The Rock carvings at Alta are part of an archaeological site near the town of Alta in the county of Finnmark in northern Norway. Since the first carvings — or more correctly, the petroglyphs — were discovered in 1972, more than 5000 carvings have been found on several sites around Alta. The main site, located at Jiepmaluokta about 4 kilometers outside of Alta, contains around 3000 individual carvings and has been turned into an open-air museum. The site was placed on the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites on 3 December 1985. It is Norway's only prehistoric World Heritage Site.
The earliest carvings in the area date to around 4200 BC; the most recent carvings are generally dated to around 500 BC, although some researchers believe carving continued until around 500 AD. The wide variety of imagery shows a culture of hunter-gatherers that was able to control herds of reindeer, was adept at boat building and fishing and practiced shamanistic rituals involving bears and other animals. Apart from the visual evidence of the carvings themselves, not much is known about the culture that produced these carvings, although it has been speculated that the carvers might have been descendants of the Komsa culture. Some researchers also hold the belief that the Sami people are descendants of the carvers.

Cultural and historical background
The first carvings were discovered in autumn 1972 in the area of Jiepmaluokta (a Sami name meaning "bay of seals"), about 4 kilometers from the town center of Alta. During the 1970s, many more carvings were discovered all around Alta, with a noticeably higher density around Jiepmaluokta (of around 5000 known carvings in the area, more than 3000 are located there). A system of wooden gangways totalling about 3 kilometers was constructed in the Jiepmaluokta area during the second half of the 1980s, and Alta's museum was moved from its previous location in the town center to the site of the rock carvings in 1991. Although several other sites around Alta are known and new carvings are constantly discovered, Jiepmaluokta remains the only publicly accessible site.
Most rocks around Alta are overgrown with a thick growth of moss and lichen; once carvings have been discovered, these plants are carefully removed and the rock is cleaned to expose the full extent of the carvings. The carvings are then photographed and entered into a filing system; on most sites, no special precautions are taken to keep carvings visible once they have been properly documented (other than protecting the area from construction work, special care for preserving carvings is not necessary since they are generally rather deeply carved into a hard rock surface). Only in areas accessible to the public are the carvings filled with a special red-ochre paint that helps recognize the carvings and is thought to be similar to the original appearance of the carvings.
Alta Museum features a display of objects found in the area thought to be related to the culture that created the carvings, a photographic documentation of the carvings, and several other displays on Sami culture, the phenomenon of Aurora Borealis and the area's history during World War II. The museum received the European Museum of the Year Award in 1993.

Discovery and restoration
Since no written records exist from the period the carvings were created, there is no way to know what purposes they were meant to serve and what spurred their creation. Possible explanations include use in shamanistic rituals, totemistic symbols that denoted tribal unity or marked a tribe's territory, a kind of historical record of important events, or even simple artistic pleasure. Since individual carvings show such a wide array of different images and the carvings were created over an extremely long period of time, it seems plausible that individual carvings might have served any of the purposes listed above. Some of the more common types of images are listed below:

Imagery and interpretations
A wide array of animals are depicted on carved scenes; among them, reindeer are clearly predominant and are often shown in large herds that are alternatively nurtured and hunted. Depictions of reindeer behind fences and images that might be explained as a sort of caravan seem to indicate that a certain control over these animals existed from a very early age. Other animals that appear frequently are elk, various bird species and different kinds of fish. Pregnant animals are often depicted with a young one visible inside of its mother.
It seems curious that according to archaeological evidence, 30 to 95 % of the carvers' food came from the sea but fish and fishing scenes only appear in about 1 % of known carvings; possible explanations for this fact are that fishing in coastal waters is a far less difficult and dangerous undertaking than hunting large animals and therefore rituals ensuring success are not seen as necessary by fishermen, or that land animals played a larger role in cults and were therefore depicted more frequently for their religious significance (of course, both explanations can be interrelated).

Bears
By far the most scenes depicting humans show hunters stalking their prey; these scenes have traditionally been explained as being connected to hunting rituals, although current researchers seem to favor more complicated explanations that see depictions of different hunting and fishing actions as symbols for individual tribes and the interrelations of different hunting and fishing carvings as symbolic representations of existing or wished-for inter-tribal relations. The use of throwing spears and of bows and arrows is evident from the earliest period, indicating that the use of these tools was known to the carvers' culture from a very early time. Similarly, fishermen are almost exclusively shown using fishing-lines, indicating that a method of creating hooks and using bait was known to the carvers.
Of special interest is the depiction of boats: while small fishing boats appear from the earliest drawings onward, later drawings show larger and larger boats, some carrying up to 30 people and being equipped with elaborate, animal-shaped decorations on bow and stern that are sometimes reminiscent of those found on viking longboats. This, along with the fact that similar carvings of large boats have been found in coastal regions in southern Norway, seems to indicate long distance voyages along the coast from either direction.

Hunting and Fishing scenes
It is especially difficult to judge the meaning of scenes showing interactions between humans; scenes apparently showing a dance, the preparation of food or sexual interactions might also display the performance of rituals. Additionally, even if these carvings in fact do show episodes from mundane life, it remains mysterious why these specific scenes were carved into rock. Depictions of sexuality might be connected to fertility rituals, scenes that show people cooking and preparing food might have been meant to ensure an abundance of food. Some scenes clearly show different societal positions of the humans depicted, indicated by peculiar headgear and by more prominent positions of wearers of special headgear among their fellow humans; these have alternatively been explained as priests or shamans or as rulers of a tribe. If the interpretation of prominent persons as rulers is correct, these scenes might also display events of historical significance, such as the ascension of a ruler, royal marriages or diplomatic relations between tribes.

Geometric symbols

Pre-historic art
Petroglyph
History of Norway
List of World Heritage Sites in Europe
Rock carvings in Central Norway