Cup Marks — Help please!

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Howburn Digger H
Howburn Digger Feb 15, 2010 21:27:23

Out for a walk with my son up the Dalveen Pass on Saturday afternoon. It lies on the border of South Lanarkshire and Dumfries and Galloway. My kid climbed on a boulder and I went to take his picture. I noticed a dark circle on the rock when I was framing the picture. I saw what I thought were a number of cup marks on the rock and photographed them with my OH's phonecamera. The site is not listed on Canmore, TMA or TMP. Indeed there are very few cup marked stones listed for South Lanarkshire.
My excitement on looking at the images when we got home propelled me to contact the British Rock Art bunch and I tried to post it as a new site on here. With today and Tuesday off for the school holidays I headed back down with a better camera, a bottle of water and a sunny day. To my amazement, I found what I think are many cup marks on no less than five other boulders within yards of the original one from Saturday.
I've still heard nothing back from any of the sites I've contacted and would really appreciate it if some of the cup mark specialists on here could have a wee look at the pictures. My wee heart cannae take this excitement! Put me oot my misery! Are these the Real McCoy? This would be my first!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/47595583@N06/sets/72157623316854483/


Thanks

D drewbhoy
drewbhoy Feb 15, 2010 22:51:42
Replying to Howburn Digger

I'm no expert but they look good to me, I found my first cup marked stone last week, so good luck and well done in advance!

T tiompan
tiompan Feb 16, 2010 10:47:18
Replying to Howburn Digger

Howburn Digger wrote:
Out for a walk with my son up the Dalveen Pass on Saturday afternoon. It lies on the border of South Lanarkshire and Dumfries and Galloway. My kid climbed on a boulder and I went to take his picture. I noticed a dark circle on the rock when I was framing the picture. I saw what I thought were a number of cup marks on the rock and photographed them with my OH's phonecamera. The site is not listed on Canmore, TMA or TMP. Indeed there are very few cup marked stones listed for South Lanarkshire.
My excitement on looking at the images when we got home propelled me to contact the British Rock Art bunch and I tried to post it as a new site on here. With today and Tuesday off for the school holidays I headed back down with a better camera, a bottle of water and a sunny day. To my amazement, I found what I think are many cup marks on no less than five other boulders within yards of the original one from Saturday.
I've still heard nothing back from any of the sites I've contacted and would really appreciate it if some of the cup mark specialists on here could have a wee look at the pictures. My wee heart cannae take this excitement! Put me oot my misery! Are these the Real McCoy? This would be my first!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/47595583@N06/sets/72157623316854483/


Thanks

Sorry for the negativity HD but they look natural to me , probably solution holes . There is some info here http://mc2.vicnet.net.au/home/aura/shared_files/Cupules.pdf (about p 10 ) describing some natural cups .We should really compile some pics to illustrate this stuff .

L Littlestone
Littlestone Feb 16, 2010 13:09:33
Replying to Howburn Digger

My excitement on looking at the images when we got home propelled me to contact the British Rock Art bunch and I tried to post it as a new site on here.
Know how you feel about getting excited H D. Take a look at the close-ups of some of the stones here -
http://www.themodernantiquarian.com/site/2064/alphamstone.html

A few of us thought these may be cup marks, and there was a discussion on TMA about them somewhere (think the consensus was that they were probably natural though). Alphamstone does look like it's a Christianised site, so that might slightly increase the possibility that the cups there have been worked - or if not worked that they were chosen for their cup-like characteristics.

Sorry, going off on a tangent. Good luck with your own find.

S StoneGloves
StoneGloves Feb 16, 2010 14:36:29
Replying to Howburn Digger

Cupmarks are notoriously unreliable to verify - and opinions drawn from photographs should be disregarded - the wide shallow one that I saw in one of your pictures looked pretty good to me. I've seen similar ones on parish boundary stones in sw Northumberland. Nobody has told me that these cupmarks are natural, yet ( http://www.themodernantiquarian.com/site/2280/white_brow.html ), and, in Millstone Grit, flaws are very rare. Have a look for the image with the brick house in the background - that's the one.

F faerygirl
faerygirl Feb 18, 2010 14:59:46
Replying to Howburn Digger

The line of three in the foreground on one picture suggests that they are lying along faults/ clevage/ bedding in the rock which probably means they are caused by natural erosion. But you never know!