On a steep waddle squatter in western Sweden, researchers uncovered a fascinating find: virtually 40 petroglyphs — depicting ships, people and unprepossessing figures — dating when virtually 2,700 years.
The petroglyphs were carved on a granite waddle squatter that was once part of an island, meaning people would have had to make the carvings while standing on a boat, or from a platform synthetic on ice, said Martin Östholm, a project manager with the Foundation for Documentation of Bohuslän's Waddle Carvings who is one of the archaeologists who discovered the petroglyphs, told Live Science.
The petroglyphs are upper up on a granite waddle squatter that cannot be climbed, so researchers built a platform to study them. (Image credit: Foundation for Documentation of Bohuslän’s Waddle Carvings)
Bohuslän is once known for its waddle carvings, including Bronze Age art made at Tanum, a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) site. The team was looking for new petroglyphs in the zone when they came wideness the moss-covered waddle face. They noticed some lines on it that appeared to be human made, so they removed the moss, revealing the petroglyphs underneath. The waddle squatter is too steep to stand on, Östholm said, so the team had to stand on a platform to do their archaeological work.
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Some of the newly found petroglyphs that were carved virtually 2,700 years ago. (Image credit: Foundation for Documentation of Bohuslän’s Waddle Carvings)
The petroglyphs include depictions of ships, people and unprepossessing figures, including four-legged creatures that may be horses. The biggest one shows a ship that is 13 feet (4 meters) long, Östholm said, noting that many of the petroglyphs are between well-nigh 12 and 16 inches (30 to 40 centimeters) in length.
People would have smacked nonflexible stones versus the granite waddle squatter to create the petroglyphs, Östholm said. This whoopee exposed a white layer underneath, making the petroglyphs highly visible, plane from the mainland or passing ships. It's not unrepealable why people created the carvings, he said, but they may have served to mark ownership.
Animal figures are depicted in petroglyphs from Sweden. (Image credit: Foundation for Documentation of Bohuslän’s Waddle Carvings)
The grassland zone where the cows now graze is an warmed-over seabed that was underwater at the time the petroglyphs were carved. (Image credit: Foundation for Documentation of Bohuslän’s Waddle Carvings)
The meanings of the carvings are moreover unclear, but an expert who was not involved in the discovery shared a few ideas.
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If the petroglyphs were made within a relatively short period of time, they may tell a story, said James Dodd, a researcher at Aarhus University in Denmark and the Tanums Hällristningsmuseum's Rock Art Research Centre Underslös in Sweden. Some of the motifs — including chariots, carts and unprepossessing figures — were depicted multiple times, he noted.
"On the understructure of the repetition of the motifs, it is possible that this hodgepodge of figures forms a narrative," Dodd told Live Science in an email. Studies of other petroglyphs in the region have suggested that, in some cases, they may have been used in this way, but the word-for-word meaning in this specimen is uncertain, he added.
The petroglyphs were discovered in early May, and research is ongoing, Östholm said.
