The Ancients - Scotland's Earliest Animal Carvings: An Incredible New Discovery

Episode Date: June 17, 2021

Prehistoric animal carvings, thought to be up to 5,000 years old, have been discovered in Scotland for the very first time. The images, which include carvings of two red deer, were found by chance on an ancient burial site in Argyll, called Dunchraigaig Cairn. Dr Tertia Barnett, principle investigator for Scotland’s Rock Art Project at Historic Environment Scotland, is on The Ancients to explain why this incredible new discovery is so significant. Find out what the carvings might mean, how they have been conserved for thousands of years, and why these images rewrite the story of prehistoric rock art in north-west Europe.

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. Hello everyone, a very special episode of The Ancients today, because we are talking all about a brand new rock art discovery.

You might have noticed in the past couple of weeks that in Scotland, they have discovered these animal carvings, these prehistoric animal carvings. And so we on we on the ancients we had to get someone on the show pronto to explain all about this new discovery and why it's so significant and i'm delighted to say that we have got on the podcast today the principal investigator of scotland's rock art project dr tertia barnett from historic environment scotland i love historic environment scotland they are the best now Now, Tersha, she is a wonderful speaker and it was fantastic to get her on the show. And in this episode, she reveals all about the new discovery and why it is so significant. So without further ado,

here's Tersha. Tersha, thank you so much for taking the time to come on the podcast. My pleasure. Thank you for inviting me. I mean, no problem at all. We had to get you on. Seeing this discovery, it's been making the headlines. It's been in the news recently. Can we say, I want to get this right. This is the oldest known dated depiction in rock art of an animal from Scotland. That's correct.

Wonderful. So let's dive into this discovery now first of all with the background whereabouts in scotland are we talking about with this discovery okay so the carvings were found in kilmartin glen which is a lovely wide valley on the west coast of scotland in argyle so if you imagine the mull of kintyre Kilmartin is sort of situated at the top of the Mull of Kintyre. And this seems to be an area rich in prehistoric finds and prehistoric artefacts. Exactly. Kilmartin is actually possibly the most important prehistoric landscape in Scotland, if not in Britain. It's got hundreds of prehistoric monuments dating particularly to the Neolithic and Bronze Age, but other periods all through time as well. And they are concentrated particularly in Kilmartin Glen, but also in the surrounding landscape.

So it's a wonderful area to visit. A lot of them are accessible and it's a really, really impressive place. Do we have any idea why this glen was so important for these prehistoric communities? Yeah, it's an interesting question, isn't it? Well, first of all, I suppose because it is a fertile area. So it would have been initially for the earlier Neolithic settlers, it would have have been controlling the flow of commodities and goods around that part of Northern Britain. So, you know, between Western Scotland, Northeast Scotland, Yorkshire and Ireland. And in particular, because the early Bronze Age was such an important time in European prehistory generally, you know, there was a lot of new

trade networks and connectivity stretching right across Europe. And of course, at the hub of that was bronze and the need to acquire copper and tin to make the bronze. So it seems like in Kilmartin, they were probably controlling the flow of copper from Ireland and possibly also from the mines in North Wales and redistributing that to places like North East Scotland, where there's a kind of bronze working industry, as well as to Northern England, to Yorkshire and places like that. So that seems to have provided a lot of wealth for people who are living there and controlling the trade. And that's resulted in this kind of conspicuous consumption by building these massive monuments, particularly for burials, and beautiful grave goods associated with some of

those. So it seems to be, although Kilmartin was important throughout prehistory, it seems to be really concentrated this really important kind of early Bronze Age time between about 2,00 BC or 4200 years ago and about 1900 BC or 3900 years ago. And after that, it sort of diminishes a bit as perhaps new copper sources become available from other places. And that kind of geopolitics of prehistoric Britain shift perhaps further down south to Wessex and other places. I mean, Tasha, that's so interesting. I feel it's a problem we need to hammer down on first. places. I mean, Tasha, that's so interesting. I feel it's a problem we need to hammer down on first. I mean, just like, let's say, Brittany in the Bronze Age with its connections with South West England and Ireland with all these trade networks, the Centre for Trade and the Centre for Connectivity. It sounds like Kilmartin Glen was exactly the same, the Centre for Trade,

but key, a Centre for Connectivity. Exactly, exactly that. The artefacts from the burials in Kilmartin do reinforce that idea. You know, there's beautiful necklaces made from jet from Whitby in North Yorkshire. There is pottery made very similar to pots from Ireland and so on, and various artefacts which show that people are connected. They're adopting ideas, they're sharing ideas, they're sharing knowledge and probably moving around as well an awful lot. And from this area, Kilmartin Glen in the Bronze Age, you mentioned these burials,

these elaborate burials. So what do we know about the construction of these burials? To look at externally, they are basically large mounds, very much like the mounds you get in places like Wessex. They're kind of circular and domed, but these are made of cobbles, stone cobbles. So they're these huge mounds of kind of, you know, three meters, four meters high and kind of 30 meters in diameter, just made of loads of cobbles, river washed cobbles, nicely smooth cobbles. So those are the mounds. And then inside the mounds, there are what are called kists. so stone constructed chambers in which the burials were placed. And most of the mounds will have one central kist and then possibly some other kind of peripheral kists as well. So the body of the deceased is placed into the kist with the grave

goods and then sealed with a stone slab. And then the mound is built on top of that. Now I'm going to attempt to say the name of one of these cairns now, which has particular importance for this new discovery, because of all these cairns, it's this one. It is, forgive me if I get this completely wrong, Duncraigach Cairn. Something like that, yeah, Duncraigach Cairn, exactly. This is the one with the carvings in, and it's very similar to look at.

Obviously now, of course, the cairns are quite depleted because they've been stone robbed and they've been excavated and things like that. So not many of them retain their original shape. And then Cagag similarly is not its original shape. A lot of the cobbles have been removed and that has exposed the kists in the cairn. So there are three kists in the cairn, which was excavated in the 1860s initially. And there's one kist in the centre of the cairn, another one further to the north of it. And then the one that we're interested in with the carvings in

is on the southeast periphery of the cairn. Yeah, so let's go on to the discovery now, the carvings themselves, because this is an incredible story in itself. Tersha, how was this rock art, how was it discovered? Well, like all best discoveries, it was found almost by chance by Hamish Fenton, who's got a background in archaeology and travels around Britain taking photographs and creating 3D models of archaeological monuments all around the country. And he visited the cairn in the dusk and just thought he'd have a look inside it. And he was using his torch and he noticed some unusual looking grooves on the underside of this massive stone slab or capstone, which is the roof of this kissed chamber. So he took some photographs using a raking torch

light, which showed up the grooves quite well. And then he created a three-dimensional model. And he contacted us in November last year and sent us the images that he'd taken, his photographs, and also images from his 3D model. And we thought, wow, this is absolutely amazing. We couldn't believe that it could be true. First of all, we thought, oh yeah, animal carvings, wow, this is absolutely amazing. We couldn't believe that it could be true. First of all, we thought, oh yeah, animal carvings, yes, yes. And then we saw the images and we thought, yeah, these are indisputably animal carvings. And we really, really wanted to make sure that they were authentically prehistoric. Because the tomb had been excavated, you know, at an early stage, you know, could somebody have got in at a later date and carved

them? Or could the capstone have been removed and somebody carved on it as well? So, we did a lot of research in the archives, looking at the original excavation reports and various other things. We weren't at the time able to visit, unfortunately, because of lockdown restrictions. So, we were really frustrated, desperately wanting to go and see the carvings, but being tied up in Edinburgh. So our research showed that the monument hadn't been dismantled in any way. It had been excavated and then left open. And so there was always this question of could somebody have got in at a later date. And it wasn't really until we were able to go and see the carvings in late April this year, so only a few weeks ago really, that it was very clear that it would have been impossible

to carve them in the position they're in. Because first of all, there's very little space underneath of the capstone that the carvings are on and the ground surface. And the carvings are situated, or some of them are situated down one end of the capstone and they're kind of partly hidden by the structure of the kist chamber. You simply don't have room for moving your arm around to peck them, which is the technique that was used to make them, and certainly wouldn't have had room to make them right in that kind of corner edge of the kist. So this really reinforced very clearly that they were prehistoric and were at least contemporary with the construction of the tomb.

Contemporary with the construction of the tomb. And I've seen those images, and you actually did mention before we started recording, it's almost as if it looks like you have to crawl in to try and see these carvings and these depictions. But Tertia, this leads us to the big question. These animals that we've been talking about, talk to me a bit more about these animals. What do they show? There are at least five animals on the capstone and two of them are clearly red deer stags. They've got these wonderful large branching antlers. Particularly on one of them, you can see other anatomical details such as a short tail and its head is very beautifully defined. It's got a quite clearly defined rump, and its legs sort of taper slightly into points. The second stag, again, it's got

beautiful branching antlers. The body is less clearly defined, but the head is very nice, and you can make out its legs as well. And then there are, kind of towards the middle of the capstone, there are two further animals, which are less easy to identify the species of because they have less anatomical detail. And these appear to be carved in a slightly different style. They're less naturalistic. So we're not definitely saying they're deer, but we think that they are. And one of them certainly seems to have what might be a short antler on it. So we think that these may be juvenile male deer. And then there's a fifth

animal, which is much more difficult to distinguish because you can't really see its head. You can just see its body and part of its legs. But again, we think this could be a deer simply because of the consistency with the theme of the other carvings on the capstone. Now before we go into the conclusions and what this might all suggest about the carvings, why they were built, why they were constructed, why they were carved etc etc and just before we get on to that you did mention earlier 3D modelling and the importance of this technique and it does sound like 3D modelling it was right at the heart of your team, you and your team, recording and analysing the find. After we were contacted by Hamish, because we couldn't go there, luckily the digital documentation and innovation team from Historic Environment Scotland were able to visit the cairn and they created a high resolution 3D model using

a structured light scanner. And that we were then able to subject that model to a whole range of surface renderings and filters, which enhanced different features of the carvings and the rock surface. It allowed us to view the carvings much more clearly. And that was absolutely instrumental in the identification of them particularly of the kind of the fainter animals that were less easy to determine so absolutely the 3d modeling was key because when we visited in the field they're much more difficult to make out and a lot of the features are unclear but they shot very clearly very sharply in the 3d model so we move on to the conclusions what this all suggests because tertia let's first of all let's go to the

date when do we think this rock art dates to well the tomb that it's in is dated to the early bronze age and in scotland that's around 2200 to 1900 bc but because the pottery in the tombs is of a particular type and what's known as a bipartite bowl, Irish-style food vessel. And those date more specifically to around 2160 to 2080 BC, so possibly around 2100 BC for the construction of the tomb. But the animals, particularly the more indistinct animals, are very eroded, quite weathered, as if they'd been exposed for quite a while before the slab was incorporated into the structure of the tomb. So we don't know how long they were exposed for, but it does suggest that they were either on a rock outcrop, a natural rock outcrop in the

landscape and carved on that before that slab was then quarried and put in the tomb, or that they could have been part of an earlier monument, possibly in the same location, which was then remodelled, reconfigured into this early Bronze Age kiss. Do we have any idea there for Tertia how these carvings were made, with what tools, for instance? They were made using a technique called pecking, which is basically striking the rock surface with a hard implement, which could be a stone tool or a metal tool. We don't know. But this pecking technique, the tool marks actually show up very clearly in the stags, particularly in the 3D modelling. And this technique was used to create all the rock art in Scotland at this time, because there are many thousands of other rock carvings around

Scotland and Britain, all created using the pecking technique. So what we can tell from the 3D modelling is that it was a very finely done technique. So somebody who knew what they were doing was probably quite accomplished at it, was creating these deer. We will certainly get on to those other examples of rock art in Scotland, don't you worry. Hi, I'm Susanna Lipscomb, and in my new podcast, Not Just the Tudors, I'll be talking about everything from Aztecs to witches, Belethgeth to Shakespeare, Mughal India to the Mayflower. Not, in other words, just the Tudors, but most definitely also the Tudors. Subscribe to Not Just the Tudors from History Hit, wherever you get your podcasts.

I mean, I guess it also kind of makes sense, just taking a step back from that, Tertia, that you do have these figures who could make that rock art, being in Kilmartin at that time, if it was such an important centre of trade, centre of connectivity, it makes sense that those craftsmen, that they would have been there. Exactly. Obviously, we don't know, you know, who was making it, whether they were local or whether they had come from somewhere else and were perhaps bringing ideas and knowledge with them. But certainly, yes, Kilmartin would have been a sort of an attraction for people at that time. So, Tershia, we've got the adult stags, we've got these juvenile stags,

we've got this kist. So this rock art is in this burial monument, and it begs the question, why? Yeah, that is the kind of big question, isn't it? Well, rock art, again, you know, there are a lot of questions surrounding rock art generally. Why is it made? What does it mean? And so on. But the use of them in the funerary context is very significant, and particularly because the carvings are facing inwards towards the burial, towards the people who were buried in the chamber.

So it's possibly some connection with beliefs in the afterlife, maybe even beliefs in regeneration. And certainly, you know, there are deer carvings and deer imagery used around the world. And in contemporary societies, deer are often associated with regeneration because of this seasonal dimorphism where they grow antlers, they shed their antlers, and then the antlers start again and grow again. And their behavior changes, you know, during the year, they're highly symbolic often of fertility and regeneration, which would make a nice link into the idea of an afterlife belief system. Obviously, these things are so difficult to tell and very difficult to test, but we can

enjoy having sort of speculative discussions about them. But they could have other meanings. Again, deer imagery being associated in later cultures with elite status, with hunting. And that's often an elite activity in later societies. So there could be many reasons that they're in that burial in particular. But what their relationship was to the people who were buried there is not clear at all, unfortunately. Well, as you said, it opens the arms for speculation and some lovely ideas. So it's very interesting nonetheless. And you did mention how there are many, many examples of rock art from around Scotland. So, Tersha, why is this particular rock art discovery, why is it so special? Why is it so significant? Why has it been stealing all the headlines? headlines? Well, I think because it is so different, as I said, we have around over 3,000 known carved rocks in Scotland, and they all have geometric abstract designs on them based around

this sort of cup and ring motif. And they've probably been created a bit earlier, but also extending on into the Bronze Age. So we've got contemporary rock art, which is very different from this, which is well known and well well-established. And suddenly, we get carvings of animals, which are something representative. And it's always been a question why we don't have representative art in Britain, because it's known all around Europe at this time, in Scandinavia, in Iberia, Northern Italy, Southeast France, and so on. They all have fantastic representative carvings of animals, people, and so on, they all have fantastic representative carvings of animals, people and so on. And we don't have any similar in Britain. And so there's always been, you know, why have we not got it? So this really kind of puts us back into that kind of European

context of figurative carving. And also because they're animals, they're beautiful to look at, they're very recognisable. And I think people can really identify with them. So it's something that's really captured people's imagination for lots of different reasons. And they are really special. It's really, really exciting. The question is, are there others? Are these the only ones? And I think probably not. I think there must be others in Scotland that haven't been found yet. That is very exciting. You basically read my mind what the next question would be, how it paves the way for hopefully future discoveries of more animals in rock art being discovered from Scotland alongside the usual motifs that you've described as being the cup and ring marks.

I mean, people are finding cup and ring markings all the time. During the project, Scotland's Rock Art Project, we've had over 300 new carved rocks being discovered by our community teams that we're working with, which has been really exciting. But none of them have got kind of global headlines associated with them. But I'm sure that when people look and particularly using things like photogrammetry, 3D modelling, and photographing rocks in raking light using a torch or a side light of some description. They may find faint incised or pecked marks on rocks. And I think really it's a case of just looking and seeing what we can find. These carvings have been there for thousands of years. They've been exposed. The tomb's been open

for the last 150 years and no one's yet spotted them. So it's very possible, very plausible that there are others waiting to be found. Just quickly before we move on, Tershia, no such thing as a silly question, especially for someone as ignorant as myself. The cup and ring markings, can you just describe to us what these really look like? Yeah, okay. So they're based on circular motifs or symbols, particularly on what's called a cup mark, which is a hemispherical bowl-shaped depression on the rock. And again, these are made using pecking. And you can make them yourself very easily. If you just go out and bash a rock with another rock for an hour, you'll get a bowl-shaped depression. And often these cup marks are surrounded by one or more

concentric rings. And sometimes they have grooves coming out of them and kind of connecting other motifs on a rock surface. So although those motifs sound quite simple, they can be incredibly varied in subtle ways. And rock surfaces might have just one cut mark on, or they can be entirely covered with very elaborate and interconnected motifs. So again, going back to Kilmartin Glen, it's got hundreds of beautiful rock art sites in the glen, and they're some of the best in Scotland and some of the most accessible. And some of the Cup and Rings motifs are huge, you know, kind of up to a metre in diameter and very visible, very impressive on the rock surface. That's incredible, somewhere up to a metre in diameter, Tersha.

That's absolutely stunning when trying to picture that in my mind. I mean, quickly, in regards to this animal carving, this animal rock art, incredible new discovery, really significant. But in regards to figurative rock art, maybe not of animals, but figures, do we have any other examples from Scotland, from Kilmartin Glen or further afield? In Kilmartin, again, it's one of the few places in Scotland where we do find other representative art of this period. And again, that is in early Bronze Age kists, kist burials. So there are a number of the large early Bronze Age tombs that we talked about earlier, which have carvings of axe heads pecked into the

rock surface. And these are forming the side slabs and the roof slabs of some of the kists within these burial monuments. So again, these can be dated to the early Bronze Age. There's about three or four examples of them in Kilmartin Glen. And those are really the only clearly known ones in Scotland. There are reports of others where the stone might have been lost or so on. Again, there are in England, there are examples on Stonehenge. There are carvings of daggers which were identified using 3D modelling, gosh, 20 years or so ago now. And there are other daggers or potential axes in a few places in England as well. But in Scotland,

no, it's really just a phenomenon that seems to be at the moment found only in Kilmartin Glen. Once again, very exciting for the future. It sounds like these kists, this seems like the place to start if you want to go looking for more figurative rock art from this period. I think so, certainly. And also, they're more likely to be better preserved in kists because they'll be covered over or have been covered over for a long time and protected from the weather as well. So, definitely a good place to start. But otherwise, rock shelters, walls of rock shelters, stones which perhaps have been covered by vegetation for a while or are in sheltered places. I mean, the fact that the cup and ring markings have survived exposed in the

landscape for 5,000 years or so suggests that these carvings can survive. It's just they can be very, very eroded and may only be visible under certain lighting conditions or with 3D modelling. 3D modelling sounds incredible for this area, this field. Now, Tersha, you and your team have done an incredible job with this find and more. How can people interested in this discovery, how can they go and learn more about this area in ancient history? Well, there's a lot of information on the Historic Environment website. We've put together an information sheet about the carvings, which they can find on the website.

And they can also view the 3D model of the deer on the Historic Environment Scotland website. If they want to find out more about rock art generally in Britain and around Europe, then our website, the Scotland's Rock Art Project website is a good place to start. We spent the last kind of four and a half years recording rock art around Scotland with our community teams and those records are all on our website along with the 3D model of every single rock art site that we've recorded. So, you know, it's a lovely place to go and view things,

to play around with the 3D models and look at things very clearly. Incredible. And I guess to look at this rock art through a much wider lens, to look at the connectivity, I think it's called Atlantic rock art, isn't it? Which stretches from Britain to the continent. Exactly, yes. So Atlantic rock art is this carving tradition from the Neolithic and early Bronze Age that is spread and shared across Britain, Ireland, and particularly Iberia in northwest Spain and Portugal, but also found in other parts of Europe and Scandinavia, as well as occasionally cropping up in places like Sardinia and Alpine Europe. But it is very much this Atlantic phenomenon,

which is why it's generally called Atlantic rock art. But it is very much this Atlantic phenomenon, which is why it's generally called Atlantic rock art. Now, Tersha, I also need to ask about this possible Iberian link with this rock art. Please tell me all about this. Well, it is only possible, and this is speculative at the moment, but because we've been looking for parallels for these deer in other parts of Europe, you know, trying to work out what the inspiration is for them because they're so unprecedented in Scotland. And because there are deer being carved in the rock art using a similar technique in Northwest Spain and Portugal at around this time, these seem to be the closest parallels, although they don't look identical. They are also associated with Atlantic rock art

or cup and ring carvings. So it suggests that the people who were making the deer and the cup and ring markings were also sharing those traditions with Scotland. So it's possible that these deer carvings are in some way reflecting connections between Scotland and Iberia, whether direct or indirect at this time. But another kind of interesting hint from the structure of the tomb where the carvings are found, because this tomb is built in a rather different way, it has rather different characteristics from the majority of early Bronze Age burial monuments in Scotland, which tend to just have a central kist and sometimes peripheral kists and that central kist will usually contain one person with grave goods. Whereas the kist with the deer in it is much larger for a start

and it contained the remains of between eight and ten individuals both inhumed and cremated and there were no grave goods actually found in that kist whereas there were the other kists in the burial mound had grave goods with them. The kist is also situated kind of right on the edge of the mound. And these characteristics all have parallels in some Iberian burials from this time, whereas they're very unusual in Scotland. So again, it does perhaps suggest that there are kind of direct links here with Iberia at this time. I love those links, and especially perhaps it's only a possible link but when you do consider let's say we know that there was contact between

Brittany and Galicia and Iberia at that time we know there was contact between Brittany and southern Britain so it does seem possible especially as we go back to the start of the conversation when you talk about Kilmartin Glen as being the centre of trade and connectivity that this connectivity, it did span all the way up to Northern Britain from Iberia at that time. Exactly. I mean, people were travelling around all over the place looking for copper sources, tin sources, looking for new materials, new raw materials, and trading manufactured goods and so on. I can't believe that Scotland was not in contact with other parts of Europe, particularly places like Iberia, which were very active in these trade networks as well.

So it does seem logical. It's just finding the evidence for it. And perhaps this is the first bit of evidence, firm evidence for those connections and connectivity between Scotland and the Mediterranean and Iberia at that time as well. First bit of evidence and hopefully certainly not the last. That is really, really interesting. And what next for the Scottish Rock Art Project and for this discovery? Well, in terms of the discovery, Historic Environment Scotland are exploring options for how best to protect it and present it to the public. Obviously, it's a very fragile carving, so we want to make sure it is well protected. The Kilmartin Museum,

which is a fantastic place to visit if you're in Kilmartin, is refurbishing itself at the moment and will reopen in 2023. And I'm sure that they're planning to have a fantastic display that will include the deer if you can wait till 2023. But in terms of what we're doing in the Scotland's Rock Art Project, we only have six and a half months left to go so we've got a lot of work to do to record more of the rock art in Scotland and analyse that material and share those results with academic and wider communities. Well absolutely best of luck with all that Tersha and please keep us updated it sounds like an incredible field. Tersha it only goes for me to say thank you so much for taking the time to come on the podcast. Well, thank you very much.