The Ancients - Prehistoric Rock Art of Atlantic Europe

Episode Date: July 3, 2022

Dozens of incredible examples of prehistoric rock art have been found across western Europe in recent decades - but what do they mean?Artworks can be discovered all along the Atlantic seaboard, from Spain to Scotland, where one stunning example was uncovered just last year. Ancient peoples left traces of their prehistoric cultures across the length and breadth of the landscape - but what does this art reveal about them?In this episode Tristan is joined by Dr Joana Valdez-Tullett to discover more about the mysterious world of Atlantic rock art. Joana's book: https://www.barpublishing.com/design-and-connectivity.htmlFor more Ancients content, subscribe to our newsletter here. If you'd like to learn even more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe today! To download, go to Android or Apple store.Tickets to Tristan's talk 'London in the Roman World' with Professor Dominic Perring on July 4 are available here: https://shop.historyhit.com/product/london-in-the-roman-world/

Hi, I'm Tristan Hughes, and if you would like the Ancient ad-free, get early access and bonus episodes, sign up to History Hit. With a History Hit subscription, you can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries, including my recent documentary all about Petra and the Nabataeans, and enjoy a new release every week. Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com slash subscribe. by visiting historyhit.com slash subscribe. Whether you're in your running era, Pilates era, or yoga era, dive into Peloton workouts that work with you. From meditating at your kid's game to mastering a strength program,

they've got everything you need to keep knocking down your goals. No pressure to be who you're not, just workouts and classes to strengthen who you are. So no matter your era, make it your best with Peloton. Find your push. Find your power. Peloton. Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca. It's the ancients on History Hit. I'mistan hughes your host and in today's podcast well i'm doing this intro from a beach in southern italy we are here with history hit for a special series of documentaries at nearby pompeii that incredible archaeological site we've got lots of content recorded now and including several interviews which we cannot wait to release on the

ancients in the weeks ahead so look forward to those coming to the ancients in the coming months now in today's podcast we're going to be talking about something completely different i wish i could do a longer intro than i can but i would just have to summarize it now because we're talking all about atlantic rock art with dr joanna valdez tullett now atlantic rock art well what is that well this is prehistoric rock art various kinds you find across the seaboard of the atlantic ocean stretching from scotland to england to portugal to spain and so on and so forth it is a really interesting topic it comes in all shapes and all sizes as joanna explained today lots of mysteries still surrounding it but we cover a lot in this chat,

varying from old discoveries to a brand new discovery made in Kilmartin Glen in Scotland only just last year. So I really do hope you enjoy. Without further ado, to talk all about Atlantic rock art, here's Joanna. Joanna, it is great to have you on the podcast today. It's great to be here, thank you. It's about time on the Ancients we've covered rock art, and Atlantic rock art in particular. It seems this really interesting part of archaeology to learn more about these people living thousands of years ago in the Neolithic times.

Yeah, we now think that it was created in the Neolithic, although there are some chronology issues. Chronology with rock art is always a little bit complicated, and especially with Atlantic art in specific, because it's carved, it's in the landscape, we don't really have any associated like stratigraphies or context, so it can be really difficult to sort out when these things were made or used. Well, let's delve into the dating of that very, very quickly. But first of all, the big all-important question. I mean, Joanna, what exactly is Atlantic rock art? So it's a form of prehistoric carvings that we find in countries like Britain, Ireland, northwest of Spain and Portugal, so bordering the Atlantic. And these carvings are essentially composed of geometric

forms. So we have the cup marks, the cup and rings, and other geometric and abstract forms that were carved onto outcrops and boulders in the landscape. So they're actually created in wider landscapes. They're not in caves or shelters or anything like that. And they cover this very kind of extensive area in Western Europe. And the term Atlantic rock art kind of replaces some more regional terms that were used for it. Because as you can imagine, this type of rock art is known for, you know, at least a century, if not more, in each of these different regions and have their own name. So here in the UK, we commonly hear about British rock art. If you go to northwest Iberia, you hear about Galician rock art or the art of the northwest or Irish rock art.

And Atlantic rock art is just an all-encompassing kind of term that brings it all together because all of these regions have this rock art tradition that shares all of these similarities. Well you mentioned the word similarities there but I'm presuming, and I'm sure we'll delve into this as we talk more and more, can you also see regional variation, let's say Atlantic rock art in Spain or Portugal, would it be different in some ways to let's say Atlantic rock art in Orkney or Northern Scotland? We don't really know of examples of Atlantic rock art in Orkney. Oh, okay. Yeah, but which is actually really interesting because there's so much Neolithic stuff going on there.

But people have looked for it and they haven't really found it. But yeah, there are definitely regional variations. I mean, if we describe it as a rock art tradition that is based on cup marks and cup and rings that is created in the wider landscape and carved onto these boulders and outcrops, then it sounds pretty similar. And this description will actually fit all of these regions. But if we look into them in more detail, then we will find some variations. And sometimes the variations are very, very slight, like specific motifs. So the cup and rings are a very particular type of motif because they are essentially a little dot

in the center with concentric rings around. But if we look into them and we now have all of these kind of 3D technologies that allow us to produce really, really detailed models of the carvings and allow us to really inspect all of these details. We will see that there is so much variation within just this type of motif. And there are regional preferences when it comes to how to create them. So I think that the regional variation boils down to that very, very fine details. But in general, these main characteristics are spread across this really wide territory. But obviously, I mean, if we think about Scotland, for example, in the north, there is a preference for cup marks. So we don't really see that many cup and rings, although they are there as well.

And then we have other regions where the rock art is or the compositions on the rock surfaces are a lot more complex. So there are variations like that. Well, you've mentioned things such as cup marks and cup and ring marks, and I think it's only fair we now delve into the detail of what these exactly are. So let's focus on cup marks first of all. What exactly are cup marks? Take it away. Yeah, so cup marks are just small circular hollows that are cut onto the rock surface they generally range between maybe two to four centimeters in diameter they can be slightly bigger they can be slightly smaller but they're fairly standard you'll find the kind of same size everywhere and when i say everywhere i mean like across the whole of these regions and they are really really emblematic of Atlantic rock art

because we may not have rings, but we will definitely have cup marks. They are just pretty much everywhere. They can be found in isolation. So we can find a stone, a rock, a boulder with one cup mark or hundreds of them. They can be combined with other motifs, with other features like the circles, but also grooves that may interconnect them so yeah they are quite versatile we see them you know in the compositions in all sorts of positions so and they are very very emblematic of of atlantic rock art they're

pretty much everywhere and everywhere in all sorts of positions so do we normally find them this might seem a very basic question to you do we find them mainly above ground or do we find them below ground in ancient tombs where do we normally find cup marks everywhere yeah so we have them on the rocks we have them as in large outcrops small stones boulders we also find them in tombs as well. The thing about cup marks for me, which is problematic, is that they are quite a wide type of motif. So we, in fact, we find them all over the place, all over the world, really. For instance, here in Scotland, we have some examples of cup marks that are fairly recent and they were actually used to put fish bait on. So they're bait holes. So they are very contemporary. They're very modern.

And yet people were still using them. So the problem is that when we find cut marks, when they're not in context or when we don't have other elements that are more identifiable, it's a little bit complicated, or at least I always find that it's difficult to say, yes, this is Atlantic rock art. Obviously, if we're in a region like Scotland, then chances are it's either prehistoric or something completely modern. But there are places where, you know, we see them attached to other traditions as well, other rock art traditions as well. There are even examples of cup marks in Paleolithic caves. So it's quite wide ranging. So, yeah, I mean, I tend to look around, see if

there's anything else, you know, see if we find other more diagnostic types of motifs that we can actually pinpoint and say, yeah, this cup mark belongs to this tradition. Well, I mean, that's so interesting. You mentioned Paleolithic caves there. Does this kind of go back to that whole dating conundrum when you're looking at Atlantic rock art and potential examples, trying to date them and trying to see if, as you mentioned of go back to that whole dating conundrum when you're looking at atlantic rock art and potential examples trying to date them and trying to see if as you mentioned they date to that particular era yeah it's really really difficult really difficult to date them i mean we have an idea we we are now kind of in the position where we can say yes they are they were done you know created during the neolithic and probably used during they have a

peak of use around the late Neolithic Chalcolithic period and then they probably go out of use during the early Bronze Age. Obviously we have to be a little bit careful because when we talk about the late Neolithic in Britain it's a different period to that in Iberia for instance so we have to kind of bear that in mind. So if we're talking about, say, the late Neolithic here, we'd be thinking about maybe 3,000, 2,500, around that range. Whereas in Iberia, we're thinking a little bit back, so 4,000 to 3,200. So it's a little bit earlier. Yeah, so dating is really complicated. As I said earlier, we don't really have the context, we don't really have stratigraphies. There there have been a few excavations but excavations around rock art are really complicated

and you never really know if what you're finding around the rock art actually relates to what has been carved on the top because one thing that I don't think I mentioned is that this rock art tends to be created on like horizontal surfaces so it's and they are exposed surfaces and you know and outcrops generally so everything that grows on top is just kind of environmental processes so we're yet to find a rock that is associated with archaeological layers archaeological context that we can dig and say yes so this part of the composition is attached to that. Like we've seen in other, so in the caves, for instance, or in other types of sites where that is possible. We also have some carvings that are found within context. So we have some of these

motifs that were found in like Neolithic or Bronze Age monuments, but we don't really know at what point they were carved, if they were carved before to be used in the monuments, or if they had been out in the landscape for ages before being quarried and then used in the monuments. So there's a difficult relationship there. But I think we really are at the position where we can say that they do date to the Neolithic. So I think that we've overcome that now. But typically, this rock art has always been associated with the Bronze Age, whether it is because a lot of the carvings in these mobiliary or portable blocks found in the monuments,

the monuments themselves tend to be like, have an occupation, at least in the early Bronze Age or Bronze Age. If we look at Iberia, we also have Bronze Age weapons carved alongside these motifs. And so people tend to think that if they're carved alongside, then they belong to the same period, which is not necessarily true because even when we only have a composition with cup and rings or typically Atlantic rock art motifs, we don't really know if they were all carved at the same time. We can have like a thousand years difference between one motif and the other so again it's

a conundrum it's really complicated and it's still a bit of an open debate but i think that we're getting there we need more excavations and to find that magical rock that is completely covered with with datable layers so we're waiting for that well you'll find it in time no doubt one team will be looking for the lost tomb of alexander the great and you guys can go and look for that absolutely it will be out there joanna yeah okay well you mentioned the weapons there and that more figurative brock art which we're very much going to get to of course you've mentioned a couple of times already alongside cup marks the cup and ring marks this also feels like an obvious question but i must ask regarding these what exactly are these cup and ring marks which seem also feels like an obvious question, but I must ask regarding these, what exactly are these cup and ring marks, which seem to be so common in this area of the world?

Yeah, so they are completely iconic of Atlantic rock art. They are essentially compositions of the small cup marks that I described previously, surrounded by rings. So it could be one ring, it could be two rings, typically they go up to three. But we know of examples that have 12 concentric rings. They can be complete rings, they can be gapped. So again, there's lots of variation in terms of how the rings are created around the cup marks, but they are the most definitely iconic symbol of Atlantic rock art. So they can differ from what you're saying there from, you know, one or two rings around to having as many as 12.

Yeah. I mean, they're not so common, the ones with 12, to be honest, but we do have them. Yeah. Five rings is quite a lot. Six. I mean, everything above three, four is like not very common, but we do have them with lots of concentric rings and if this seems to be one of the most popular alongside the cut marks types of atlantic rock art in scotland where you are at the moment are there any particularly rich concentrations of this brock art in scotland yeah so obviously the best known place for rock art in scotland is going to be kilmart and glen we know more than 100 carved rocks around that area, and there's been a lot of studies developed in that area as well.

But there are others. Certainly another obvious one is Dumfries and Galloway in the southwest of Scotland, which is very, very rich as well, and it has some really, really beautiful and complex examples of this rock art as well. Loch Tay as well, kind of in the middle of the country. But I have been involved with Scotland's Rock Art Project or was because sadly the project is finished now, but we carried it out for five years. And one of the things that really came through is that there are lots of areas with much larger concentrations of rock art than what we thought initially and for instance

the highlands is one that really struck me because we only knew a few sites there and all the field work that was carried out really revealed a lot of other other new rocks and not just cup marks because there was this idea that it was mostly based on cup marks so it's quite simple if you want to put it that way. I don't like to use the term simple and complex because obviously that it's a bit loaded with our own perception of what is simple and complex but if you want to put it that way so just mostly cup marks but there were a lot of other more complex carvings found there as well. So yeah, I mean, there's a little bit everywhere. There are some areas that are kind of empty. And this was, again, one of the aims of the project was to find out why these areas are empty. Is it because

people are not looking there because they're focusing on areas like Kilmartin or Dumfries and Galloway? Is it because there just simply never were any carvings there? I mean, there are areas where people potentially just weren't carving, you know, maybe they had other preferences of expressing for expressing themselves. It could be weathering processes in place, you know, they could have been destroyed with land improvements. So there's a lot of questions there. We did find like, right in the middle of the Highland, we found this one rock, actually one of the volunteers that was working with us.

And it's like this one dot in the middle of a great big void. So there's hope that other things might be, you know, found in the meantime. But yeah, there's a little bit across everywhere. But definitely Kilmartin Glen and Dumfries and Galloway and Lochte are really important areas for this rock art Well Joanna what I love so much about what you said right there is the idea that you know someone listening

to this podcast or whoever in Scotland or wherever you know could go out and actually potentially find a new example of this rock art on a rock somewhere it feels like there is still so much to be found out there to be reported in as you say you know your rock art project has finished but there is still so much to be found out there to be reported in. As you say, you know, your rock art project has finished, but there are still the opportunities still there to find more examples of this rock art and to learn so much more about it from just going on a walk somewhere in Scotland. Absolutely. And it does happen.

People just going out and suddenly looking at a rock and finding, yeah, that looks like a good place to find some rock art. And there it is. Yeah, sometimes it does happen. Yeah. And there's I that looks like a good place to find some rock art. And there it is. Yeah. Sometimes it does happen. Yeah. And there's, I'm sure there's still lots to find. I mean, we found, we were focusing on the rocks that we knew because we wanted to record it all with this one systematic methodology so that we could then develop some consistent and rigorous study. But in this process of just recording the ones that we already knew, and mind you, they were about 3,000, we did add more than 100, well, definitely more than 100, if not more. So there's still out there more rocks to find.

We'll definitely come back to Scotland in a recent discovery very, very soon. But I've got a couple of other Atlantic rock art types I'd like to ask about quickly first. The first on my list is the labyrinths. Now Joanna what are these? So they're circular motifs as well. I mean most of the motifs in Atlantic rock art are circular. They did have a preference for circular types but these are they're complicated motifs to describe because they're just like a combination of circular rings, but with gaps. And they look more like a maze, really, if you want to put it that way. But they are pretty rare. We know some examples in Iberia.

As far as I'm aware, there is one example in Cornwall, but it's supposed to be medieval, modern, even contemporary, maybe. So there's some kind of question about the chronology of that one in Cornwall. They're really not that common. There are a few examples of them. And also with that, we're also not sure about the chronology. But again, it's one of those things. We see them kind of carved alongside all the others.

And so they are also included in this great big group of rock art. Fair enough. That was easy. Moving on to the next one then that we've got. Human figures. This one therefore seems a bit more exciting and very different. Yes. Again, it's exclusive to Iberia. So when we think about rock art, we have to think that there is a distinction between what we have here in Britain and Ireland and Iberia. And it's not really very surprising because Iberia is quite

a large territory, obviously here as well, but it is more connected with influences from Northern Africa, from what comes from the Mediterranean. And so if you think about the Neolithic in Iberia and in terms of rock art, we have a number of different traditions that are in place at the same time. And it's not very surprising that they would influence each other, right? And so some of them are more based in like figurative types of motifs. And we do have figurative types of motifs in Atlantic rock art in Iberia. Again, there is a chronological issue, because we don't really understand what is the relationship between the cup and rings,

the animals, the weapons, were they all created at the same time, who came first, the animals or the cup and rings? We don't really know. But in this great big mix of motifs, we also have humans in Iberia. We have them mostly associated with animals. So we have their riding horses, which for some researchers means that they are slightly later. They come later in the tradition because horse riding comes in late. So essentially, but they are quite rare. We also have some of them. I'm thinking about a rock that I studied a while ago. Again, it's in Northwest Portugal and we have, it's really interesting because we have a few humans they look a bit like stick figures and they're holding like bow and arrows and things like that so it is interesting

but again the relationship with the cup and rings is not very obvious well i mean i was literally going to ask you took the words right out of my mouth there like how how these humans are depicted from from these examples in iberia stick figures seem like a nice word to use there, because is that almost how they are portrayed in many of these depictions? In many of them, yes. I mean, in this case that I just mentioned, they are a bit like stick figures. I'm thinking about another one where they are riding a horse, and again, they look like a stick figure. But there's also a really odd one in Galicia where it almost looks like when children draw people that they kind of have a round face and then a square body and then really skinny arms with like one or two, three fingers pointing out.

It's a bit like that. So that one is a bit odd. Again, it has been included as part of the human group of representations for Atlantic rock art. But again, it's just one of those things. It may or may not be. It's a one example, and it's just very hard to kind of make it fit in.

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we're dedicating a special series of episodes to finding out what this unique conflict was all about. Join me, James Rogers, throughout July on the warfare podcast from History Hit, as we remember the war, the world forgot. Well, moving on to the next type of figures that we've got, I'm very excited about this one. And you've kind of hinted at it earlier, but we see animal figures too, largely in Iberia, but also elsewhere too. Yes, well, until recently. So animals, definitely we have them in Iberia.

It's one of the greatest differences between the Atlantic rock art here in Britain and Ireland and in Iberia. between the Atlantic rock art here in Britain and Ireland and in Iberia, we have horses, mostly horses and deer, but there are also some snakes. And I'm trying to think if we have goats. I'm not sure. I don't think so. It's mostly horses and deer. And we find them in very close relationship with the cup and rings,

almost overlapping. And they are definitely prehistoric. You know, we can see that from the way that they were created and there is a more strict relationship between these animals and the cup and rings than with the weapons the weapons tend to be in their own kind of stones or rock surfaces even if they are not very far from the animals and the cup and rings so they have a closer relationship with the geometric motifs. In Ireland, as far as I'm aware, there aren't any animals. And in Britain, there are a few examples. There are a few which have been interpreted as animals, carved chalk

blocks from Cispre mines. But again, some authors just don't think that they are representative enough. So they're like, you know, they can be an animal, but they can be entirely something else if you kind of just turn the block around. There are some very, very schematic deer from a monument in the Isle of Man that I'm afraid I'm not going to be able to pronounce because I don't know how to say the actual name and I don't really want to ruin it. And then recently we found, obviously, the deer carvings in Duncraigac and Kilmartin, which was an incredible discovery because it's the first time that we find really well-defined, clearly representative animal carvings in this area. So it was an incredible find, really.

Absolutely incredible find, as you say. And I remember that there was a lot of attention around it when it was announced alongside let's say the discovery of the chalk drums in yorkshire recently it does feel joanna there's been a really really interesting time in britain for prehistoric art discoveries this discovery of a stag in kil martin i'm presuming the fact that it's an animal, it's a deer, and there are several of them, it can tell us so much about, I guess, connections, similarities, differences between rock art in Britain and Iberia, for instance. If we look at the context, it's very tempting to create this connection, isn't it? Because

the landscape in Kilmartin is clearly marked with Atlantic rock art. I mean, in Iberia, these animals also are associated with cup and rings. The one thing is the context is completely different, isn't it? And I think that's a really key issue and something that we have to consider.

It is entirely possible that the inspiration came from abroad from somewhere else I mean stylistically and again I'm not I think that style doesn't really say much or we shouldn't really rely on style entirely but when we found out about the Duncraig Agdeer obviously we investigated it and we were looking for other parallels to try to figure out what was happening there because we have no other examples of that and we were looking for other parallels to try to figure out what was happening there because we have no other examples of that. And we were looking at examples from Iberia, obviously, because of this relationship with the cup and rings. And the thing is that the animals that are carved in Northwest Iberia are actually quite different from Duncraig Agdeer, which are a lot

more naturalistic. And the closest comparisons that we found were actually with the Levantine art, which is in the southeast of Iberia and they're painted. But the paintings are, the animals are depicted in this much, with lots of anatomical detail. They're very naturalistic. And also in the Tagus Valley in Portugal, so around the Lisbon area going up the river, there is another wide complex of rock art, carved rock art, and there's lots of deer carved there as well. And again, they are a lot similar to what we have in Duncraig Egg as well. This is also an area where the beakers were supposed to have originated from. So there is this kind of, we could almost infer that perhaps,

you know, they brought the beakers, they brought the idea of carving on, you know, the animals as well. Obviously, I'm kind of just letting my imagination flow here, because we don't really have evidence for that. But we could potentially consider that also, because we know that some of the oldest beakers that we found in the UK were actually found in Kilmartin. But I think that we also have to consider a local, an indigenous creation, an indigenous idea, you know, an innovation, a local innovation, which is entirely possible as well. There's no reason why they wouldn't be doing it. So we just have to find out. We just have to figure out where are the others because there are going to be others.

We just don't know where to find them yet. Yet. Another one of those great searches is going to start now, Joanna, from this podcast, looking for more figurative art. We know that they're out there now, so we just have to, you know,

pay more attention. Maybe on the wall of a broch somewhere, which will completely confuse everyone. Possibly, possibly. This has been really great. I'm going to move on from that discovery now because we did do a podcast with your yes with tertia yes from the rock art project last year that was a great episode that we'll put a link to in the description too now quickly before i ask some more big questions around atlantic rock art we've talked about various designs, cup marks, cup and ring marks, animals, humans, and you mentioned the weapons as well. Are there any other designs that you find especially fascinating that you'd like to talk about quickly before we move on?

One other design that tend to attract a lot of attention are the spirals. We do see spirals in all of the regions as well. But again, they are quite rare. So I am not entirely sure that they are a defining characteristic of Atlantic rock art, but they are definitely there. And some of them are very particular. So in Kilmartin, for instance, we find these double spirals that we also then find in Ireland, for instance, you know, and they are quite, quite specific in the way that they are, that they were created. We also have the rosettes, which are essentially arrangements of cup marks. So we have almost like when we have, you know, if you think about dice, the way that they are arranged, they generally have maybe five,

about dice the way that they are arranged they generally have maybe five five cut marks in the center um they can be uh surrounded by one circle two circles two concentric circles so there are also some variations there um whether you're in your running era pilates era or yoga era dive into peloton workouts that work with you. From meditating at your kid's game to mastering a strength program, they've got everything you need to keep knocking down your goals. No pressure to be who you're not, just workouts and classes to strengthen who you are. So no matter your era, make it your best with Peloton. Find your push, find your power. Peloton. Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca. But rosettes are definitely very typical of Atlantic rock art as well. And again,

it's one of those things that there are lots of regional variations when it comes to them. We find a lot of them in Kilmartin as well. and uh in County Kerry for instance in Ireland there's loads of them I think it's the place where I've seen the most um the highest number of rosettes um also we have what they what we call keyholes so essentially they're a gapped ring with some dog-legged kind of lines coming from from the end the gaps. Again, they can have variation. So they can have a cup mark on the inside of the circle. They can have a line coming from the cup marks. And that's one of the things that I didn't mention

is that a lot of the times the cup and rings themselves also have radial lines coming from either the center of the cup mark or one of the rings or even the outer ring. And often these lines will connect to other motifs. So this is also something that happens a lot in these compositions. We have interconnecting lines that will bring the motifs together. that will bring the motifs together. Other, well, we've got penannular rings as well, which are essentially gapped rings with a central cup mark and, again, a radial line coming from out of it.

I'm sure there's more. But these are some of the most famous ones, I think. Some of the most striking ones, indeed some of the most striking ones indeed and i'm sure like if anyone wants to know more they can go and have a look at those joanna and your work around it i mean you did mention ireland now and i know we haven't really talked about ireland at all so just one quickly on that and i think you hinted at it earlier with with with ireland and atlantic rock art in ireland is it is it mainly abstract is it like scotland is it largely cup and ring marks and cut marks what are the types of styles in Ireland yes it's pretty much like it's pretty much like

Britain like Scotland and we also have Atlantic rock art in parts of England as well so in general Britain and Ireland it's it's very similar essentially it's the same kind of of rock art that they have there too. Obviously, Ireland has passage grave art, which is not so common here. I mean, we do have decorated monuments, but obviously, if we think about Newgrange and Nouth and Douth, they are exuberantly decorated, a bit more like Brittany. So that's quite particular to Ireland, I would say. And they also have some incised figures, some incised rock art, but I don't think that is associated with Atlantic rock art, to be honest. Fair enough.

But in general, the landscape is the cup and rings. When making rock art such as the cup and rings, you mentioned earlier how you see quite a lot of them on vertical rocks in the landscape. Do we know if there was any real preference in the rock type that these cup and ring marks or this Atlantic rock art was made on? Let's say if it was a horizontal slab. And the second question that I'll ask after that is, do we have any unique examples of, let's say, rock art in the open on vertical slabs, not horizontal? Yeah, well, I'm going to answer that one first. There is at least one example here in Scotland

is Baloch Mile, a large, completely vertical wall that is completely carved. It's quite exceptional. It's really not very common at all. But it's not uncommon to see carvings on the sides of boulders, for instance. The norm is that the cup and rings and the Atlantic rock art motifs are carved in horizontal or almost horizontal surfaces, but you will find the odd motifs on the sides as well every now and then. This, from my experience of Ireland, obviously my study focused mostly on the southwest in County Kerry. They do that quite often, a lot more than in other regions. So they're not so picky with the, let's put it that way, with the horizontal surfaces. You'll find them in other types of surfaces. In terms of the types of rocks, I think that it's very much what's available in

most of the regions is what's available. Obviously, we have here in Scotland, the geology is so variable, but we still find cup marks, for instance, carved on gneiss, which is really hard. I mean, the motifs are not very elaborate in those circumstances. It's essentially just cup marks. So it does raise the question, are they prehistoric or not? The fact that some of them actually end up in monuments is a really good indication that they are, but they didn't really elaborate those much. Whether it is because the rock is too hard or not, we don't know. But I think that in this regard, it's interesting to think about Iberia because most of the carvings in Iberia are actually made on granite because it is the most common geology in that area.

But there are situations where they have other types of rock like schist, which is a lot softer and much easier to carve, not very far, and they still prefer the granite. Now, I think that it's because granite has, the forms are a little bit more rounded, you know, and I think that in many cases they work the rocks almost as if it is a sculpture. They embrace the motifs, the motifs embrace the rock completely. And this is something that it would not be possible in schist. So I think that there is this distinctive preference for granite, at least there where we can see it. In other areas here in Scotland, we did look into things like this, but ultimately it comes down to what kind of stone,

what kind of geology is available. And with these, whatever rocks were available, do you think someone looking to create some rock art on one of these stones, would they have a look at natural features in the rock and then see, oh, if there's a natural line there, could we potentially use that in a design to kind of link up to a cup and ring mark? Could they sometimes use natural features? Definitely. I think that the use of natural features within the compositions is actually a defining character of Atlantic rock art.

And we think about Atlantic rock art as a landscape kind of art. And no doubt the place where they were located in the landscape is important. But I think that more than that, they were looking for rocks, for rock surfaces that would serve this purpose. Because we see the way that, as I was saying, the motifs really embrace the rocks and make them almost look three-dimensional in many cases. We also see them using fissures and fractures of the rock to be part of their composition. So we have, for instance, examples of fissures that are used instead of them carving the radial lines for cup and rings, for instance. We see solution holes or natural hollows on the rocks being used as cut marks. So they will add the circles, for instance.

They use the edges of the rocks for their composition. Sometimes the motifs look truncated. They look like they're broken, but actually they're not. They just deliberately chose to use the edge of the rock as a limit to that motif. And the same, it doesn't really have to be the edge. The same happens in fractures in the center of the same, it doesn't really have to be the edge. The same happens in fractures in the centre of the rock, for instance, they will just create half of a circle. So yes, they will incorporate the natural features into their compositions very, very often.

Alison, it's striking to see just how often they do it and how that could be linked to the whole purpose alongside the particular landscapes that they're in. I guess going on with that a bit more on the purpose, do we have any idea what the purpose of this Atlantic rock art was there for? Well, I think that the honest answer is no. There are obviously lots of theories about this. And the thing about rock art is that because it's so difficult to study and we don't really have, as I said, all these archaeological contexts associated with it, it's really open for interpretation. So there are lots of ideas around. Initially, people started suggesting that it would be an ancient system of writing or some kind of places for performing rituals. There's not a preference, but a trend to associate it with star maps and other astronomical phenomena. But the interesting thing about the landscape studies and this

perspective of landscape archaeology was introduced to rock art studies only in the 90s. So it's relatively recent if we think about how long rock art has been around or people know about it and have been looking at it, is that it suggested a different dimension for the rock art. And specifically, if we think about Atlantic rock art, which is definitely attached to the landscape to a specific place, unless it is broken and taken somewhere else, there really is this perception that the landscape is really important. And it's the only other thing that we have to study the rock art, really. It's the motifs and the landscape. We don't really have a lot more. When landscape archaeology is introduced, then new interpretations emerge. There is this idea that perhaps the symbols were used to organize the territory, to mark areas that would

be economically important for the survival of people, could potentially mark areas of good pastures where animals would be roaming, connections with water courses, for instance. So all of these things that were essential for human survival. There's also the idea that they are perhaps a system of communication between people that are sharing these territories and that are also sharing these resources, but they don't really encounter each other very often. And also a very popular idea is that they would be marking routeways across the landscape. Although interestingly, with Scotland's Rock Art Project, we did check this possibility and we did some studies,

some specific studies on mobility and the relationship with rock art. And most of our results show that they are not really connected to any optimal pathways. So there is not a straight relationship between rock art and the optimal pathways, unlike, for instance, funerary monuments, which seem to be right next to places where people would more easily traverse the landscape. So that was really interesting. But it doesn't really mean that this relationship didn't exist, because one of the things that we did learn and that we keep seeing the more we study it is that the use of rock art is very regional. So there's a lot of regional variation. And we, as I said, in most cases, the rock art was not really attached or in relation

with the pathways and the routeways, but there are areas where it actually is. So it's very hard to say the rock art was used just for this, you know, because if you think about the territory where this type of rock art was being used from the Highland to the middle of Portugal, and then extending to Ireland, I mean, there were different people living in these countries, in these territories. You know, they would have their own traditions, they would have their own beliefs, they would have their own culture, their own customs. And I think that it's very hard to believe that they would all be using it for the same purpose in the same way. I do think that they had a common understanding of the rock art because

they were creating it in a similar way. But I don't think that they would be essentially following the same rules as in using it for the same purpose exactly. I think that they would have their own understanding of it and then they would use it in their own way so that's it's worth thinking about it in those terms that there are regional variations so we don't have a one model that serves all the regions that regional variation as you say in the creating of this rock art i know that there's something that i've kind of skirted around so far and i need to ask now i'm sure quite a few people are quite interested to hear about this is how exactly did they create it do we know about the stone tools about the creation of the rock art itself we know a little bit about it i think that we still have some work to do on that front but we know that obviously they were

created with hard stone implements so stone tools of some variety although we don't really know what kind of stone tools specifically were used. We know, for instance, that in Torvlarin in Kilmartin Glen, the excavations revealed hammerstones and pebbles that had marks of use, and they were interpreted as having been used to create the rock art. Obviously, they could have not been used for that, or they could have been used for something completely different. But as a result of that find, there was an experimental study carried out by Hugo, who's actually now at the National Museum of Scotland, where he tried to create rock art with different types of instruments. So pebbles of quartz and quartzite to use as hammerstones for the rock art to create motifs in the same

type of stone where the rock art in Kilmartin is carved on. But we do need more studies like that, more systematic studies to find out, and also then a little bit of experimental archaeology, perhaps to try specific tools against the marks and so on, so that we can determine more precisely what kind of stone tools they were using. But obviously we know that there were stone tools, we know that they were picking, we know that they were also abrading the surfaces, possibly incising as in very fine lines, even maybe to sketch the motifs or something. We do find them in areas that are not so exposed to the elements but we still have a bit of a way to go when it comes to to finding out how they were created exactly obviously we

know they were pegged and stuff we can say all that but i think we need more information on that it sounds like there are still many many questions to be answered which actually makes it very very exciting looking forward indeed joanna i mean i've got a couple more big questions and then we'll wrap up entirely. But I've got in capital letters next to this one. So I hope you can explain it a bit more for me and for us all. In regards to Atlantic rock art, is it a style or is it a tradition? Yeah, that is a big question, isn't it? Mostly because both terms are obviously enveloped in theoretical discussions. But in archaeology, we tend to use style to determine what we're dealing with. studies and it is used to kind of define a specific type of morphological or typological

similarities of something. So in this case we would be thinking about the cup marks and the cup and rings and you know they all look similar, they're types of motifs and these definitions would allow researchers to slot them in specific time frames or specific geographies, spatial and cultural divisions. So it's useful in that way. In rock art, as I said, style is generally used to identify iconographies and then used as a reference for, you know, region, the type of culture or the people that they are embedded in. So in this case, we're thinking about Atlantic rock art and allocated it to specific regions, right? But the concept of style is slightly problematic, one, because it's kind of associated in a way to culture, history, paradigm, and there's some stigma around that. But the concept itself evolved,

and at some point, it is viewed as a way of doing. So we are now introducing not only just what the rock art looks like, but also reflecting its function and also its identity. So this way of doing includes other activities, so more thinking, more feeling, and so on. The problem with style is that we know that a style, a specific style, is not necessarily the equivalent to a chronology and is not necessarily the equivalent to a culture. So some researchers started to think about the rock art in terms of a tradition to explain the prevalence of the material culture. And this would imply continuity, it would involve cultural transmission of the information underlying the style, let's put it that way, the ideas, the techniques and the practices behind it. So it's not just so much about what it looks like, but also how it's made

and how it was spread and transmitted to other people. But this perspective also has some issues because in this perspective, humans are solely the receptor of this baggage of form, type of doing, and so on. And it has been suggested that it doesn't really allow to explore the relationships between, you know, other traditions, the individuals, their cultural context, the regional pattern. So it's still seen as something that is slightly limiting. And so for me, I think a combination of both is what makes more sense. So I don't like to think about it as a type of style or a type of tradition in these terms, because I think that both terms actually mean different things and they can be combined. So when I was doing my PhD project, there was this new theoretical idea emerging based on assemblage

theory, which essentially decomposes something into different components that can be studied individually. But then if you bring them all together, they will inform what the whole is all about. Let's put it that way. And so to me, I think that Atlantic rock art viewed in that perspective makes a lot more sense because I can look at the motifs, I can look at the rock where it is carved, I can look at the landscape perspective, I can look at the way that it was done, so the carving techniques, I can look at the idea behind it, I can look at, you know, all interconnected qualities of the Atlantic, of this type of Atlantic rock art that then will provide a much

deeper understanding of it. And also will give us a lot more insights into its role within society, because with this perspective, you can actually bring in other things as well, you know, the relationships with other sites. There's a wide variety of components that are part of Atlantic rock art that you can actually bring into this perspective. And we can bring style and tradition as well. So I just think that they're all interconnected in a way. Absolutely. A much bigger picture, as it were, isn't it? And I guess connections really fits into that too, when you're talking about such a wide geographic area. Indeed. They were definitely connected in a way, because what I found was that

there are details in the way that the rock art was made, very, very fine details that were replicated in all of these different regions. And in my perspective, I don't think that if they were purely copying each other, I don't think that they would pick up on these nuances. copying each other, I don't think that they would pick up on these nuances. And so there would have had to be a system of cultural transmission exchange in place, and they would have deliberately taught each other, you know, the tradition. And that's also the reason why we see it being used in the same way, in the same kind of landscape settings, in the same kind of horizontal surfaces, whether they are slightly more raised or not, you know, with the same kind of horizontal surfaces, whether they are slightly more raised or not, you know, with the same kind of compositions, whether they have regional preferences or not,

because they do. But there is this underlying understanding of the rock art, of Atlantic rock art that is shared between all of these different groups of people in these different regions, which is what I find really, really fascinating. And I think that this tells us that the rock art was really important. I don't know why it was important, but it definitely was because it was replicated in that same way across large extensions of landscape in places that are very, very far apart, especially if you think about the Neolithic and how they were traveling, right? So it's definitely very, very important. And this is why I think that people should probably look more into rock art when they are writing their big handbooks about Neolithic and early

Bronze Age and stuff. Because sadly, I think rock art is still a little bit sidelined from mainstream archaeology, but it did have a big importance in people's lives and we should really consider it a little bit more i think you're absolutely right and it's been wonderful to see more and more attention being focused on rock art and atlantic rock art in more recent history joanna it's been an absolute pleasure to have you on the podcast to talk all about it today last but certainly not least you have written a book all about this, which is called? Design and Connectivity, The Case of Atlantic Rock Art. It's essentially the result of my PhD, but I like to think that it brought us a little bit closer to bringing Atlantic rock art into

this mainstream archaeology and placing it more in the societies rather than just looking at the rock art in isolation. I think it begins to do that, if nothing else. Absolutely, that bigger picture. And it sounds very exciting, as mentioned, for the years ahead in this whole field. Joanna, thank you so much for taking the time to come on the podcast today. Thank you so much for inviting me. It was a pleasure talking to you. Well, there you go. There was Dr. Joanna Valdez-Tullett explaining all about Atlantic rock art. I hope you enjoyed the episode. We'll certainly put a link to her book

in the description below. And we will also put a link to our next Ancients live event, which is happening tomorrow night if you're listening to this when this episode is released this Sunday. It's happening Monday night, the 4th of July where Dominic Pering, Dr Dominic Pering, Mr Roman London will be explaining all about the rise and fall of

Roman London. I hope you'll be able to attend. Details all about the event can be found via a link in the description below so it would be great it would be lovely to see you there if possible. Now last things for me of course if you want more ancients content in the meantime, you can, of course, subscribe to our weekly ancients newsletter via a link in the description below. And if you'd also be kind enough to leave us a lovely rating on either Spotify or Apple Podcasts, wherever you get your podcasts from, I would greatly appreciate it.

The whole team would greatly appreciate it. But that's enough from me on a beach in southern Italy near the incredible ancient site of Pompeii. I will see you in the next episode.