tiompan
Yesterday whilst visiting the Loanhead of Daviot and New Craig RSC ‘s I noticed an outcrop about half way between the sites . I was surprised to discover about 40 plus cups with rings ,unfortunately the bullocks in the field became a wee bit too up close and personal one in particular seemed determined to avenge his Hispanic cousins so I retreated . Luckily I was able to return in the early with chum Stan and we managed to get some water on the markings and a good ten minutes gawping before the thunder of Aberdeen Angus hooves sent us to the fence . This is easily the biggest outcrop and largest number of cups in Aberdeenshire , a county that doesn’t have much rock art at all but the amazing thing is that countless numbers of archaeos must have walked between the two sites , a kilometre , and just failed to the notice the markings
There was a fine temperature inversion in Strathtummel and at 300m the views were just the tops of the bigger Perthshire hills . Not a lot of rock art in the area but I had expectations and found a couple of “new ” rocks 5m apart on the 375 contour , not the highest in the UK but close. The first had nine cups and the adjacent outcrop had over fifty , nine with rings . By the time that outcrop had been cleared so had the mist . Interestingly the biggest hill in the area , Schiehallion , would not have been in view when the engraver did their work , but if they stood up , there it was .
As well as the rock shelter/rock art there were also a couple of cup marked boulders and a marked rock beside some shielings found on the same day.
This site , in a side glen south of Glen Lyon was discovered in April this year . An interesting aspect is that not only are rock shelters with rock art very rare but the area has no recorded prehistory . There are some homesteads in western Glen Lyon but they are medieval.
This marked rock was discovered 18 months ago , I was particularly chuffed to find it as I had ancestors living within 500 yards of it 200 years ago.For those interested in such things the azimuth from the stone to the apparent bealach between Meall raemhar and Meall nan Caorach is 155 degrees , the extreme southern moonrise .
The remains of a possible recumbent stone circle . The area to the west has turned up some marked rocks , a rarity in the county. The hill in the pics is Tap o’ Noth and the azimuth from stones to summit is within 0.4 of a degree from true North.
I went to check on a find from last year that may have been in danger from tree felling operations . It was fine but close by was this beauty , looks like a possible cist cover . The new stone may have been inverted during tree planting .
Paul Bahn finishes a series of six Rhind lectures, “Art on the Rocks”, tomorrow at the National Museum of Scotland. I managed to get to three on the Saturday. All were hugely informative, entertaining thought provoking and at times very funny. The one that would be of interest to most was “The Emperor’s New Clothes”. I won’t twitter too much so here’s wee synopsis.
It appears that there is not that much opposition, other than Bahn himself, to the David Lewis Williams’ shamanic hypothesis but he pointed out that a majority of Neurophysiologists and Ice Age experts do not accept it and that in South Africa the experts on the ethnography of the tribes cited disagree entirely with him as does the “Stan” of South Africa, Bert Woodhouse. More importantly Tribesmen when asked their opinion on the carvings never mention shaman, this applies to other continents as well as Africa and oddly an area that provides some positive ethnography to the theory has no RA. A great iconoclastic attack that might help redress the balance. The theory has replaced the old hunting and sympathetic magic type explanations and likes lots of archaeo mantras it makes for lazy thinking. Nobody is denying the importance or existence of shamanism to many cultures but we have no evidence for it being an explanation for RA here, and as Paul would have it anywhere else. For me the Lewis – Williams books were stimulating reads that will probably influence thinking in this area for a generation but like a lot of big archaeo ideas the cracks were visible a while ago and are getting bigger.
British Rock Art Collection
The Neolithic pit defined enclosure at Douglasmuir seems to have had some interesting maths associated with the pits . I don’t know of anything else like this and would normally think of it is down to a few coincidences but that looks unlikely .Any statisticians care to comment ?
The septum has 15 a tenth of the total the cross members have 14 15 &16 , the east side is exactly double the scale of the adjacent end 28 pits : 14 pits & 34m : 17m the west side is double the septal division .The west side of the Northern half is twice the septal division 15 pits :30 pits..Starting from the South end of 14 pits , the first half is completed with the addition of 68 pits and precisely the same number has been employed to complete the second.
This site , found last summer , produced pretty dull pics . So a visit today in classic RA pic weather , i.e. brilliant oblique sun was needed . There are three separate groups of marked rocks and one contentious one . The dodgy one is underside of an overhanging rock and has what may be cup marks but they could be entirely natural .
