Scenes of Human Control of Reindeer in the Alta Rock Art: An Event of Early Domestication in the Far North?

Abstract

This article focuses on some evident differences between Phase 1 and Phase 2 rock art at Alta in western Finnmark in northern Norway. The earliest period (Phase 1, 5200–4200 cal BC) of rock art production shows numerous scenes in which humans seem to take control of wild game. The compositions of corrals with reindeer inside may be indications of forms of early domestication suggested to have occurred within a context marked by the authority of successful hunters and the influence of emerging inequality. This element of control correlates with an apparent totemic influence in the expressions of rock art. The rock art produced in the succeeding period (Phase 2, 4200-3000 cal BC), however, entirely lacks scenes communicating control of reindeer. This article suggests that this selective absence is an expression of a regained egalitarian social form and a reappraisal of an original animism.