Pioneers in Animate Landscapes: Situating Rock Art in the Colonization Process of Northern Norway

Abstract On the Atlantic coast of northern Norway there is a small group of rock-art sites dated to the early Holocene. Here we address this unique group of sites by exploring their role in the colonization process. The pioneer population encountered a pristine and unknown landscape, still impacted by the melting ice cap. Rather than focus on the motifs, we emphasize the significance of the local topography and the role of relational ontology, where a significant aspect of the process was the impact of the highly active landscape and unusual sceneries. We situate the rock art in a prolonged multi–generational relationship between humans and landscape. We propose a phased model in which distinctive natural features first functioned as navigational landmarks, later became anchored in oral narratives, and eventually acquired cosmological associations, culminating in their physical marking through rock art. Over time this created palimpsests of human–landscape relations with evolving memoryscapes where mobility, myth and materiality intersect. Our approach highlights the dynamic and storied nature of pioneer engagement with animate and agentive landscape in early northern Fennoscandia.