PREHISTORIC QUARRYING
AND THE "RE-SANCTIFICATION" OF ROCK ART
MAARTEN VAN HOEK
INTRODUCTION
Unfortunately, the demolition of prehistoric petroglyphs is not rare. All over Europe we find instances of the destruction of rock art due to all sorts of activities, such as vandalism, agricultural improvement or road making. One of the biggest threats however, is that of rock quarrying. The reason for this is quite clear. Conspicuous rock outcrops suitable for the execution of petroglyphs also attracted people who were looking for convenient stone quarries. This unfortunately means that especially decorated rock surfaces are prone to be destroyed by quarrying activities, often without at all having been recorded by an archaeological survey.
GREENLAND
Fig. 1: THE TWO PHASES OF ENGRAVING AT GREENLAND
Unfortunately, a few years ago Greenland was destroyed. Not the ice capped island off the coast of Canada, but a unique rock art site situated a few kilometers west of Glasgow, Scotland. Having been threatened by modern quarrying for many years, two fine petroglyphic outcrops finally were destroyed in 1994, although most of the engraved surfaces were saved during a rescue operation (Sheridan 1994: 64).
In many respects Greenland was exceptional, also because MacKie (MacKie & Davis 1989) suggests intentional re-decoration for this site after prehistoric quarrying. His conclusions, however, are rather disputable, especially concerning the chronology.
The Greenland petroglyph site was a large sandstone raft in a basalt volcanic plug. It was much fractured by glacial pressure and comprised several natural stepped surfaces. MacKie now suggests that the uppermost undulating and worn surface contained the earlier and also worn petroglyphs (his Phase 1), whereas some lower surfaces were flat and unweathered. These revealed the really fresh carvings of Phase 2, distinctly showing pecking in places (Fig. 1).
Although also MacKie acknowledges the importance of the excellent protection against weathering by the almost 20 cm thick layer of soil and turf once covering the Phase 2 engravings, he still concludes that the Phase 2 carvings occupy spaces quarried in the Late Bronze Age or even Iron Age in order to supply slabs for the building of the Iron Age fort on Sheep Hill, 200 metres further south. Consequently, he argues, the Phase 2 engravings were executed after the quarrying took place and therefore are most likely to be either Late Bronze Age or even Iron Age in date. In his opinion, these Phase 2 petroglyphs represent the unique exception to the generally accepted convention that such carvings are Neolithic.
His reasoning has almost completely been based on the assumption that the quarried (decorated) stones had indeed been used in the construction of the nearby fort, where, however, no decorated slabs have been found as yet. Unfortunately, he (and later, Bradley as well, 1997: 140) completely neglected the loose slabs found in the direct vicinity of the Greenland site.
Notably three loose decorated stones were reported from the area during the 1994 rescue operation prior to the destruction of the Greenland 1 and 2 sites (Sheridan 1994). But more important are the seven loose stones, described by Ronald Morris (1981: 91 and 106) as Bowling 1, 2 and 3 and Greenland 3 and 4 (5 and 6 having cupules only), that should have been taken into account by MacKie when he discussed the chronology of the sites.
It should moreover be noted here that Greenland 3 (Morris 1981: Fig. 66) is the same stone as reported by Ronald Morris as GLW 12: provenance unknown (Morris 1981: Plate 87), which is stored in the Kelvingrove Museum, Glasgow, together with the three stones from Bowling.
All these loose decorated stones are of the same type of rock as the Greenland raft and have dimensions that more or less match the alleged quarried spaces of the Greenland site. Also it is most significant that Bowling 2 and Greenland 3 clearly feature broken off petroglyphs; they certainly have been broken from a larger piece of decorated stone. Moreover, especially Bowling 2 and 3, but also Greenland 3 feature the same type of engravings as found at Greenland. All this makes them excellent candidates of stones possibly quarried from the big Greenland raft. Although the destruction of the site makes it almost impossible, it would still be worthwhile to find out whether the above-mentioned stones, now in the Kelvingrove and Hunterian museums of Glasgow, indeed could have been taken from the Greenland raft.
Two important questions now remain. When did this quarrying take place, and, are the Phase 2 engravings really that much later as suggested by MacKie ? Unfortunately, he offers no proof at all for a Late Bronze Age or Iron Age dating.
In my opinion, the Greenland raft occupied a place very special for Neolithic people, and was characterised by a secluded position. In this respect it resembles Ballochmyle in Ayrshire. The site notably was situated in a large bowl shaped depression in the hillside and views from the site were blocked in every direction, which is most exceptional for a major cup-and-ring site. Enhancing the character of isolation is the fact that the raft originally was surrounded by a marshy area (Sheridan 1994). Together with the nearby Whitehill sites, Greenland also forms an area of convergence, similar to the Kilmartin valley, indicating a major landing place and the beginning of a major route leading through the interior. At the other end of this route we find the important rock art concentration of Castleton.
Due to a late but short lived florescence in the Neolithic it became a practice to execute impressive multiple ring systems, almost exclusively at important geographical loci. We have seen that these select places prove to be more than often situated on or very near major prehistoric routes, often at either end of such an important route.
In my opinion most of the complex petroglyphs of Greenland Phase 2 belong to this later phase of the long-lived cup-and-ring tradition. It is now possible that people with privileged access to the already important and hallowed site of Greenland bared a part of the outcrop to make room for the new multiple rings so characteristic for that period. This bared part was much harder, flatter and on lower level. After the short-lived florescence it became covered up more quickly and probably it is only for these reasons that these Phase 2 carvings are still much better preserved.
The quarrying of the decorated slabs on the other hand, took place in rather recent times. It notably seems highly unlikely that, if stones were indeed quarried to be used in the ramparts of the Iron Age fort on Sheep Hill, these people started to re-sanctify the Greenland site with symbols that belong to the same period as the Irish Passage Tombs. Why not using the symbols of their own culture ?
If the quarrying indeed is recent, also the suggestion by Bradley (1997: 140) that the stones quarried from the Greenland raft most likely were incorporated in Early Bronze Age burials becomes equally doubtful, as also because MacKie clearly demonstrated that no such burials are yet known from near by. In my opinion, parts of the outcrop were broken off in historical times and simply used as building material. Greenland 3, 4, 5 and 6 for instance were found in a former wall about one kilometre north of the site by J. Bruce in 1893 (Morris 1981: 105). Greenland was quarried, but most probably during the historic period, and it definitely was never “re-sanctified” by Bronze Age or Iron Age peoples.
CONCLUSIONS
It is clear from this chapter that possible “re-sanctification” of quarried rock art sites is most controversial and moreover very hard to prove. There are thousands of instances of open-air rock art in the British Isles; yet only three instances possibly involve prehistoric quarrying. Of these three, only one, the North Plantation site, just possibly may have been “re-sanctified” after prehistoric quarrying took place, and even that is most doubtful. In neither case solid evidence has been brought forward.
Even when parts were quarried on purpose, it remains doubtful whether the added art represents instances of “re-sanctification”. As we have seen, this is a matter of chronology, but also of terminology. The re-decoration could have taken place immediately after the piece was removed, in which case there is no question of “re-sanctification”. Alternatively, the new motifs could have been executed a long period after the piece was removed, but still within the same cultural frame, and then this just possibly could be interpreted as a sort of “re-sanctification”. But I have previously remarked that it has been a normal practice to add new cup-and-rings to existing sites over very long periods of time. And all these additions actually are instances of “re-sanctification”.
It is also more logical to suppose that any assumed practice to quarry decorated outcrops most likely was carried out by a people completely different to the manufacturers of the petroglyphs, as these rock art symbols must have had an enormous religious and social value for the society that created them. Therefore prehistoric quarrying of cup-and-ring sites never became a common practice: even hundreds of years after the decline of this specific rock art tradition, the still enigmatic symbols will have been respected. Ultimately the ancient symbols lost their value and consequently some decorated rocks were quarried, occasionally during the Bronze Age (e.g. some Kilmartin menhirs) and Iron Ages, and, regrettably, on a bigger scale in historical times.
It also is highly unlikely that Iron Age peoples would “re-sanctify” a site like Greenland with symbols so typical for the Neolithic rock art tradition. Why did they not apply symbols of their own culture ? This has been done at other sites in Europe where Bronze Age symbols are joined to Neolithic cup-and-rings. Among these instances are several cup-and-rings that seem to have been “re-sanctified” by different cultures.
1. BRADLEY, R. 1997. Rock Art and the Prehistory of Atlantic Europe, Signing the Land. Routledge, London, England.
2. MACKIE, E. W. & DAVIS, A. 1989. New light on Neolithic Rock Carving, The petroglyphs at Greenland (Auchentorlie), Dunbartonshire. Glasgow Archaeological Journal 15, 125 – 155. Glasgow, Scotland.
3. MORRIS, R. W. B. 1981. The prehistoric rock art of southern Scotland. B.A.R British Series, 86. Oxford, England.
4. SHERIDAN, J. A. 1994. Greenland (Auchentorlie) Rock Carvings. Discovery and Excavation in Scotland, 64-65. Edinburgh, Scotland.
Photos of Greenland by Maarten van Hoek, taken just after the Glasgow Survey had painted-in the motifs, can be seen on
British Rock Art Collection at
http://rockartuk.fotopic.net/greenland