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The Siting of Prehistoric Rock Art in Galloway, South-west Scotland

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 February 2014

Richard Bradley ,
Jan Harding  and
Margaret Mathews
Richard Bradley
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology, University, Whiteknights, Reading RG6 2AA
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Abstract

The interpretation of prehistoric rock art has posed some intractable problems, but recent studies have sought to integrate it within a more broadly based landscape archaeology. They emphasise the special character of this material, not only as a system of distinctive motifs, but also as a source of information employed by people engaged in a mobile pattern of settlement. This paper investigates the character of the rock art of south-west Scotland, comparing the positions of the petroglyphs with two series of control samples in the surrounding landscape. The carvings seem to have been situated at viewpoints. They may have been directed towards the coastline and the Galloway hills and commanded a significantly wider field of vision than locations in the surrounding area. There is some evidence that differences in the size and complexity of the motifs are related to their placing in the local topography, with the simpler carvings around the edges of lowland ‘territories’ near to the shoreline, and the more complex compositions in upland areas, especially around shallow basins and waterholes. The changing character of the designs may reflect differences in the composition of the audience who viewed them.

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society , Volume 59 , Issue 1 , 1993 , pp. 269 - 283
Copyright
Copyright © The Prehistoric Society 1993

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