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Introduction
The Norwegian cave paintings form a geographically confined phenomenon. They are concen- trated in the two neighbouring counties of Nord-Trøndelag and Nordland which are in the north- ern region of the country. At the time of writing, twelve sites con- taining about 170 painted figures have been documented.
The Norwegian painted caves are remarkable in the sense that they are the only recorded ex- amples of their kind in northern Europe. Located in desolate areas along the Atlantic coast, they are found in mountainous landscapes with a rugged shoreline. The con- sensus of opinion is that the ma- jority of the paintings were made by hunter-gatherer-fishers during the Bronze Age (or the Early Metal Age as this period is referred to in northern Norway), and that they stayed in these caves on a short- term basis for ritual purposes only.
The Norwegian painted caves: an overview
The sites on the list below are numbered according to geography, starting from south (please see the map, fig.1). In addition to the site names, the list has entries for the district, county and borough as well as the year of discovery of the paintings.
Ytre Namdalen, Nord-Trøndelag
1. Fingals Cave, Nærøy (1961)
2. Solsem Cave, Leka (1912)
Sør-Helgeland, Nordland
3. Troillholet, Vevelstad (1988)
4. Skåren-Monsen Cave, Brønnøy (1978)
Salten, Nordland
5. The Cave of Store Hjertøya, Bodø (1994)
6. Brustein Cave, Gildeskål (1994)
7. Lønngangen, Gildeskål (2012)
Lofoten, Nordland
8. Helvete, Røst (1992)
9. Sanden Cave, Værøy (1994)
10. Kollhellaren (Refsvik Cave), Moskenes (1987)
11. Bukkhammar Cave, Moskenes (2001)
12. Hessura, Flakstad (2011)
With the exception of no. 5, all these sites are dark in their innermost parts.
These painted caves represent three geo- morphological types. No. 7 has been eroded in a karst landscape, whereas no. 12 is a so-called talus cave. This means that it has been formed by a heap of huge boulders which gathered after a dramatic rockslide. The remaining ones are sea caves, or littoral caves. They have been eroded in different kinds of metamorphic rocks.
The formation of the sea caves
The sea caves were formed by marine ero- sion of weak zones in vertical coastal cliff faces. This took place during the advance and retreat of Late Pleistocene glaciations. In...