AN ANCIENT
ART OF HUNTERS
AND FISHERS
continued
proximate chronological limits of the rock pictures at
Lake Onega allow us to consider the north Russian rock
carvings as contemporaneous with the Scandinavian. The
establishment of an absolute synchronism between the
engravings of both areas is impossible because neither on
the rocks of Lake Onega nor on those of the White Sea
do we find representations of datable bronze razors or
axes which have been so valuable for the chronology of
the Bronze Age rock carvings in Scandinavia. There is
no question of the borrowing of certain features from
the Scandinavian rock carvings or vice versa. We cannot
point to a very close formal or technical similarity. In
neither area do we find an intentional grouping of figures. The separate symbols or groups of symbols convey a
strong impression that new figures were added from time
to time over a long period.
The ideas which motivated the rock engravings in
Scandinavia and in northern Russia must have been similar. These in a sense unite the rock pictures of Scandinavia, Lake Onega and the White Sea, although in each
of them we see local traits.
11. Rockengravingsat LakeOnega:humanfigureswith upraisedarmsand with
the head portrayedas a circleor double
circle.After A. I. A. Briusov,"Istoriia
drevneiKarelii" ("The Historyof Ancient Karelia"), Trudy Gos. IstoricheskogoMuzeia 9, Moscow1940.
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