Articulating stone. The material practice of petroglyphing

Abstract

The present text elaborates on the material and processual aspects of making petroglyphs during the early Bronze Age in Northern Europe. The focus is set on the relations between materiality and the ‘chaine operatoire’ rather than in terms of representation, symbolisation or style. It is argued that patchworks, unfinished motifs, re-cuts and hybrids are more interesting ways to understand the complex relations between the social and the ritual aspects of petroglyphing. The approach is illustrated by a horizontal stratigraphy of the Hemsta panel in the parish of Uppland, in southern Sweden. Here a sequence of at least three separate phases of activity is distinguished. The study emphasizes the changing importance of space, depth and size in the process of making and arranging the motifs – suggesting that the development is a part of a social and ritual turbulence resembling the process of hybridity.

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