ABSTRACT
The hunters’ rock art on the Scandinavian peninsula contains assets of hidden treasures: facts that are expressions of Mesolithic and Early Neolithic people’s life and world view. I believe some of these treasures may be unveiled when applying an approach that addresses the universality of the human mind. My position would be that hunters’ rock art is the outcome of the wild mind in action. The concept of myth and the mythical mind will be discussed, and attention will be given to various aspects of the “meaning” of rock art. This will form the backdrop for a tentative introduction of an original concept specifically related to the mythical mind’s visual expression, the moteme. With this, the theoretical background will be laid, which suggests that northern hunters’ rock art may be considered as a series of motemes that are repeated and in some cases transformed along trajectories of a visual analogical logic and of chiasmic inversions.
