by Chris Fowler
The major concentrations of open-air rock art are in northern Ireland and in Britain from Derbyshire to Perthshire, with major concentrations in Northumberland, Argyll, western Scotland, Galloway, southern Scotland, and the North York Moors (Fig. 46.2). In Ireland the major concentrations are in south-west Ireland in Co. Kerry, with further smaller groups of rock art in Co. Donegal and Co. Louth and Monaghan (Bradley 1997, 70; Beckensall 1999; Purcell 1994, 2002). Bradley’s (1997) analysis of the landscape location of rock art panels in Britain and Ireland suggests an important relationship between rock art and routeways and viewpoints; in some regions rock art appears to be marking significant routes through the landscape, or defining the edges of monument complexes.
PASSAGE TOMBS IN IRELAND
Passage tombs are arguably the most famous monument type in Ireland, with the Boyne Valley complex, Co. Meath, often attracting the most attention. Passage tombs in Ireland originated in the early fourth millennium BC and continued to be constructed until the early third millennium (Grogan 1991; O’Sullivan 2005; see Cummings et al., this volume). Passage tombs consist of a large sub-circular or ovoid cairn revetted by a continuous kerb of large stones; this kerb is a distinctive feature of Irish examples. Cairn sizes vary but are normally between 10 and 80m in diameter. The cairn covers a megalithic structure consisting of a chamber, with an aperture leading to the exterior via a passage (see Coffey 1912, 102; Collins and Waterman 1952, 28; Collins 1960; cf. Herity 1974, 22; Shee Twohig 1981, 204; Dronfield 1994, 75). Imagery on passage tombs is non-representational and consists of geometric abstract motifs, occurring on the kerbstones and the interior structural stones of the tombs in the Boyne Valley, rendering it the richest area of megalithic motifs in western Europe (Shee Twohig 1981; Eogan 1986; O’Sullivan 1993). An interesting feature of passage tombs in Ireland is the general priority of ‘dexter over sinister’ (Herity 1974, 123) reflected in the size of the right-hand recesses, the motifs, artefacts, and human remains.
Such a wealth of imagery suggests that, contrary to Herity’s arguments (1974, 107), the motifs were not a ‘by-product’ or surplus extra. Rather, their importance was integral to the worldviews that helped create the monuments and subsequent encounters with them (Cochrane 2006, 254). Jones (2001, 335; see also O’Sullivan 1986) has argued that many academic studies dislocate panels and motifs from their original contexts and present them in isolation, in two-dimensional form, predominantly in black-and-white line drawing on paper—a practice that privileges the static form of the motifs over more fluid social processes (cf. Jones 2004). Such conventions create a situation where the spectator, in studying motifs in a corpus (e.g. O’Kelly 1973; Shee Twohig 1981), is under the illusion that the image is a ‘realistic’ representation of the original design (Jones 2001), and is also given an ‘observer-imposed’ selection of ‘acceptable’ visual images (O’Sullivan 1986, 71). The presentation of motifs in this format also can facilitate the selective representation of carved panels to reinforce a point (Shee Twohig 2000, 91). When modern spectators engage with passage tomb motifs today, many see them as complete compositions. These images did not always appear as one exhaustive display; there were episodes and sequences, be it by substitution or replacement of existing motifs by imposed motifs (Eogan 1997; Jones 2004; Cochrane 2006, 2009a). O’Sullivan (1986, 1996) detailed the sequences from the standard geometric style, through to the extreme pick-dressing style as a final and mature phase (O’Kelly 1971; Shee Twohig 2000). They can broadly be summarized as:
•Step 1 incorporates the standard style, including spirals, circles, zigzags, serpenti-forms, lozenges, triangles, and radial motifs, with the plastic qualities of the stone mostly ignored and designs created via picking and occasionally incision.
•Step 2 applications still include the standard style, yet are more ‘ambitious’ with bold carving and acknowledging the variants of the stone surface.
•Step 3 images are mostly linear designs following the shape of the stone, with appreciation to its three-dimensional form.
•Step 4 images abandon linear designs and adopt a ‘pick dressing’ approach, which sometimes mutilates many earlier works. Pick dressing is amorphous and displays a marked interest in greater exploration of the stone’s surface; it is generally located on the stone’s face nearest to the passage tomb entrance (O’Sullivan 1996, 87; see also Shee Twohig 2000).
On the kerbstones at Knowth Site 1, one can document two and sometimes three episodes of superimposition (Jones 2004, 204), but superimposition is even more apparent in the interiors of the passage tombs. In the interior of Knowth Site 1, incised angular motifs (triangles, lozenges, and zigzags) are the earliest images (Eogan 1997, 222). They occur on 30 stones in the chamber and passage of the eastern tomb, and on 11 stones in the western tomb. Some of these incised motifs were later superimposed with an infill of picking. This later picking occurs as angular in shape and confined in space; formless loose area picking, broad picked lines in ribbons, and formless close area picking (Eogan 1997, 221). As not all the early incised angular motifs were filled by later picking, it is believed that some incised lines were not just guide lines but motifs in their own right (Eogan 1997, 223). Others definitely did act as guide lines, as is seen on Corbel 37/38 of the western tomb, Knowth Site 1, where picked angular motifs and dispersed area picking overlay the angular incised motifs (Eogan 1997, 223 and fig. 8). Including the incised motifs, there are five episodes of superimposition on the interiors of the two passage tombs in Knowth Site 1; there are four principal forms of overlay at Newgrange Site 1.
These successive episodes demonstrate the plurality of performances involved in the fabrication of images (Cochrane 2006, 266). Superimposed imagery may therefore have connected past and present, whereby the practice of carving motifs may be associated with renegotiation or regeneration. As these acts involved contact with the traces of past actions, revising the surfaces left by those acts, they can be seen as contentious, contradictory, messy, problematic, and stimulating—including for the archaeological writer (Cochrane 2009a, 167). Once created, motifs on passage tombs are susceptible to defacement and alteration, be it intentional or otherwise—rock art allows manipulation rather than providing fixity. Ambiguous abstract motifs carved in stone therefore provided opportunities for repetition, revision, and reinterpretation.
The possible significances of circle motifs and the circular nature of the passage tomb mounds themselves have been discussed at length by Bradley (1998, 104–9). We further suggest that the circle dwellings, circular palisades, circular stone settings, circle mounds, and circular motifs address different expressions of temporality which adhere in each structure (see also Ewart 2003). The circle form may have evoked (at some level) a cyclical perception of time, which stems from a certain type of practicality (Gell 1992, 91). Such a view of time may have been linked to a subsistence strategy that held a close relationship with the seasons. The transformation of this worldview into an important structure, such as a passage tomb and the subsequent superimposition of motifs, may have resulted from a desire to have a sense of temporal control over certain atemporal situations; circles in stone were permanent yet alterable, and thus could be in flux. Certainly, the idea of a linear historical perception of time has been tracked to meta-narratives of western Enlightenment, and it is noted that European Medieval worldviews mostly saw the universe as changeless and cyclical (Thomas 2004, 31; Cochrane 2009b). For some people in the Neolithic, time may have flowed in a similar direction.
One of the authors (Jones 2004, 207) has proposed that stone is used to embody a significance of place. The application of motifs to stone is seen as an ongoing reiteration or replenishment of this significance of place and identity. We might further argue that it is the process of creating an image that is more important than the type of motif itself. The images on the exteriors of the passage tombs in the Boyne Valley were mostly created in situ and as one event, whereas the interior motifs seem to have involved various stages and
episodes of superimposition. Jones has suggested that the internal images acted as ‘technologies of remembrance’ (2004, 209), and were executed to memorialize the significance of place and identity; remembrance is activated through visual engagement and repetitive image making. The differences in styles are thought to be the result of different people employing distinct mnemonic practices, which may align themselves with different ways of seeing the world. From this perspective one can argue that the motifs are part of a ‘work in motion’ and of bringing a particular worldview repeatedly into existence (see Whittle 2003, 25; Jones 2007, 86–90).
OPEN-AIR ROCK ART OF HUNTER-GATHERER-FISHERS IN NORTHERNMOST EUROPE
The making of rock art by northern hunter-gatherer-fishers started some time during the Mesolithic but, based on the Holocene land uplift, we know that many sites cannot be older than the Neolithic, as the images in question cannot have been made until those rock surfaces emerged from the sea (Sognnes 2003). In fact, the Mesolithic/Neolithic period division in the region is based on artefact assemblages and seems to have little bearing on the making of rock art. The later part of the Scandinavian Mesolithic, c. 6300–4000 BC, is contemporary with the central and western European Neolithic, which means that some Scandinavian Mesolithic hunter-gatherer-fishers might have had contacts with Neolithic farmers which may have led to changes within Scandinavia. Habitation became more sedentary and people started making rock art, both representing a new sense of permanency. Rock art and larger dwelling sites likely represent places that were visited more frequently than before. The emphasis on traditional symbols in rock art (elk, deer, reindeer, whales/porpoises, and waterfowl) suggests a response to and a symbolic rejection of new times and new customs. The symbolic system was focused on the forests and seas, particularly the larger and stronger prey animals. This animal symbolism is also evident on artefacts: slate points and knives were decorated with geometric line patterns and animal drawings. The shaft ends of knives sometimes were shaped like animal heads and many knives were shaped like a whale or fish (Sognnes 2008b).
At Evenhus, central Norway, rock carvings are found at panels that did not emerge from the sea until the early second millennium transition from the Neolithic to Bronze Age (Sognnes 2003). At that time these panels were at the eastern tip of an island located virtually in the middle of the Trondheim Fjord. The Evenhus rock carvings show a mixture of terrestrial and maritime motifs; elks and reindeer representing land, whales and boats representing the sea (Fig. 46.3). We may here witness expressions of competition and claims for control of the site and surrounding sea and land by different groups, possibly presenting community identities, or perhaps represented by their respective totems.
FIG. 46.3. Transcription of carvings on a rock surface at Evenhus, Trøndelag, Norway (Gjessing 1936).
Less than 4km away, across a narrow part of the fjord, the largest cluster of what seem to be pre-Bronze Age boat images made by farmers are found at Røkke. These carvings are not facing the sea, but are located on hillocks around 100m above sea level. They are withdrawn from the sea, which apparently still was the domain of the hunter-gatherer-fishers who still marked seashore rocks with their traditional symbols. This may represent competition between groups with different subsistence economies. Whether there actually were any confrontations between groups is uncertain, but at the large Bardal site near Evenhus, ‘southern tradition’ rock carvings (boat images, footprints, anthropomorphs, concentric rings, etc.) were superimposed on some older strata mostly containing elk images (Sognnes 2008a). This seems to present a deliberate defacing of an old and alien Neolithic hunter-gatherer-fisher rock art.
Across the border in northern Sweden, permanent farming was established much later than in southern Scandinavia and coastal Norway—largely from the early Iron Age onwards, with some attempts at small-scale farming in the Bronze Age (Baudou 1989). In the northern Swedish forests many small sites with rock paintings of mainly elks have been discovered during the past decades (Lindgren 2004). Similar rock carvings have been known since the eighteenth century AD, located along major watercourses in the regions of Jämtland and Ångermanland. Of special interest is a large site at Nämforsen waterfall in the Ångerman River (Hallström 1960). Most of the carvings here are found on small islands in the middle of the large roaring waterfall and dated to the Neolithic (Forsberg 1993). Two major classes of elk images, each showing the animal in profile, exist. In the early Neolithic, the entire trunk area of the animal is pecked out, whilst in the late Neolithic a pecked line traces the elk’s outline. Nämforsen also has many maritime motifs, mostly boat images. Like the elks, the hull of the boat images may be fully pecked out or only delineated by a pecked exterior line. Similar carvings are found at certain heights above sea level, showing that there is a spatial clustering of types and styles (Forsberg 1993, 227–228). The distributions of these different types do not decisively demonstrate that they were made at different times; they may represent at least two different social groups, each using particular panels at different heights for their own carvings.
At the inner Alta Fjord in northernmost Norway an even larger concentration of rock carvings is found, which may represent several phases, from late Mesolithic through Bronze Age. Two of these phases fall within the Neolithic. Boats and other maritime motifs were frequent in the early Neolithic but were hardly made later. Most zoomorphic images were drawn with outlined bodies alone, but many near the boat images have trunks filled with line patterns. Pecked-out animals were frequent in the late Mesolithic (Helskog 1988, 32). There are several elaborate scenes containing humans, elks, bears and bear dens, fences, boats, and fish (Helskog 1988, 1999). Scenic representations are also frequent in the rock art of the White Sea in Karelia, north-western Russia, several of which depict hunting of whales from boats or winter-time hunting of elks by skiers (Savvateyev 1977). Most of the zoomorphic images found here and at Lake Onega (Savvateyev 1982) are pecked out and are comparable to the carvings at Nämforsen and in Alta. Dwelling sites are found near the Karelian rock art panels, as in Alta and at Nämforsen, and excavations demonstrate that people lived at the shore of Lake Onega and the River Vyg, close to the rock art panels, during the Neolithic and Eneolithic (Savvateyev 1988).
DATING THE NEOLITHIC ROCK ART OF BRITAIN AND IRELAND
A major question is how the open-air and monumental rock art traditions in Britain and Ireland relate to one another. The passage tomb art of Ireland is dated to the middle Neolithic to late Neolithic (c. 3600–3100 BC; Cooney 2000), although the final use of passage tombs may date to later than this; the related passage tombs of Anglesey date from the early Neolithic (c. 4000–3000 BC; Burrow 2006). Orcadian passage graves emerge at a slightly later date, around 3300 BC, as does the art of the late Neolithic settlements of Orkney (though see Schulting and Sheridan 2010 for slightly earlier dates for some passage graves in Orkney). The stone circles associated with passage tomb art, such as the Cumbrian group, are also likely to date from the late Neolithic (Beckensall 2001).
The dating of decoration on open-air contexts, such as stone circles, offers significant challenges: is the carving contemporary with the use of stone circles, or a later addition? The best chance of dating open-air images comes from motifs in dateable contexts. Rock art traditions continue into the early Bronze Age with the carving of abstract and representational images often on slabs associated with burial monuments in Britain (Bradley 1995; Bradley 1997; Jones 2001). These provide a terminus ante quem, but do not answer when rock art began to be produced. Some cup marks can be dated to early Neolithic contexts, including the cup-marked slab from the longbarrow at Dalladies, Kincardineshire (Piggott 1972). Cup marks are also associated with early Neolithic portal dolmens from Ballyrennan, Co. Tyrone, Ireland; Bachwen, Canearvonshire; and Trellyffiant, Dyffryn Ardudwy, Merionyddshire, Wales (Darvill and Wainwright 2003). Whilst the association between cup marks and portal dolmens seems compelling, we have to treat these associations with caution, as they may be fortui
tous.
Evidence for rock art dates in late Neolithic contexts is more convincing. The decorated cist of a burial site from Knappers, Glasgow, Scotland, was freshly carved for the burial, which was associated with a late Neolithic Seamer axe, a form of polished stone axe (Ritchie and Adamson 1981). Pits containing late Neolithic Grooved Ware pottery were found associated with rock art panels at Backstone Beck, Ilkley Moor, West Yorkshire (Edwards and Bradley 1999).
In addition a series of recent excavations have been undertaken around open-air rock art sites in Britain and Ireland. Whilst some evidence for Neolithic activity was found at Drumirril, Co. Monaghan, Ireland, activities associated with the rock art site extended into the early Christian period (O’Connor 2007). At Ben Lawers and Torbhlaren in Scotland, finds of Arran pitchstone, a lithic source used during the Neolithic, are suggestive of a Neolithic date; whilst at Torbhlaren, activities around the rock art sites date from the Neolithic to the Medieval period. Activity commenced with the construction of a post circle 1.5m in diameter next to the rock art site. This was burnt down around 2500–2300 BC, during the late Neolithic. Immediately after, a stone platform was constructed around the site, associated with quartz artefacts (11 definite and 25 probable hammerstones). As the platform respected the site of the post circle it seems likely that its construction also dates to the period 2500–2300 cal. BC. In addition, a cluster of hammerstones and knapping debris associated with one of the Torbhlaren rock art sites was dated to c. 2900–2800 cal. BC (Jones et al. 2011). Whilst these activities do not absolutely date the associated rock art, they provide a proxy date for its execution, as the major class of stone tools recovered from these features are quartz hammerstones, likely to be employed in rock art production.
