A consideration of the rock art of the Mälaren bay region exploring the potential efficacy of petroglyphs as physical devices through organization, design, and articulation.

The Bronze Age (1700–500 BCE) petroglyphs of southern Scandinavia comprise a unique tradition of rock art in northern Eurasia. Despite a limited repertoire of motifs such as cupmarks, boats, anthropomorphs, zoomorphs, podomorphs and circles, it shows great variability in design, elaboration and articulation. This book is a study of the Mälaren region in southern-central Sweden that includes one of the most prominent rock art clusters of southwest Uppland as well as the hinterland of Södermanland county. The rock art in this region is studied on three scales: regional, local and particular. This allows for comparisons between dense and small sites, an exploration of how the Bronze Age rock art tradition developed over time in the area, and equally how the design and articulation of certain motifs relate to contemporary settlements, waterways and varying environmental settings.

Patterns and structures in the distribution and articulation of the petroglyphs show that the different motifs are not only visual expressions but very much material enactments. The motifs often physically relate to each other, the flows of water, and the microtopography and mineral contents of the rocks. The study is therefore not as much about rock art as images and symbols as it is about the ecology of rock art – the web of social and physical relations in which it was enacted and employed. From this perspective, the petroglyphs are seen as petrofacts, that is something akin to tools or devices articulated in various ways to affect humans, other-than-humans and the animacies of the coastal milieus where they were made.

• Cover page
• Title page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Swedish Rock Art Research Series
• Preface
• 1 Ecologies of rock art
  • A dynamic and inclusive perspective
  • From art to articulation: visual and material agency
  • From multispecies to multi-entity archaeology
  • An ontological inquiry: animism, magic and the transcendent
  • Rock art as a vitalist technology?
  • About the book
• 2 The rock art of the Mälaren Bay
  • Defining the study area
  • Distribution and documentation of the Mälaren rock art
  • Chronology of the rock art
  • The region to the south of Mälaren
  • The region north of Mälaren
  • Regional trends and patterns in the rock art of the Mälaren district
  • Local densities, frequencies and representation
  • Distribution of sites over time and space
• 3 Organisation and articulation of the motifs
  • The cupmarks
  • The boat motif
  • Anthropomorphs (and body parts)
  • Podomorphs (dressed and naked feet)
  • The zoomorphic figures
  • Circular motifs
  • Miscellaneous motifs: weapons/tools, trees and mantle figures
  • Rock art motifs on other medialities and in other contexts
  • Chronology and distribution of the main motifs in the Mälaren region
  • Organisation, design and articulation of the main motifs
• 4 Modes of articulation
  • Mode I: Partial and incomplete motifs
  • Mode II: Petroglyphs in process: palimpsests and subsequent enactments
  • Mode III: Large-scale and hyperbolic motifs
  • Mode IV: Material enactments
  • Summary: modes of articulation and the enactments of rock art
• 5 Rock art as a vitalist technology
  • Petroglyphs as petrofacts
  • I: Enacting relations to water: boats as object-beings
  • II: Anthropomorphs and podomorphs as lures and traps
  • III: The zoomorphic petroglyphs – regenerating and evoking?
  • IV: Cupmarks and grooves as hydromantic devices
  • Bronze Age petroglyphs as vitalist devices?
• 6 The Mälaren rock art in perspective
  • Rock art by numbers: frequencies and rate of production
  • The Mälaren region in southern Scandinavia
  • The Mälaren region in Eurasia: a wider perspective
  • Consequences for interpretation
  • The emergence and demise of Mälaren rock art
• 7 Conclusion
• References