Yrja Skjærum

• Skjærum, Yrja (2026). Patterns of Presence: Animal Behaviour in Norwegian Bronze Age Rock Art. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Interpretations of Nordic Bronze Age rock art have largely centred on cosmology, ritual, and symbolic systems. Within these frameworks, animals frequently appear as mythological attributes, emblems of status, or components of narrative scenes. While richly interpreted symbolically, they are seldom approached as behaving beings in their own right. This paper foregrounds the physical encounters between makers of rock art and the animals in their habitats, asking what happened when species met in the Bronze Age. Drawing on the initial analytical phase of my ongoing doctoral research, this study examines animal depictions in Norwegian Bronze Age rock art (c. 1700–500 BC) with attention to posture, movement, and motif context. By tracing recurring behavioural patterns, I explore the carved figures, and the lived presence of animals encountered in homes, fields, forests, and ritual settings. Central to this approach is that the understanding of behaviour is perceived, remembered, and translated by the producer of rock art. Depiction becomes a mediation of encounter, where observed movements and interspecies relationships are filtered through culturally shaped ways of seeing and knowing. Do certain species consistently appear in motion, in specific relational contexts, or within recurring narrative constellations? Are wild and domesticated animals engaged differently? And how might rock art reflect repeated or meaningful encounters between humans and animals? Grounded in relational and multispecies approaches, the paper proposes that rock art does more than encode cosmological ideas; it materializes modes of being-with animals. Analysed as traces of encounters, these images register proximity, attention, and relationships between animals and humans. Attending to patterns of behaviour allows animals to emerge as active participants in Bronze Age worlds.

• Skjærum, Yrja & Lødøen, Trond (2026). The Vingen Case: activating culture - preserving nature. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  On the 5th of February 2024, the Norwegian government approved a large-scale quarry and shipping port development in the immediate proximity to Vingen, one of Northern Europe’s most significant Mesolithic rock art landscapes. The decision - taken against the advice of The Directorate for Cultural Heritage and environmental authorities - ignited a broad global resistance movement. What followed was a struggle to preserve a threatened landscape, and a demonstration of how archaeological and environmental activism converged into a political force. This paper examines the Vingen case as an example of how archaeology can mobilize its discipline in the face of accelerating environmental degradation. Drawing on our direct involvement, we analyse how collaborations with local communities, nature conservation groups, international scientific and legislation networks, and media, archaeology played a role in reframing the quarry project from a local industrial matter to a national and global heritage concern. This coalition ultimately contributed to halting the planned shipping port, demonstrating that archaeological engagement can contribute to tangible wins within complex political landscapes. The Vingen case highlights both the possibilities and the tensions inherent in archaeological activism. For example, it became clear that the dichotomies of nature-culture that we both try to dissuade in our research, was a tool for preservation of the natureculture that the Vingen landscape is comprised of. By situating the Vingen case within broader debates on environmental justice and heritage politics, this paper argues that archaeology has an important role to play in shaping habitable futures; creating synergies for natureculture through activating culture in order to preserve nature.

• Skjærum, Yrja (2025). Food for thought - mer enn mat. Riss: Et arkeologisk tidsskrift. ISSN 1503-7436. 8(Mat og Drikke), p. 94–102. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  I dette essayet skriver jeg om hvordan bevegelser i arkeologien som social zooarchaeology, animal turn og multispecies archaeology beveger oss i retning av mer komplekse forståelser av relasjonene mellom mennesker og dyr i fortiden. Gjennom disse teoretiske bevegelsene gis dyrene større agens, og ontologier som animisme og totemisme gjør at vi kan forske på og undersøke verdensbilder hvor dyrene spiller andre roller enn vi tradisjonelt forestiller oss – de er ikke lenger bare mat for fortidens jegere, fiskere, gjetere og buskapsholdere, men noe mer.

• Skjærum, Yrja (2025). I møte med dyr: Dyremotiver fra bronsealderen i etologisk perspektiv. Full text in Research Archive
• Skjærum, Yrja; Sviggum, Tina & Øvergaard, Kristine (2025). Bergkunst til folket! Full text in Research Archive
• Skjærum, Yrja (2025). Vingen: et kulturmiljø i fare. Full text in Research Archive
• Skjærum, Yrja (2025). Red deer between reality and representation: The rock art of Vingen through an ethological lens. Full text in Research Archive
• Skjærum, Yrja (2025). Encounters in Stone: Red Deer - Human Relationships in the Late Mesolithic Rock Art site Vingen. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This paper investigates human-red deer relationships during the Late Mesolithic (c. 6400–4000 BC) through an in-depth analysis of red deer motifs at the Vingen rock art site on Norway’s west coast. As the country’s second-largest Stone Age rock art site, Vingen contains approximately 2,200 motifs, the majority depicting red deer (Cervus elaphus). Applying ethology—the study of animal behaviour—to the iconographical analysis of these depictions, this study explores how rock art reflects real-life encounters between humans and red deer. This theoretical and methodological lens recenters the animals as active participants in human-animal relations, acknowledging their agency in shaping these encounters. Integrating ethological insights with relational ontologies, this paper examines why red deer became a dominant motif and what their representations reveal about Late Mesolithic understandings of animals. I argue that red deer motifs in rock art were not merely symbolic abstractions but conveyed detailed observations of red deer behaviour, including social structures, seasonal migrations, and mating rituals. This approach offers a new perspective on motif selection, demonstrating that artistic representations in Vingen’s rock art were grounded in direct observations of red deer behaviour, rather than purely symbolic abstraction.

• Skjærum, Yrja (2025). Percieving and Portraying - Relationships between Red Deer and Humans as depicted in the Rock Art of Mesolithic Norway. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Animals are the most frequently depicted motif in Stone Age rock art in Norway. Traditionally, these representations have been tied to perceptions of animals as resources, but multispecies archaeology has provided new theoretical tools for interpreting relationships with animals through the lens of animistic worldviews. While we cannot know the thoughts of the artists producing rock art, we can know how they chose to depict the things they had seen. I bridge the gap between the observation of animals and the depiction of the same animals by assessing the significance of an animal’s behaviour and how it is evident in the rock art depictions. Drawing on ethology - the study of animal behaviour - I argue that these depictions reflect not only symbolic interpretations but also detailed observations of animal actions. Using the Late Mesolithic rock art site at Vingen in Western Norway, dominated by red deer motifs (Cervus elaphus), I examine how prehistoric people perceived red deer behaviour and how these perceptions were translated into rock art. This sheds light upon the complex relationships between humans and red deer in the Late Mesolithic of Western Norway, demonstrating how ethology can inform our understanding of prehistoric animal depictions.

• Skjærum, Yrja (2024). Arkeologistudenter til protest mot steinbrudd. [Journal]. Studvest. doi: https:/www.studvest.no/nyhet/arkeologistudenter-protesterer-mot-steinbrudd/147287. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Nylig ble det vedtatt å gjennomføre steinbrudd på fjelltoppen på Aksla i Bremanger. Vedtaket har møtt stor skepsis. Riksantikvaren mener det står i fare for å ødelegge skjøre helleristningsfelt i nærheten. Klima- og miljødepartementet frykter steinbruddet ødelegger sårbar natur med utrydningstruede arter. Kommunen og regjeringa mener derimot arbeidsplasser veier tyngst. Søndag 18. februar møttes en gjeng arkeologistudenter i Magnus Barfots gate til protest. – Dette er veldig unødvendig nedbygging av natur som går mot alle faglige råd og som står i fare for å skade viktige kulturminner. Slik vi ser det, veier ikke 15 midlertidige arbeidsplasser opp for dette, sier arkeologistudenten, Yrja Skjærum.

• Skjærum, Yrja (2024). Observasjon – persepsjon – representasjon: En etologisk tilnærming til fortolkning av hjortefigurene i Vingen. Full text in Research Archive
• Skjærum, Yrja (2024). «Å legge et steinbrudd i samme område som et planlagt UNESCO kulturarvssenter og nasjonalpark er galskap» - fjt.no. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Midt i Norges pågående naturkrise står det nær sagt uberørte landskapet rundt Frøysjøen nå plutselig i fare. Det nederlandske selskapet Bontrup har fått lov til å utvinne 360 millioner tonn devonstein som skal brukes til å lage vei og offshoreprodukter. Både Statsforvalteren i Vestland og Riksantikvaren er sterkt imot dette og alle offentlige høringsinstanser har vært negative. I dette området ligger det vernede Vingen helleristningsområde og det planlagte nasjonalparkområdet rundt Hornelen, Europas høyeste sjøklippe. Likevel har kommunen nå fått lov av regjeringen til å starte opp steinbruddet

• Skjærum, Yrja (2024). «Vedtaket er galskap – det kan enhver som forstår hvilken rikdom kommunen forvalter i dette landskapet se» - fjt.no. Full text in Research Archive
• Skjærum, Yrja (2023). Hva ser vi etter når vi ser etter kjønn? En studie av kjønnsmarkører i veideristningstradisjonen i Fennoskandia. Riss: Et arkeologisk tidsskrift. ISSN 1503-7436. 4, p. 65–77. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  In this article I seek to identify what it is we look for when we look for gender in rock art. How do we decide the sex or the gender of an anthropomorphic figure, and what can we learn by looking for gender in rock art? By reviewing earlier interpretations and identifying what markers we as archaeologists traditionally see as gendered. I aim to discuss these gendered markers in light of feminist- and queer-archaeology, to bring these theoretical and methodical views of gender in rock art forth and discuss how our contemporary view of gender sometimes dictate our interpretation of anthropomorphic figures. The rock art I will study are the so-called “hunters rock art” or “arctic rock art” in Fennoscandia from the late Mesolithic and early Neolithic stone age.

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