find it useful to recognize in rock-art studies two approaches. There will also be formal methods, those that depend on no inside knowledge, but which work when one can come to the stuff 'cold'; the information available is then restricted to that which is immanent in the images themselves, or which we can discern from their relations to each other and to the landscape, or by relation to whatever archaeological context is available. In some regions there are also informed methods we mean those that depend on some source of insight passed on directly or indirectly from those who made and used the rock-art – though ethnography, though ethnohistory, though historical record, or though modern understanding known with good cause to perpetuate ancient knowledge. Some hints for the late Iron Age and Roman period in Valcamonica apart (see e.g. Anati 1976: 145), the study of the Alpine rock-art is beyond access by informed methods; we most rely nearly on formal methods alone, as we do for the rock-art of Europe as a whole. So there is a striking discrepancy between the two aspects to its study. The descriptive field record is painstaking and most detailed, arrived at by careful and time-consuming fieldwork. Interpretation, by contrast, has depended either on a 'common-sense' confidence that one can discern the essentials by the exercise of imaginative intelligence, or on an undemonstrated supposition that some general or universal rules will show themselves in rock-art everywhere, or on a dependence on examples of reference rather far removed in space and time from the Alpine ones under study. The need is great for some stronger methods in the 'middle range', those which could translate those conscientious field observations into a firmer grasp of those structures in theimagery by which it had in ancient times force and meaning.

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