Neolithic and Bronze Age rock art in the British Isles

In the Neolithic and Bronze Age British Isles, rock art was produced across various parts of the islands. Petroglyphic in nature, the majority of such carvings are abstract in design, usually cup and ring marks, although examples of spirals or figurative depictions of weaponry are also known. Only one form of rock art in Europe, this late prehistoric tradition had connections with others along Atlantic Europe, particularly in Galicia.

The study of rock art in the British Isles was largely initiated by amateur researchers rather than academic or other professional archaeologists.

Surviving examples of rock art in the British Isles are believed to represent only a small sample of that which had been produced in the Neolithic and Bronze Ages. Many examples of petroglyphs would have eroded away, thereby being lost to contemporary scholarship. In other examples, images might have been painted onto rock, or marked onto less permanent surfaces, such as wood, livestock or the human body, thereby also failing to survive into the present.

Rock art had first appeared in Atlantic Europe by the late fourth millennium BCE. In Britain, rock art had ceased by the time of the agricultural intensification in the Late Bronze Age, the first millennium BCE.

Within Britain, the majority of recorded Neolithic and Bronze Age rock art comes from the northern part of the island. Cup-and-ring marks are particularly common in this area.

Cup-and-ring marks are usually attributed to the Neolithic and Early Bronze Ages, while attempts at building a relative chronology have been tried in Dumbartonshire.

Over 70 examples of late prehistoric rock art have been identified in the South West of Britain, being far sparser than those found in the North. This may in part be due to the harder nature of the natural rock in the area, which is largely plutonic granite, alongside a lack of research focused in this region. Rock art specialist George Nash considered the petroglyphs of this region to constitute a distinct artistic tradition from that in the North. The majority of petroglyphs in South West Britain are cup marks, engraved both onto the rock face and on boulders, as at the Castllack Menhir.

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