About Us

Swedish Rock Art Research Archives (SHFA) is a research infrastructure at the University of Gothenburg established in 2017. Europe-wide, it is the largest research infrastructure, providing researchers, educators, and the public with modern, high-quality, and historical rock art documentation.

Since its foundation in 2007, SHFA has focused on digitising, long-term storage, and archiving documentation of prehistoric rock art, while simultaneously spearheading the development of documentation methods that ultimately boost rock art research.

We are digitising historical documents, including photographs, plaster casts, tracings on plastic and paper, rubbings, maps, and written descriptions, held by more than 100 institutions in Sweden and Europe. Today, we have digitised over 120,000 documents, more than 25% of which are curated and accessible through our online archive. All data in the online archive is provided under free, open access with a CC-BY copyright license.

SHFA has continued to drive rock art research, especially in 3D documentation and visualisation methods, by securing funding for six research projects totalling over 80 million SEK, with collaborators from 14 nations in recent years.