Circumpolar Rock Art and a Cosmology of Movement (original) (raw)

Abstract

Circumpolar rock art involves interesting contrasts between large-scale cosmologies and changing networks of communication and exchange, visible in the archaeological record. Changing distributions of slate objects and amber, the spread of ceramic technologies and shared artistic devices demonstrate the extent communities in northernmost Europe were entangled within complex landscapes of interaction. When exploring the possibility of enduring circumpolar cosmologies it is therefore important to question how continuity and social mobility interrelate. Inspired by ethnographic research of the Yupik in Alaska and Tsimshian in British Columbia, this paper argues that instead of forming a contradiction, change and movement of experiences and people was a crucially formative aspect of cosmological thinking in Circumpolar Europe. To demonstrate this, I examine the rock art palimpsests of Zalavruga in Karelia and Nämforsen in Northern Sweden. By using G.I.S reconstructions and compositional analyses, it is possible to explore how the visual traditions of Circumpolar Europe involved embracing, merging and separating pictorial subjects in contrasting and changing ways. This aspect of the rock art suggests that by producing images in terms of moving people and ideas, mobility and change was a constitutive aspect of how Circumpolar communities experienced their worlds and each other.

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