Recent groundbreaking research illuminates previously unknown long-distance interactions that occurred between Scandinavia and Iberia during the Late Bronze Age, offering new perspectives on the age of rock carvings and the societies that created them. Advancements in diverse fields, including the 3D recording of rock art, iconography analysis, metals and amber provenance studies, linguistics, and insights from human remains analysis through strontium and aDNA, have converged to make these discoveries possible. This article delves into the cross-referencing of Iberian Late Bronze Age warrior iconography with its Scandinavian counterpart, exploring the age and context of these artistic expressions. Furthermore, we will consider the interconnectedness revealed by archeometallurgical evidence, linguistic connections, and other lines of inquiry such as Baltic amber distribution and metal artifact analysis, all contributing to a richer understanding of this era.
This comprehensive research is the result of the RAW project, an international initiative supported by the Swedish Research Council. The project was spurred by the compelling isotopic and chemical evidence indicating that Nordic Bronze Age artifacts were crafted using copper originating from the Iberian Peninsula. These significant findings have prompted a renewed examination of two long-standing, yet inadequately explained phenomena. Firstly, the striking similarities in motifs and formal parallels observed in the rock art of Scandinavia and Iberian ‘warrior’ stelae. Understanding the age and creation of these rock art forms is crucial to interpreting these parallels. Secondly, the substantial corpus of shared vocabulary between the Celtic and Germanic languages, notably absent in other Indo-European language branches, points to a deeper connection.
An integrated explanation for these interconnected phenomena – Iberian metal found in Scandinavia, the striking parallels in Bronze Age rock carvings which speak to the age and shared cultural context of these societies, and the Celto-Germanic vocabulary links – allows for the formulation of a testable hypothesis. This hypothesis suggests a significant period during the Bronze Age characterized by the exchange of materials and ideas across vast distances, connecting Scandinavia and the Atlantic West, including the Iberian Peninsula. Determining the precise Age Of The Rock art and related artifacts is key to understanding the timeline and nature of these interactions. The age of the rock, therefore, becomes a crucial element in deciphering the extent and impact of these Bronze Age connections.
