Re: Tipp Bullauns - Mr Bawn79! | Forum

fitzcoraldo wrote:

"Only if you apply the same tag to all rock art that doesn't have a context to date it :-)"

I'll accept that if we apply the same criteria to every single monument posted on TMA ;-)

I'm all for it, but, of course, I have no control over the running of TMA so it's up to the Eds in the end.

fitzcoraldo wrote:

Of course there is massive amount of evidence to support the prehistoric provence of rock art, but unfortunately there is scant evidence to support the case for bullauns.

I accept that some of these stones may be prehistoric and I broadly agree with your age by association theory but I also feel that some may be a lot later and should therefore be flagged. I think that if we do not hightlight the stones with the dodgy provenance then we may be watering-down the case to support the provenance of others.
I think we all have trackways, stones, mounds wells and other stuff that we 'feel' is prehistoric but as many debates on the forum have shown, a feeling is not quite enough.

cheers
fitz

Some are definitely younger (around 700AD or so), but the majority are generally accepted as Early Iron Age to Neolithic (depending upon who you ask). A lot of RA was once considered Iron Age or Bronze Age mainly because those primitive folks before then couldn't possibly have done it, but dates are getting pushed back all the time aren't they. In Ireland theories are heading towards the Neolithic for panels.

Church associated bullauns occur at either modern churches or early churches (8th Century at latest, but usually with 6th Century roots), but hardly ever at Medieval sites. In the case of the former they have usually been moved there in the last 150 years from nearby sites not associated with the church.

Sadly there have been no excavations around some of the more interesting ones (or around any for that matter). Rock art is far more sexy and currently in vogue, so it'll be a while before anyone gets around to it I reckon. One study was done focusing on the examples in churchyards, but this was by a Phd student and didn't get published.

I'm in the middle of pulling a lot of info together on bullauns for a book, but that's 5 books down the deal, so it won't see the light of day for a couple of years.

Tipp Bullauns — Mr Bawn79!