A neolithic skier

Many years ago I visited the famous Holmenkollen ski jump in Norway.  Recently, while reading about the Nordic ski championships held there in 1966, I saw the embedded photo of a set of stamps issued in Norway to commemorate the event.

My eye was caught by the stamp at the upper left.  The 55 and the 60 show modern jumpers and X-country skiers, and the 90 shows a stylized Holmenkollen.  The 40 looked to me like a cave drawing (or other geoglyph).

So I started to research the antiquity of skiing.  Medium aevum (via Uncertain Times) had this to say -

The primitive ski dated back to 1010, and is thought to be Greenland’s oldest ski brought by Norsemen circa 980 A.D...

The oldest account involves the famous story from 1206 A.D. of the Birkebeiners during a civil war in medieval Norway. Considered the underdog, the Birkebeiners were at war against a rival faction known as the baglers. Following the death of the Birkebeiner chief, the baglers feared a rival in his young son Håkon Håkonsson. To protect him, two of the most skillful Birkebeiner skiers, with toddler in tow, skied through treacherous conditions over the mountains from around Lillehammer to safety in Østerdalen valley.

- accompanied by this way cool painting:

- entitled Birkebeinerne takes Haakon Haakonson as a child toTrondheim by Knud Bergslien, apparently from the Nordnorsk Kunstmuseum (northern Norway art museum).

But more relevant to the image on the Norwegian stamp I found the following:

The oldest and most accurately documented evidence of skiing origins is found in modern day Norway and Sweden. The earliest primitive carvings circa 5000 B.C. depict a skier with one pole, located in Rødøy in the Nordland region of Norway.

That's what's on the stamp, according to a Facit catalogue.  Now to try to wrap my mind around the idea of someone skiing in 5000 BC (predynastic Egypt, maize introduced to Mexico, wheel invented in Mesopotamia, beer brewing invented...), and then noting the accomplishment by carving it on a stone.

You learn something every day.