Var figur på sin plats : En studie i landskapets relation till figurtyp och figurantal vid sörmländska hällbildslokaler

Sammanfattning: This paper examines the relationship between the landscape at Bronze Age figurative rock art sites in the province of Södermanland in Sweden with the types of motifs and number of motifs present at the sites. For this purpose, six different properties in the landscape are studied with GIS: Height above sea level, cardinal direction of the slope, distance to the shoreline, cardinal direction to the nearest body of water, visibility of the rock art sites from major waterways and coastline, and type of rock at the site. While comparing the landscape properties of rock art sites grouped by the motifs present, the landscape properties height above sea level, and distance to the shoreline differed the most between motifs. Footprint- and human motifs diverge the most from general patterns. As for the comparison of landscape properties between figure-rich sites and those with only one figure in total, the biggest differences in landscape were the height above sea level and types of rock present at the sites. The conclusion drawn is that while certain landscape properties differ between motifs or figure-rich and single-figure sites, there are also certain properties and patterns that were consistently chosen for all rock art sites in Södermanland.