Scenes of Human Control of Reindeer in the Alta Rock Art. An Event of Early Domestication in the far North?

Ingrid Fuglestvedt

doi:10.37718/csa.2020.06

Abstract

This article focuses on some evident differences between Phase 1 and Phase 2 rock art at Alta in western Finnmark in northern Norway. The earliest period (Phase 1, 5200–4200 cal BC) of rock art production shows numerous scenes in which humans seem to take control of wild game. The compositions of corrals with reindeer inside may be indications of forms of early domestication suggested to have occurred within a context marked by the authority of successful hunters and the influence of emerging inequality. This element of control correlates with an apparent totemic influence in the expressions of rock art. The rock art produced in the succeeding period (Phase 2, 4200-3000 cal BC), however, entirely lacks scenes communicating control of reindeer. This article suggests that this selective absence is an expression of a regained egalitarian social form and a reappraisal of an original animism.

Highlights

The rock art of Alta in western Finnmark is a corpus of prehistoric depictions produced from the older Stone Age, through the Younger Stone Age and early Metal Age
Carved onto the natural panels of what today stands out as a spectacular rock art area, this corpus comprises more than 5000 figures, mostly of reindeer, elk, elk-shaped boats and humans; in other words, an imagery typically related to the lives of arctic hunter-fisher-gatherers
What comes to the mind concerning advanced architecture as part of a Late Stone Age package would be the large and multi-spaced Gressbakken house type

Summary

Ingrid Fuglestvedt

This article focuses on some evident differences between Phase 1 and Phase 2 rock art at Alta in western Finnmark in northern Norway. The compositions of corrals with reindeer inside may be indications of forms of early domestication suggested to have occurred within a context marked by the authority of successful hunters and the influence of emerging inequality. This element of control correlates with an apparent totemic influence in the expressions of rock art. This article suggests that this selective absence is an expression of a regained egalitarian social form and a reappraisal of an original animism.

Introduction

Corrals as a strategy for collecting reindeer

The question of domestication

Rock art as a display of reality

The Alta rock art as expressions of animism and totemism

Reindeer domestication as an asset of successful hunters