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Rock Articles
April 2014 kesharpe@outlook.com
Dear All, Welcome to a slightly shorter than usual Rock Articles. Hopefully No. 12 will be back to normal, so do let me have any news of projects that you are working on, discoveries, or events that might be of interest to RA readers (see page 4 for details). Hope to see you at the BRAG Conference! Kate
Contents:
New British Discoveries: from England, Scotland and Wales ..................................................................... 1 British Rock Art News: Good news and bad ............................................................................................ 2 World Rock Art on the Web: international news and links ......................................................................... 5 Lock up your petroglyphs? Andy Curtis................................................................................................... 6 Motifs by Moonlight: night-time photography by Cezary Namirski ............................................................ 9 Dates for the Diary................................................................................................................................. 10 Rock Art Reads ....................................................................................................................................... 10
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The images show the known surface (top) and newly discovered markings on the opposite side of the stone (bottom). Credit: John Wombell.
It is now 6 years since the launch of the Englands Rock Art (ERA) website and database. The site was launched following the Herculean recording efforts of volunteers who took part in the Northumberland and Durham Rock Art Pilot (NADRAP) Project. A great deal has happened since then in terms of recoding technologies, discoveries, and excavations. The completion in September 2013 of a second recording project in West Yorkshire: Carved Stone Investigations: Rombalds Moor (CSIRM) provided an opportunity to update and expand both the database and the website. An additional 500 panels have been added to the original 1500 from the North East, each with extensive records comprising measurements, descriptions, drawings, photographs, and 3D models. These records include comprehensive evaluations of the current condition of the panels, and assessments of future risks. This type of information helped English Heritage to decide which carvings warranted formal Scheduling in Northumberland and Durham, and it is hoped that the recording carried out for the West Yorkshire rock art will be instrumental in similar Scheduling in this area in the future. The updated website includes a new section on the CSIRM Project, and updated pages on recording techniques and recent excavations. New images of the Rombalds Moor rock art have been added to the Gallery pages. The update should go live next few weeks. Watch out for the 2014 update at: http://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/era/
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Seventeen additional rock art sites covering around 74 panels in Northumberland have been Scheduled as Ancient Monuments by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. The move follows work by English Heritage, informed by data collected by trained volunteers during the Northumberland and Durham Rock Art Pilot (NADRAP) Project. The participants in the project recorded around 1500 panels, and undertook comprehensive evaluations of the current condition of the panels, assessed any potential risks they faced, and also recorded information useful for heritage managers, such as the distance of panels to footpaths. All this data (now available on the ERA website) fed into the work of English Heritage who have made the selections for addition to the National Heritage List. The panels added include the rock shelter at Ketley Crag, six at Buttony, 32 around the Weetwood Moor area, five at Amerside Law, 15 at the Ringses, a panel at Lemmington Wood, and the Goatscrag rock shelter. A full listing can be found on the English Heritage website at http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/professional/protection/process/national-heritage-list-for-england/ (just search for the term rock art). These records include details of the reasons for designation (see example below), with descriptions of the scheduled panels, and maps of the sites. Designation team leader in the North, Nick Bridgland said: These examples of rock art from the Neolithic and Bronze ages have been scheduled because they are reasonably well preserved and studying their individual carvings and motifs will enhance our knowledge of prehistoric society. More at http://www.thejournal.co.uk/news/north-east-news/national-recognition-northumberland-ancient-history-6933058 This panel at Wellhope is scheduled for the following principal reasons: * Survival: despite susceptibility to natural weathering, this rock art panel is reasonably well preserved with the survival of relatively well-defined motifs including an example of surface preparation; * Documentation: ritual and religious sites of Prehistoric Britain are without contemporary documentation and hence the value of the archaeological remains as our only evidence of their belief systems is enhanced; * Diversity: this panel displays a complex arrangement of a variety of motifs; of particular significance are the large number of individual cups scattered across the panel surface and clustering on its western side; Recently scheduled rock art panel at NU1136106246, 315m NNW of Wellhope; SMR 1418801. [ERA 576] * Potential: it will inform our knowledge of prehistoric society through individual study of its motifs and carving style, and through an increased understanding of the circumstances in which rock art was created and used; * Group value: taken with other extensive areas of rock art nearby at Snook Bank and Millstone Burn, it will enhance both our understanding of the interrelationships between the individual panels, and their relationship to the wider landscape.
Carved Stone Investigations: rock art monitoring to continue In Rock Articles 10 we reported some of the findings from the Condition and Threat Assessment of the 500 carved stones recorded by the CSI: Rombalds Moor volunteers. Risks to the panels varied from prevailing weather conditions to off-road vehicles. Whilst some of the stones are in remote locations, almost 25% are within five metres of a footpath. In order to further protect and manage the vulnerable panels, any changes to the panel environment or any further damage to the stones needs to be noted and authorities informed. A mechanism for this has been set up with a new Rock Art Monitoring (RAM) form now available. The form is designed to be easy to use, capturing the key information including a photograph. The RAM form can be completed on a mobile device or by emailing the form along with a photograph to wyher@wyjs.org.uk. The submitted form will be sent to West Yorkshire Archaeology Advisory Service who maintain the Historic Environment Record (HER). They will use this information to update the HER and, where appropriate, forward the details to relevant bodies. By collating the data together within the HER, the panels can be monitored and continued damage to single stones or within specific areas will be highlighted. The form (Word or mobile) can be accessed from the Watershed Landscape website: http://www.watershedlandscape.co.uk/heritage-landscape/rock-art-monitoring/
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Lordenshaw Louts
Despite continued efforts to encourage a sense of pride and ownership of the cup and ring marks around Britain, there are always a few folk who dont get the message. The extensively decorated outcrop known as Main Rock at Lordenshaw (West Lordenshaw 2c on the ERA database) has again been the subject of a vicious attack with carved graffiti placed amongst the cups and rings. The panel is already subject to statutory protection, having been scheduled in the 1950s. Is this enough or should we be protecting our carved heritage with physical barriers that might spoil the experience for more sympathetic visitors (see page 5) ? Or perhaps we should consider the graffiti to be just one further strand of activity woven into the complex history of the panel. Over its lifetime it has been severely truncated by a major episode of quarrying, enhanced by the addition of a modern motif, and a carved title proclaiming it to be a ROCK MAP and, more recently, daubed with black ink (see Rock Articles 7, Autumn 2012). Read more at http://www.thejournal.co.uk/news/north-east-news/vandals-damage-ancient-monument-rothbury-6935910
If you would like to submit an article to Rock Articles please contact me at kesharpe@outlook.com. Feature articles. Contributions are invited for articles on all aspects of Rock Art in Britain and Ireland, including recording techniques, interpretation, management, presentation, education, and conservation. We are keen to hear about any community projects, heritage initiatives, new techniques, new research, and to provide a forum for anyone with an interest in rock art. Perhaps you have been to a conference and could write a report, or have participated in a workshop or training event? Articles should be 750-1000 words, and should include at least two images (for which you should have permission). New Discoveries. If you have identified any new rock art and would like to feature your find in the New Discoveries section of Rock Articles, get in touch, with a photograph of your find. Please note that grid references will not be included in Rock Articles. Finds should be reported to and verified by the relevant local authority HER officer. British Rock Art News. Do you have some news about your project, or an update on a particular panel that you can fit into less than 200 words? Why not share it RA readers? Inspired by Rock Art? Rock art often inspires creative responses. Have cup and ring marks fired your imagination? If so wed love to see your work! Events and opportunities. Are you running an event that might be of interest to RA readers? Let us know about any talks, conferences, or guided walks. Maybe you are looking for participants for a community project? Advertise here and use the RA network to spread the word.
Submission deadline for Rock Articles No. 12: 31st August 2014
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News from Armenia, USA, and the Caribbean. Goats on the rocks in Armenia The Ughtasar Rock Art Project recently completed its fifth season of fieldwork in the Syunik Mountains of Armenia in the Southern Caucasus. Led by co-directors Anna Khechoyan from Armenia and Tina Walkling from the UK, has recorded 840 carved rocks out of an estimated 900-1000 in the study area - a caldera within the Tsghuk-Karckar volcanic ridge of the Lesser Caucasus mountain range. Read more about the project at in PAST 75: http://www.prehistoricsociety.org/publications/publication/past_75_october_2013/ Or find out more on the project website at: http://www.ughtasarrockartproject.org/ Image from Ughtasar Rock Art Project website New Caribbean cave art In May 2013, a fieldwork trip set out to review evidence for pre-Columbian archaeology in the cave systems of the Isla de Mona, a small island located almost exactly halfway between Puerto Rico and Hispaniola (Haiti and the Dominican Republic). This fieldwork revealed intensive indigenous use, with new evidence for pre-Columbian mining and intensive ritual and artistic practices deep inside the cave chambers. Designs cover the walls and ceilings of hundreds of square metres of the darkest caverns and tunnels anthropomorphic and zoomorphic designs; finger incisions through the soft deposits on the cave walls, leaving elaborate, sinuous and complex trails. Read more on the Antiquity Project Gallery website at: http://antiquity.ac.uk/projgall/samson338/ Image from Antiquity Project gallery
Drone finds petroglyphs in Utah A video posted recently on YouTube shows unrecorded petroglyphs in a remote, high canyon wall in Southern Utah. The footage was captured by a drone owned by Bill Clary of Colorado. Archaeologist Jerry Spangler who reviewed the video for FOX13 news, described the figures as San Juan basketmaker style, a very classic style. He believes there may be thousands of similar undiscovered sites that are equally inaccessible, and suggests that drones could become a valuable research tool. Full story and video at http://fox13now.com/2014/03/11/ancient-petroglyphsfound-by-drone-in-southern-utah/ Image credit: Jonathan Bailey British Museum begin African rock art image project A new blog by the British Museum Rock Art team will chart the progress of a new online database of images of African rock art. With support from the Arcadia Fund, the BM is working with the Trust for African Rock Art (TARA) in Nairobi to document and disseminate 25,000 images. The next four years will be spent cataloguing and integrating these images into the Museums collection online database. The first images of Egyptian rock art - are now visible online. Read the blog at: http://blog.britishmuseum.org/2014/02/04/introducing-theafrican-rock-art-image-project/ Check out the database at: http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/research_projects/all_current_projects/afri can_rock_art_image_project.aspx
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Andy Curtis
I have had a long interest now in Northumberland's prehistoric carved rocks and occasionally get about to visit rock art in more distant locations, including Durham, Yorkshire and even parts of Scotland. A recent visit to La Palma in the Canary Islands gave me pause for thought, both on how rock art might be, or should be conserved, interpreted for the public, and also on the apparent similarities and differences in rock carving traditions in these two very different locations.
Lomo Estrecho, La Palma. Photo by A. Curtis (2014).
Common origins? There is a very nice general guide to the symbolic style of rock carving across the world on the Irish megaliths website (http://www.irishmegaliths.org.uk/). This notes the apparent similarities between rock art styles along the Atlantic seaboard including the Canary Islands, Ireland and the cup and ring forms found closer to home:
As at other Atlantic sites such as Galicia and the Canary Islands, Irish "rock art" occurs not only close to the coast and at sea-level (like the examples in SW Scotland) but as high up as 200 metres or more, and as much as 10 kilometres inland. Like the other Atlantic petroglyphs they are mostly on horizontal outcrops or on table-like surfaces of boulders.... they are nearly always carved where there is a panorama or a wide open view. They are also part of a common Atlantic seaboard (or edge-of-the-known-world) culture.
Are these similarities really the result of a shared origin, of culture or systems of belief, or purely the result of chance, a parallel and independent evolution? As Richard Bradley pointed out in Rock Art and the Prehistory of Atlantic Europe: Signing the Land (2002) there are similar forms of symbolic art (found with more pictorial forms) in alpine locations (including Valcamonica). They may date to a similar period to that of carvings found on the Atlantic coast but apart from using the same basic forms, the overall assemblage is far from showing a physical connection. The circular form of rock art found on the Canary Islands is also superficially similar to that found in Galicia and further north but as Bradley points out:
... it is almost certain that the Canary Islands were not settled until long after the period in which Atlantic rock art had gone out of use. The earliest radiocarbon date is about 600 BC and all the others fall in the first millennium AD.
We remain no closer to understanding the meaning of such symbolic carving but there do appear to be similarities in location and form that may aid our interpretation.
Captive carvings The locked, strong metal cage at Lomo Estrecho encloses a single carved volcanic rock, no different from thousands of uncarved rocks strewn across the steep hillside. The rock stands upright facing south and is carved with shallow concentric semi-circles. In an interesting parallel with rock art in Northumberland, there are also the odd rocks in the area with similar, apparently natural formations, perhaps caused by the cooling of lava. As with our local rock art, the carvings had been made by percussion and grinding using stone tools. The carved stones are set in open pine forest around 1300m high on the steep south facing slope of the Taburiente Crater National Park. The site lies 700m off a popular walking trail from a car park at Pista de Valencia (1150m) to Pico Bejenado (1854m). Because of the slope, the site has extensive views south, set high above the narrow eastern entry into the Crater used by the road to La Cumbrecita. The path to the petroglyph is sign-posted from the main trail and featured on route maps.
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Further west along the slope, 1.2km from the main trail, are two more petroglyph sites, also protected by substantial fences. Lomo Gordo consists of a loose cairn of rocks on the top of a ridge. One of the stones on the north side is carved with a fine spiral. Spirals are a much more common element in Canary petroglyphs than they are here. Built into the east side of the cairn is a small rectangular stone structure, possibly the temporary shelter for a shepherd. A possible connection between rock carving, animal husbandry, and transhumance has also been noted here. Directly below the fenced enclosure on the Lomo Gordo ridge, and below the track that contours the hillside to the petroglyph sites, is La Trocha. Here a huge area of the steeply descending ridge has been enclosed with a wall and secure metal fence. Several groups of carved stones can be seen, with difficulty, through and over the fence. Below the site a firebreak extends through the open forest of Canary Pine trees providing an extensive vista south. I was reminded strongly of certain similar sites with descending rocky ridges bearing multiple carvings in Northumberland. The presence of rock carvings in areas of forest which certainly curtail views is also of interest as this may also have been the situation here. The forest understorey on the La Palma slopes has been severely depleted by over-grazing and would originally have been more dense. Presentation vs preservation Several of the sites on La Palma have notices urging visitors not to use chalk, red-ochre or damage the carvings in any way, but clearly this has not been enough. Rocks outside the enclosures shown here have been recently inscribed or have added graffiti and we sadly have the same problem at home. Is education enough, or do we need enclosure for some of our most important sites?
For me, having to observe our rock art sites through fences would be a step too far. Barriers would certainly spoil the atmosphere of the places, which to me is as important as the carved motifs themselves. There is no easy answer and people have to take ultimate responsibility for their heritage. In our climate, there is possibly a larger threat to the survival of rock art panels by natural weathering and biological processes. Fences might just protect some sites from people who know no better. They would certainly spoil the atmosphere of the locations for those who feel these things, and what would metal fences do to the energy? There is much pseudo-science in the world of petroglyphs (see the Atlantis theories, rock maps and UFOs for more). It is usually harmless and quite entertaining but does obscure the real science. There are over 200 petrogylph sites on La Palma. The three I have illustrated here are all in the area of the National Park. Being on publicly-owned land, they are perhaps not representative of the island as a whole. Towards the south end of the island, the yellow volcanic rock at Roque Teneguia which has several flat intricately-carved panels, along with burial sites and caves with evidence of ancient occupation, is little protected from visitors. The site was however nearly wiped out by the Teneguia volcanic eruption in 1972. It is clear that the rock carving heritage on La Palma is greatly appreciated by the island authorities and widely disseminated in the tourist literature. Several cave sites with rock carvings, at La Zarza / La Zarcita and at Belmarco, are brilliantly interpreted at on-site displays and museums.
Victorian graffiti on Chatton Park Hill. Photo A Curtis (2013).
Red ochre on rayed cup and ring carved motif at Roughting Linn. Photo A Curtis (2013).
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Museums in the main towns also widely feature the culture that existed before the Spanish Conquest. The aboriginal people are thought to have come from North Africa but had forgotten the use of boats, navigation and had no metal tools. The carvings, originally thought to be mere scribbling are now usually interpreted as ritual, to do with water, the sun, archaeoastronomy or fertility. Folk memories appear to exist of pouring liquids in natural channels and hollows in rocks to appease the gods or ask for rain. It all sounded very familiar. Prehistory on La Palma is a much more compact and less confusing story than prehistory in the British Isles which has had a much longer and more complex history of occupation, of which rock art is just a small and poorly-understood part. The culture of the people who made the carvings on La Palma seemed to have many parallels to things proposed for our own rock art. Or is that just how we would like it to be?
BRAG 2014 welcomes all those who are actively researching, engaged with, or interested in rock art. The conference provides an exciting opportunity to highlight new discoveries and debate key issues in rock art research. The programme includes a key note talk by Dr Andy Jones, Southampton University, and presentations by prominent figures, specialist amateurs and students working in this field. The conference also features posters on rock art from Britain and Europe, interactive sessions and a workshop on experimental rock carving techniques. For more information see: http://www.ed.ac.uk/schools-departments/history-classics-archaeology/archaeology/news-events/events/brag-2014 Registration closes on 30 April. To book your place go to: http://www.epay.ed.ac.uk/browse/extra_info.asp?compid=1&modid=2&catid=6&prodid=1428
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Motifs by Moonlight
Cezary Namirski These images required some night-time rock art rambling! The shadows cast by the light source really highlight the motifs.
People enjoy rock art. People like being in vast, beautiful landscape, Able to stand at a place with great views, Look at art on the rocks, And continue to wonder. People love places. People love a mystery. Give them a chance And they will be The best preservers of our rock art heritage. Try to exclude them physically, intellectually and spiritually, And they will resent you, For rock art is not exclusive to a favoured group. It is the earliest means of communication That we have in symbols With people from the deep past. It will continue to intrigue us
Worry us Delight and enlighten us And we want to remain linked to it. Will Wordspeck
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3rd May 2014 British Rock Art Group, Edinburgh University. See page 8 for details and contact information.
12th May 2014 Rescued from the Sea: Prehistoric discoveries at Low Hauxley, Dr Clive Waddington Border Archaeology Society Lecture Series. 7.30 p.m. Parish Centre, Berwick Upon Tweed (opposite the Berwick Barracks adjacent to Berwick Parish Church main door) Members Free, Visitors: 2.00 See http://www.border-archaeological-society.co.uk/
14th May 2014 The Low Hauxley 2013 Excavations, Clive Waddington Northumberland Archaeology Group Lecture Series, Black Swan Studios, Westgate Road, Newcastle Upon Tyne. See http://northumberlandarchaeologicalgroup.wordpress.com/
30th- 31st May 2014 People, place and time in Neolithic and Chalcolithic Europe. The Prehistoric Society Europa Conference 2014. To be held at the Julian Hodge Lecture Theatre, Cardiff University. This two-day conference celebrates the achievements of Professor Alasdair Whittle in the field of European Prehistory. For details see the Prehistoric Society website: http://www.prehistoricsociety.org
6th October 2014 Archaeoastronomy: a brief history, Prof Clive Ruggles. Border Archaeology Society Lecture Series. 7.30 p.m. Parish Centre, Berwick Upon Tweed (opposite the Berwick Barracks adjacent to Berwick Parish Church main door) Members Free, Visitors: 2.00 See http://www.border-archaeological-society.co.uk/
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