I'm afraid you're going to be more specific than that. Which stones do you mean? As I've listed several different stones, that are as far as half a mile apart, it is difficult to understand which ones you are referring to when you say they are common features on stones.

How are you able to tell the profile of the cupmarks on the stones from my poor photographs. The Slaggyford Stones are a couple of standing stones - one about five feet high, marked on two sides, very eroded, and the second just a couple of feet high. There's only the photos of one of those stones on that site page, so how are you able to deduce that 'they don't look like standing stones to me'. You would need to visit them to form a valid opinion, surely.

You have shown me that a group of boulders, that have been quarried, carved and arranged, would be unique in the British archaeological record. Eventually I may be grateful for that insight but, at the moment, am simply irritated. I do wish that I had taken a simple GPS handset on the fell to record their location accurately and I do wish I had the ability to return to these stones to take proper photographs. It could be that these carved stones are the crumbs amongst the larger monuments I have found and that I should concentrate on these more.

I do have more photographs but they are in very deep storage indeed. I don't think I've ever posted a pic of the Pogglestone, which is on the Cumbria-Northumberland border, nor do I recall posting a picture of the smaller of the two standing stones, which has two conventional cupmarks on one facet. I've found a few standing stones and this is the first time anyone has said 'it's not a standing stone'. It's like pointing to the sea and saying 'that's a motorway filling station' (ie it's ridiculous). The larger of these Slaggyford stones has quite an atmosphere - but you have to get past some devious and difficult farmers before you can see it. It's neither near a footpath nor under Right To Roam. But it is aligned and, from there, you can see maybe fifty miles, which is a long way in those hills ...

Jeeze... c’mon fellas take a step back. I know feck all about rock art but the crux of your argument seems to be between rockart (manmade) and non-rockart (natural). Isn’t that looking at things from a slightly modern perspective? Where do you place found art in the prehistoric context, or does that just get kicked into the long grass?

Wiki defines found art as an art which, “...derives its identity as art from the designation placed upon it by the artist...” Sure, the best manmade rockart has a wow factor that simpler manmade or natural cup and rings don’t but that doesn’t preclude them from being a form of art (if we can even use that term here). Where would you place the Alphamstone stuff? Probably natural but found on a Christianised site and perhaps brought and incorporated there because they looked ‘artificial’ (manmade or otherwise) or at the very least looked interesting and different enough for use at an important site. Ditto the ammonite at Stoney Littleton, the holed stones down by the river at Pewsey, the twisted stones used at Rollright, the puddingstones used up in this (Essex) neck of the woods.

Sorry if I’ve got hold of the wrong end of the stick – just wanted to say that art doesn’t have to be manmade but that it becomes art when we make it so.