På sporet av senmesolittiske døderiter

Fornyet innsikt i alderen og betydningen av bergkunsten i Ausevik, Flora, Sogn og Fjordane

Abstract

The first part of the paper discusses the dating of the rock art site Ausevik in Flora, Sogn og Fjordane, and evaluates previous suggestions from the last appsoximately years, based primarily on stylistic comparisons and to some extent shore line displacements. On the basis of new evidence from excavations at the site it is argued that the rock art should be dated to the Late Mesolithic, and that its iconography, use and expression is simultaneous with the more renown Vingen site a short distance further north. This opens for a much better understanding of the similarities of images and the organisation and expression of the narratives at the two sites. In the second part of the paper it is argued that both these sites are related to mortuary practices at the term of the Late Mesolithic period in Western Norway. It seems also to address important ideological issues in the relation between animal images and what seem to be representations of skeletons. The iconography also hints at reasons why cemeteries or graves have not been found in any numbers. The practise in Western Norway might have been of another tradition.