CIRCLES IN STONE: A BRITISH PREHISTORIC MYSTERY Stan Beckensall
(Tempus Publishing: ISBN 0-7524-4015-2 at £18.99)
This book is to be published in November, 2006.
It is the culmination of many years of work, centred initially on Northumberland in the late 1960s, and covering many parts of Britain in detail. It celebrates the work of many independent and professional archaeologists over about 200 years, using examples of sites that have been found recently to show how the process of research and recording continues. The scope of the book is to be seen in the main chapter headings:
It has about 140 illustrations, including colour.
Perhaps the best way to summarise the book is to use its conclusions:
‘We weigh up the world in the balance of our own experience and, as we have seen, people are stimulated by images from the past to re-express them in their own way. However, the reader may wish to be left with something more objective and more ‘certain’ than this, so what follows is a summary of why circles in stone present a mystery to us, why they are there where they are, and what they might mean.
There is a mystery because the rock motifs do not appear to draw on definite images taken from the natural world. They may remind us of something there, but we cannot say for sure what. It is difficult, even impossible, to enter the minds of those who lived thousands of years ago when we carry in our minds so much history and experience of our own.
The world in which rock-art was created was seen as largely ‘circular’, as all the major monuments testify. Stone and wooden circles and ditches focused not only scattered communities of farmers on a place in a wider landscape, but also focused shared belief. They appear as meeting places for all kinds of communal activities and rituals which were fundamental to their way of life. I use the term ‘ritual’ to mean acts which are repeated so often that they become formalised, as this is what circles in the landscape do. The ancestors dwelt there, perhaps; the sun, moon and stars pursued their courses above the monuments in a regular pattern. Their houses too were circular at this time, and, like them, the henges, stone and wooden circles had essential and well-defined entrances. Being inside was different from observing the world from the outside; the focus of attention on the outside world was directed and not random.
The link between these monuments and the motifs hammered onto rocks, whatever may have been their function, was the circle, not only on outcrop and earthfast rocks, but on some of the monuments themselves. The cup remained the most basic of these circles. Their presence in some monuments emphasises their serious, deeply-held purpose. In the landscape, much of which was used not just for arable farming, but for pastoral and hunting purposes, the motifs are found at special places such as viewpoints, stream sources, and some of the most accessible routes across the landscape. The marked rocks do not often dominate the landscape, but are low-key, blending in with the natural landforms, usually near-horizontal, and would therefore be more difficult to locate than a cliff or prominent outcrop. One would have to know where to look for them, and perhaps keep the surfaces clear of vegetation that would soon obscure them. This complicates the issue even more when we remember that the time-span over which the marks were created may have been over a thousand years, and that however many we find, they still do not amount to many. Were some re-worked by successive generations? Were they all created in one region in a short time, added to, changed? If so, they were potent symbols for many generations using that landscape. Over such a long period, could their origins have been remembered, and did their meaning change?
Rock-art has many functions, marking places where people gather, perhaps to celebrate their regional identity, yet if they were to move away from their areas, they might find similar markings in other landscapes. Some may mark important events, such as a feat of heroism, a death, a humorous episode –who knows?
As we have seen, people can seize upon imagery and develop it to make it their own contribution to art. As the symbols and motifs used are universal, the creation of a design is a result of someone manipulating the images individually, although it is likely that some people, although miles apart, hit upon the same idea, even as far apart as another corner of the world, for the images used in Britain are present everywhere, common to many minds, but perhaps meaning different things; rock-art spans not only many centuries but also many parts of the world.
We have learnt much more about British rock-art since the antiquarians of the 19th Century began to be interested, making progress in discovering many new sites and learning different ways of recording, but we are still asking the questions that they asked, and more. The future will have to concentrate on answering questions by choosing selective sites for survey and excavation that may answer research questions, both in the open air and in monuments. Hand in hand with that must be the development of a coherent policy of preserving and displaying the rock-art that we have, making it known to more people so that they too can share the challenge and the pleasure of an important part of world history.’
On November 16th the artist Gordon Highmoor is staging an exhibition on Rock and Ritual in the Queen’s Hall Library, Hexham. At the same place, Stan is giving a public talk on Wednesday, 22 November, admission by moderately-priced tickets. Gordon has produced most of Stan’s book covers in recent years. He was a senior lecturer in Visual Communication, and shares the author’s passion for the places where rock-art is to be found.
The book is one of many that Stan has produced on rock art, part of a repertoire that includes drama, general books on Northumberland and Place Names. An Honorary Doctor of Letters at the University of Newcastle and a member of various international committees on rock-art he is now turning his attention to a history of, and guide to, Hexham, where he lives.