British rock art can’t be dated ,therefore we have to resort to context to get the earliest secure date , this is a usually accepted as being the cup marked rock found in the barrow at Dalladies dated approx 3280 BC slightly earlier than the Boyne monuments . Clearly there would have been earlier markings with some arguing albeit with little evidence for a Mesolithic date .The end of that tradition is considered to date those cases of the re-use of marked rocks in Late Bronze Age Early/Iron Age monuments like souterrains and hillforts . Cup marks have dated to as early as 50,000 BP in the cave at La Ferrassie and Indian caves have cup marks dated from at least 290,000 BP and possibly much earlier .