snapped at a hundredth of a second, copy an image onto a flat surface and do not necessarily enhance one’s observation of a surface the way drawing docs. In addition, how does one record the surrounding/adjacent surfaces, sounds, smells, and the ambience of a place? Archaeologists are selective when recording data; capturing all is not possible. In the case of rock engravings, the easiest, least cumbersome choice is to focus on the figures. Today I find that good documentation is demanding and time consuming.
Even in those cases where figures and surface features are recorded by nibbling, interpretations do not include comment on the structure of the surface any more frequently than where the figures are traced and when fissures and cracks are recorded (e. g. Poikalaincn & Emits 1998). If the rock surfaces — the landscapes in which the rock art story is told (Helskog 2004) — are meaning-rich, then we also have to make sure that when curators ‘mend’ rock surfaces to preserve rock art they do not inadvertently destroy part of that landscape.
Our traditional strong focus on the figures constrains what we see, record and interpret: this is what I mean by the tyranny of the figures in the chapter title.
Myths and folklore are an important source of information on any culture: some offer an explanation as to why things are as they are — events and natural phenomena, sickness, good or bad hunts — and they serve to reinforce social order, the organisation of society and relationship with the supernatural. The origin of stories can only be speculated upon. Some ‘travel’ between populations and others appear to be indigenous; some were perhaps first narrated by a shaman following an experience in an altered state of consciousness (Lewis-Williams & Dowson 1988). Judging from the diversity of shapes and the content of global rock an, the cultural dimension in the choice of what is depicted was a dominating factor. In Scandinavia, it can be demonstrated how form and content changed through time, from prehistoric hunter-gatherer societies to agricultural societies (Hagen 1973) or, as in Alta, within hunting-fishing-gathering societies (Helskog 1988,1989). The explanations for visualising stories and choosing form and content are bound to be multiple, and the stories, storytellers and experiences will be culturally bound. Furthermore, connecting the rock art to the vast range of stories/narratives known from ethnographic sources, or to the many recorded beliefs and rituals, is difficult. But the repetition of figures depicted in rock art indicates that the stories in Alta focused on a relatively small number of figures and outdoor activities: there is a focus on the ’few’ rather than on the massive range of activities that might have been depicted. Even given a possible ’freedom’ of choice, the artist chose within tight parameters. So why the selectivity? It is this choice we find on the rock surfaces.
Compositions imply that the artist had a story to tell, which again means that the surface chosen had to ’fit’ the story, or that the story needed to be appropriate to the surface. Any artist, past or present, was/is bound by this simple relationship. A story may or may not have been created because of the form of the surface, but we can see that some rock engravings (and therefore their stories) were positioned because of the features on or in the surfaces. Rock surfaces must have been, at least at times, instrumental in the choices made. At a particular ritual area some surfaces might have been more conducive to conveying particular narratives and messages than others. Alternatively, as Pat Vinnicombe noted while we were walking through the Drakensberg before the symposium for David Lewis- Williams, “in a living nature the story might have been in the surface already, and the figures only needed to be added” (Patricia Vinnicombe pers. comm. 2000).
When a surface was engraved, the panel — the surface and figures — might become bound to a particular story and ritual. Yet, we know that, at some surfaces, figures are added at later points 