Mid-Argyll Theme
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Kilmartin and its Rock Art
Rock art is an enigmatic form in many parts of
the world, but nowhere more than in the British
Isles where it is composed of a miscellany of
apparently abstract curves, hollows, rings,
spirals, combined at some sites into impressive
tapestries of design.
Kilmartin is distinguished by a marked
concentration of rock art sites, carved and used
from at least 2500 to 1500 BC. The Kilmartin
carvings include some of the most extensive rock
art panels in the British Isles as well as huge
numbers of less intricate sites. Even today new
sites continue to be recorded and many more are
known by local people.
The cup-and-ring marked rocks are part of an
artistic tradition that embraced sites in western
Scotland, Ireland, Northumbria and Galicia in
Spain. Some forms, however, are unique to
Kilmartin, such as the images of early Bronze-Age
style axe-heads carved on cist-slabs in the linear
cemetery.
Axe head shapes are carved
into a rock in the Ri Cruin cairn.
Such art is part of an even longer tradition,
however, both abstract and figurative. Think of the
much earlier paintings of animals at Lascaux in
France, and Altimira in Spain, the carved animals
in Val do Côa in Portugal, or the carvings in
prehistoric Scandinavia and the Alps, depicting
hunting, farming and ritual in everyday life. The
rock art of Kilmartin then sits in a wider context
of prehistoric art but its relation to these other
artistic movements is obscure, and their enigmatic
messages are still far from understood.
Much work has been devoted to the rock art of
Kilmartin, particularly in trying to decipher its
meaning. The research has included recording the
art on panels, hypothesising about its use and
studying the art as part of its prehistoric
landscape. This approach is yielding some
interesting results at Kilmartin.
Of the larger and more complex panels in
Kilmartin, the rock art is carved on gently sloping
rock slabs, usually on a hillside above the valley
floor. These slabs are marked by glaciers, with
striae dividing the panels into sections and are
all in locations with commanding views.
One problem with the approach to interpreting
rock art as part of the wider landscape is the fact
that the landscape has changed so much since the
art-works were first carved and used. However,
pollen analysis, a technique that enables us to
reconstruct past vegetation history, is now
starting to indicate in some ways what the
prehistoric
landscape may have looked like. At sites now
surrounded by sitka spruce there may have been
avenues and sight-lines to distant horizons; at
sites surrounded by moorland and grazing today
views may have been restricted by trees and
strategic clearings. Standing at these sites today,
perched on valley sides, it is clear that from a
distance they are not always easy to spot. Without
the modern signposts, many rock art sites would be
missed by today's visitors.
The Ormaig carved stone in
situ
Given these circumstances then, how was rock art
used in prehistory? One theory is that rock art
panels were located at junctions in the landscape
and marked pathways through it. Cairnbaan and
Achnabreck illustrate this possibility wonderfully.
Both are situated on valley sides overlooking the
'road-junction' where the path down Kilmartin
valley meets the path between Loch Gilp and Loch
Crinan. If people were walking to and from the
ceremonial centres in the Kilmartin valley, then
this was an important junction.
Pollen analysis has suggested that when the rock
art sites are thought to have been in use, the dry
valley sides were covered in oak and hazel woodland
with a fairly open canopy. Travel through these
woodlands would have been possible, pleasant even,
along meandering pathways. It may be that the
pathways themselves were crucial because without
them it would be difficult to find low carved
stones among the trees.
Another interpretation suggests that the rock
art panels were restricted in their use to a select
few, who had been trained to use and interpret
them. Whatever their use, some knowledge or
signposting is likely to have been necessary to
find them.
Like the more obvious monuments in the valley -
cairns, henges and standing stones - these carved
rocks must have intrigued the farmers, fishermen
and warriors who lived here in the first millennium
AD. Did they encourage people to invest this
landscape with sacred meanings as some do for their
own reasons today? Did they also ask themselves
what the patterns meant, and find them useful as
signs of power in the landscape to validate their
own social and cosmic order?
A detail from the large carved rock
at Ormaig
What do they mean? It is still impossible for us
to say what they meant to the artists who made
them. But their enigmatic motifs have the power to
engage our minds and imaginations, and that is an
important part of their value today.
Key
References
- Bradley, Richard (1997)
- Morris, R. (1997)
Check out the following
sections of this website for related
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This
project has been supported by the EU as part of the Culture
2000 programme.