Rock art and red-coated bedrock in Alta, Arctic Norway

Over the past few years Karin Tansem of the Alta World Heritage Rock Art Centre and I have investigated the hypothesis that the famous rock engravings in Alta originally was made on strongly red-coloured bedrock along the seashore. The post-glacial land uplift has subsequently displaced the rock art and the colour has almost completely waned, leaving the rocks dull grey, as we know them today. Now we are happy that our work is finally published as an open-access paper, with Karin as driving force and lead author, in the international journal Geoarchaeology! Here’s the abstract explaining the phenomenon and its implications, and a link to the full paper. Continue reading →