Courtney Nimura is an an expert on rock art and regularly conducts fieldwork in Sweden, where she has been working on a long-running project aimed at understanding the maritime and inland rock art of southern Sweden. Northern Europe is home to the largest concentration of rock art in Europe, and the majority was created in the Bronze Age (c. 1700-500 BCE). Rock art in Scandinavia is abundant - it is found from Arctic Norway to northern Germany.

Rock art in Scandinavia is abundant - it is found from Arctic Norway to northern Germany. The images depict a wide variety of identifiable motifs, such as humans, animals, weapons, and carts, and an even wider variety of abstract images, such as spirals, rings, and unidentifiable shapes (Figure 1).

Other than the simple geometric engravings known as 'cupmarks', the most ubiquitous image is the ship or boat (Figure 2). These vessels are found depicted mostly along the coasts, where they are thought to be associated with maritime cultural and social traditions. Inland, fewer ships are found, and instead images of feet are more abundant (Figure 3). Less is known about this inland rock art. Through our fieldwork, my colleagues and I have sought to improve our understanding of the purpose and meaning of rock art in inland areas, where images of ships are rarer.