The rock art of southern Scandinavia is characterized by depictions of watercraft. The majority are close to the coast, and they have been the primary focus of research. Less attention has been paid to similar representations associated with two large inland lakes in southern Sweden. In this article we present the results of fieldwork around Lake Vänern and Lake Vättern and consider the relationship of this rock art to the better-known images on the coast. We explore the practicalities of navigating between the sea and the interior and suggest that there was an important contrast between an early eastern sphere extending to Lake Vättern from the Baltic and a later western sphere connecting Lake Vänern with the Atlantic.

The aim of this paper is to establish how visual narratives can be used in the social context of storytelling, enabling the remembrance of events and those who participated in them in prehistory around the White Sea in the northernmost part of Europe. One of the largest complexes of fisher-gatherer-hunter art is located here, dating from the Neolithic and the Early Bronze Age (ca 6000–4000 B.P.). A number of methodological strands are brought together to aid in the interpretation of the art, combining Western art-historical and non-Western visual traditions that challenge our modern ways of seeing. The paper proposes an unconventional interpretation of this rock art, in which the prehistoric imagery is ‘translated’ via two short films creating the visual link between past and the present.