Historical fiction and Norwegian petroglyphs
Pattern recognition is extremely fun and we love to do it.
When I was a kid I loved archeology and dramatic histories of science (think “The Microbe Hunters”) and also anything about unexplained phenomena and scientific hoaxes, like UFOs or people spontaneously combusting or the original Mechanical Turk. And now I am spontaneously combusting myself as I have just read the most ridiculous fable! Google “news” shoveled a fantastic “science” story about pre-historic Norwegian petroglyph artists into my eyeballs (at the very top of my idle scroll-impulse) and I had to read it and then had to look deeper. Actually some months ago I spent another idle evening reading about Norwegian petroglyphs – from Wikipedia to researchgate to marking the locations of various petroglyphs on a map (Hurrah the internet!!). And it gets worse. I also as a kid read my dad’s hardback “A History of The Vikings” (Gwyn Jones) and learned to read and write in runes (so useful for Lord of the Rings.) Later I read a kind of incredible amount of Norse sagas in translation. So you see the Algorithm understands me fairly well. It sees (some of) my patterns, and sometimes, I realize, or hypothesize, what it is doing and why, in return.
Pattern recognition often goes way too far though and I can’t help mocking this instance of it!!! Please join me to anti-admire this glorious piece of nonsense from a geology professor who should know better. Yes, everyone thought continental drift was nonsense, and we could also look at impact geology & Chicxulub for another example of a mockable theory turned plausible – but that is not a good argument for any other implausible thing to be true!
So this guy Allan Krill starts with the claim that a rock tool could not have pecked out the clean and regular petroglyph lines without its point breaking. Right from this point I want to argue with him. How does he know? Has he tried every kind of rock a prehistoric Norwegian might have had in hand? What kind of rock(s) are they carving/pecking onto? And what is harder than that? I don’t even have to look at a geological map to think about quartz, quartzite and other crystalline stuff! Antlers are too soft to carve rock (he says) but aren’t antlers part of rock tool knapping? And has Allan Krill practiced his petroglyph rock-pecking arts for years like our prehistoric artists might have? I mean, what? Even this initial leap is too much for me.
Then another giant leap – that these are Iron Age petroglyphs because only iron could have done this carving. And then a speculation – “Wrought iron boat nails would be the perfect tool.” Like, fine, come up with a wild theory and then do lots of experiments but why a boat nail? If you have iron and it’s the iron age forge a special tool. Why a boat nail? Why not a special iron rock-pecker! Have your imaginary Iron Age characters invent a whole set of artist’s chisels, like Ayla in the Valley of the Horses inventing approximately 30,000 years’ worth of human endeavor in one Pleasures-filled winter!!! Let’s gooooo!
Then he sets the scene – Viking longships which naturally (?!) would welcome a strong oarsman who was also a boat-nail petroglyph artist, because when the boat needed repairs, our artist could go do his thing. Again, what?
Then the best bit. He categorizes all the pecked-out-style petroglyphs along Norway and further north along Finland and Russia into four styles, and then attributes those styles not to particular eras, fashions, or cultures, but to four people. He names them like dolls and makes up their histories! I kind of love this but I also hate it! It would probably make a good historical novel. Why not have one book for each artist and then have them all meet in the 5th book, like Elric meeting all the other sword guys in a swirling gothy Chaos nexus!
They are called Steinn Stikkmann, Bårdr Båtmann, Ingi Innrisser, and Oddr Omrisser. In case you want to put them in your Iron Age Norwegian novel series, or historical role-playing game! I may need to write the fanfic actually and put it onto Archive of Our Own. Stay tuned. But in the meantime you are invited by Dr. Krill to contribute your own theories at https://groups.io/g/vikingrockart – have at it.
Could all these glyphs have been carved by four people? Maybe! I guess we can’t discount it!
They also could have been carved by one very busy time traveler or alien!
But probably there are archeologists who could (and maybe do) refute a lot of things about Krill’s theories.
I looked up Krill and he did not disappoint – he actually writes a fair amount about pseudoscience. Here he goes into some interesting detail about the Aquatic Ape theory! Which is worth reading and considering – we know that science doesn’t always follow a logical path – some theories are quite wild, and we can get to the right answers from a wrong hunch or a ridiculous lead that goes somewhere unexpected. I remember diving into *snerk* the Aquatic ape theory a bit after reading some books like Peter Dickinson’s Bone from a Dry Sea and then Stephanie A. Smith’s haunting and beautiful novel Other Nature.
I also came across this gold mine of Krillish internet forum posts – more about the Aquatic Apes and Proto-Bioko – the stuff about early human evolution, etc. Uh oh, an article about Chimpanzee skin color! Hmmm. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
Someone has to come up with wild ideas, and Krill is pretty good at it – lots of confidence and grandiosity – A love of studying huge paradigm shifts – But seems to me like an example of someone good in one area (geology, history of continental drift theories) trying and failing to achieve, or claim, or assume, that expertise to another area (archeology, primate evolution, paleoanthropology) and failing. Not just failing but complexly continuing to fail as he digs his hole deeper and will not listen to other experts in these fields – complaining they will not listen to him, and self-publishing his PDFs earnestly.
(Oh no – there are now SEVEN artists – named Stickman, Sydvester, Texter, Hjortmann, Whaler, Inliner, and Outliner! I cannot cram them all into one fic, can I?)
I have a certain sympathy for Krill’s position, as I am a non-expert, a total amateur, a generalist, and a self-publisher/blogger of course. Look at all the things I reference – half-remembered fiction and amateur histories read in childhood – Years lurking in the stacks reading random things at my college Geology Library job – A few textbooks and a nose for nonsense – Who am I to say? I have developed my own judgement and discernment as best I could.
Note that paleoanthropology is a bit inherently ridiculous and prone to – all of this. What, you found 2 ankle bones and a tooth, or worse, someone’s crew of 100 years ago found it, and from that you extrapolate early Iguanodon’s horn levels of absurdity – I’m not here for it.
Extra note that the “Great Man” fallacy is a red flag for me. Some people really like there to be a lone hero, a primary genius, rather than acknowledge the reality of how culture shifts and changes and propagates – an inability to see a narrative as a collective story.
I can’t help but see Krill’s voyages into other fields (and ancient seas) as a cautionary tale. Sad and even a bit dangerous. (Even though I enjoy reading it all.)
Maybe I can name the fanfic “We Want to Believe”.
I, Lizhilda Karenssprog, carved these runes.
