This interdisciplinary project will investigate the emergence of prehistoric pictorial storytelling in northern Europe.

The overall purpose of the project is to investigate what is required to render stories in pictorial form and to examine how the first pictorial stories were shaped on rock carvings in northern Europe around 5000 BCE.

Pinpointed fieldwork at rock art sites in Northern Europe (Norway, Sweden and Finland), documenting sites with new technology, will later be compared to equvalents in storytelling rock art from Portugal and Spain.

The project is led by Linnaeus University, and funded by The Swedish Research Council. Other partners are NIKU and Lund University. NIKU is responsible for field work and documentation.

The work group consists of project manager Peter Skoglund (Linnaeus University), Michael Ranta (Linnaeus University), Jan Magne Gjerde (NIKU), and Anna Cabak Rédei and Tomas Persson (Lund University)