These Rocks Were Made for Walking: Rock Art at Leirfall, Trøndelag, Norway

Abstract

One of the largest sites with Bronze Age type rock art in Norway is found at Leirfall in Stjørdal, Nord-Trøndelag. The site, which consists of five panels, is dominated by footprints but at the same time a great variety of motifs is present. The footprints seem to lure visitors to walk from panel to panel, even across the panels, which are located at three different levels. The main focus is on the middle level, where the main panel (Leirfall III) contains more than 700 rock carvings. The walks between and around the panels are described; at the same time the Leirfall rock carvings are seen in a wider context. Most footprints are likely to represent children and it is argued that the site was used for the performance of public rites during initiations. However, symbols normally found only on decorated grave cists are present, too, particularly on the upper panel, which cannot be seen from below. Death rituals may also have been performed.

Giving the Past a Future: Essays in Archaeology and Rock Art Studies in Honour of Dr. Phil. h.c. Gerhard Milstreu

“…As for Trøndelag County, Kalle Sognnes (2011) has analysed the importance of walking and perception in a phenomenological manner at the rock art site Leirfall in the municipality of Stjørdal, but the relation between Bronze Age settlements, principal routes or paths and rock carvings is rarely considered on a landscape level. In the Stjørdal Valley there is particularly one locality that could serve as an analogy to the situation at the Foss Plateau, more specifically the farm Berg or Berri, where several rock art panels and burial cairns are located along a very distinctive hollow-way marking the Bergskleiva Track.…”

Interpretations of Footprints in the Bronze Age Rock Art of South Scandinavia

“…At Leirfall they seem to depict trails which can extend from one exposed surface to another. They lead to an outcrop which is decorated with a non-figurative motif strikingly similar to those inside burial cists in the same region (Sognnes 2011). A similar claim was made by one of the writers in an account of Järrestad 13:1, where files of pecked or engraved footprints extend down the surface of the rock, leading from a small group of round barrows towards a bog (Bradley 1999).…”