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| Excavations at rock carving sites is quite a new subject in Scandinavia. Too long, rock carvings were commonly seen as suggestive art with only little archaeological value. During the last decades this attitude has changed in Swedish archaeology. The images may be a window to a world of myths difficult to understand, but on a more concrete level they are the result of acts or rituals in the past. It lies near at hand to believe that these acts included more than carving images. Excavations in Bohuslän have documented pavement and pits filled with firecracked stones and burnt clay. It seems that carvings often were part of a ritual environment. |
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| In 2003 the first excavations were carried out on Bornholm. Remains very similar to the Bohuslän examples were unearthed at the foot of Madsebakke - the largest rock carving site of the island. |  |
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| Summer 2004 a large excavation took place at Madsebakke. More firepits have been found, one of them with well preserved animal bones, some of them showing the first evidence of Horse in the bronze age of Bornholm. | |||||||||||
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| The most interesting and unique result so far is that the rock carvings seem to have been screened off by a sort of fence. This is documented by a single row of post holes. A heap of stones mixed with fragments of burnt clay was also found on a natural shelf at a steep part of the cliff. These structures have been disturbed in past times, and they are not dated yet. Archaeologists feel sure that they are of bronze age origin. | |||||||||||
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