Elk Heads at Sea: Maritime Hunters and Long-Distance Boat Journeys in Late Stone Age Fennoscandia

Tumlehed is the most well-preserved and complex prehistoric rock painting in the coastal region of south-west Sweden. Originally reported and described in 1974, we re-documented the panel using digital and IR photography, DStretch image enhancement software, and non-destructive PXRF spectroscopy. This re-documentation revealed a more complex image inventory with several previously unknown motifs and image details. The new data provide a better basis for identifying motif categories, the organization of the panel, the chronological sequence, and different frequentation periods. We report on the only known boats with an elk-head stem in southern and western Scandinavian rock art, the emergence of rock art boat depictions in the region, and evidence for long-distance maritime journeys and sea-mammal hunting in the later Stone Age. Comparisons to similar images with shoreline data in Fennoscandia narrow the time range for the date of the painting to 4200-2500 BC.