Between Water and Monument the Atlantic Rock Art of the Kilmartin Valley, Argyll, Western Scotland (Stage 1 of the Motifs and Monuments Project)

George Nash Making sense of the relationship between water and monument The Atlantic rock art of the Kilmartin Valley, Argyll, Western Scotland (Stage 1 of the Motifs and Monuments Project) Abstract The Kilmartin Valley (also known as Kilmartin Glen) is located within the county of Argyll in western Scotland and covers an area of approximately 50 km2 (11 [north-south] x 5 [east- west] km). It has within its curtilage one of the largest and most complex later prehistoric landscapes in northern Britain. Monuments include Neolithic and Early Bronze Age (EBA) stone chambered burial ritual monuments (including long cairns, round cairns, barrows and cists), a henge, standing stones and engraved open-air rock art. The Royal Commission for Ancient and Historic Monuments for Scotland (RCAHMS) list over 150 later prehistoric sites within a nine kilometre radius. Engraved rock art is found on or close to burial monuments and as open-air sites on exposed rock outcropping. In 2013, a team of archaeologists from the Welsh Rock Art Organisation (WRAO) began a study on the Later Prehistoric sites that contained rock art in western and northern Britain. This study followed an earlier research project which concentrated on a corpus of open-air sites. One of the areas included within this study was Kilmartin Valley. This paper assesses and discusses some of the findings of this project, suggesting that rock art provided a ritual link between monument and landscape. The focus of this paper will be the small but significant assemblage of the Neolithic stone chambered monuments, cists and standings stones that occupy the lower, central and upper sections of the valley, extending from the village of Kilmartin and the rugged foothills in the north to the marsh grassland of Mòine Mhòr in the south.1 Keywords: artistic endeavour, grammar, linearity, valley floor, water Early beginnings: Assessing the geography Over the past 50 years or so there has been specific areas that contain rock art, in this a resurgence into research of the British case Kilmartin, a broad synthesis for British Isles prehistoric rock art tradition, initially and Northern European traditions has been through fieldwork and cataloguing data formulated (e.g. O’Sullivan 1986; Cunliffe (e.g. Forde-Johnson 1956; Morris 1977, 2004; Waddell 2005; Mazel, Nash & Wad- Shee-Twohig; Beckinsall 1999; Sharkey dington 2007; Cochrane & Meirion Jones 2004) and later from discussion and inter- 2012). pretation (e.g. Sharpe 2007; Bradley 2009; The Monuments and Motifs Project Meirion Jones 2012; Needham, Cowie, T. & (MMP) was inaugurated by the author in McGibbon 2012).2 As a result of focusing on 2013 following a number of expeditions to 104 Adoranten 2015 Neolithic cores areas within the British Isles dition to these simple motifs, prehistoric (undertaken between 2002 and 2012). It artists from each study area appear to have soon became apparent that there was an in- also used other motifs as well, probably as extricable link between monument building a means of establishing local and regional and use, landscape position, artefact behav- identity. In County Meath (central-eastern iour and rock art (e.g. Tilley 1989; Bradley Ireland), communities used a wide reper- 1993; Nash 2012). The main research ques- toire of motifs, in particular on the kerbing tions from the Kilmartin expedition was of the large passage graves of Newgrange, thus: Knowth and Dowth in the Boyne Valley and within the chamber and passage areas • Was rock art being incorporated of monuments that form the Loughcrew within the design and construction of group (O’Kelly 1982; Eogan 1986; Cooney Neolithic and Bronze Age stone cham- 2000). The use of particular motifs by cer- bered burial-ritual monuments, cist tain communities may have been the result and standing stones or was rock art of establishing personal and inter-group being commissioned sometime after identity onto the landscape. In the case of the monuments were constructed? the communities constructing and using the • Were the design influences directly stone chambered monuments in Kilmartin, and/or indirectly originating from cupmarks, design variations of concentric Ireland (forming part of a wider Clyde- circles, cup-and-rings and flat-butted axes Carlingford Group connection be- are the most numerous motifs used. tween Western Scotland and Southern Ireland2)? Rock art within a burial-ritual context • Were the design concepts for rock art is usually confined to passage graves; the from within and outside the Neolithic Boyne Valley and Loughcrew Groups being monuments being later incorporated the most cited monuments; however, not onto open-air panels? all burial chambered monuments possess • Are there similar landscape patterns rock art. In Ireland, for example, only c. 45 and monument-clustering found in free-standing burial monuments out of a other Later Prehistoric monument con- total of 1500 contain complex patterns of centrations? engraved rock art. It has been suggested • Finally, did the surrounding environ- that engraved and painted rock art, which ment play a role between monument probably has its origins in the Mediterra- location and the choice of rock art nean and along the coastal fringes of the symbol used? Iberian Peninsula, may have been part of a second wave of ideas accompanying monu- In terms of contextualising both the ment building and use along the Atlantic monuments and the rock art, the MMP pro- fringe of Western Europe (Nash 2012). In ject explored a number of core areas that addition to the Irish examples mentioned contained Atlantic-style rock art including above, several notable passage graves of the Boyne Valley (County Meath, Ireland), Late Neolithic date are found in Northwest Loughcrew (County Meath, Ireland), North Wales and one other in Calderstones Park, Wales (including Ynys Môn [Anglesey]), Liverpool, each containing a wealthy reper- North-west England and Kilmartin Valley toire of imagery. It is more than likely that (Argyll and Bute). From these four areas rock art formed only part of a much more a number of stylistic and spatial patterns complex package of ideas associated with began to emerge. Using the motif classifica- death, burial and ritual. Decorated ceram- tion established by Shee-Twohig (1981), sev- ics, portable stone artefacts, [engendered] eral motifs appeared to have been consist- jewellery and flint tools, and even subtle ently applied to monuments from the four changes in architecture and the construc- study areas including cupmarks, concentric tion of quartz pavements all played their circles and cup-and-rings. However, in ad- part in making these places special. Adoranten 2015 105 A natural sequence of events reveals that much of the Mòine Mhòr area As intimated at the beginning of this pa- contains up to 4m of peat which intimates per, rock art and monument location may that the original ground surface in this have been determined by the surrounding area was much lower, possibly allowing sea environment, in particular, the surface ge- water to penetrate much of the lower and ology, the topography and, in the case of central sections of the valley. Within this Kilmartin Valley, potential sea inundation. area, the valley sides are constructed of Late The glacial and periglacial activity had cre- Devensian fluvial-glacial terracing and topo- ated a scoured landscape setting within the graphically forms a c. 25m high north-south surrounding uplands and it is within this ridge that extends the length of the valley. environment that much of the open-air rock It is along this terrace that much of the art is found. Neolithic burial activity occurs, above the According to Tipping (2008, 3) the early [current] floodplain of the Kilmartin Burn. Holocene environment of the Kilmartin Valley would have been partly influenced by sea inundation and regression, espe- Signatures within a landscape: cially within the Mòine Mhòr area to the Kilmartin Valley south. Sea inundation and regression may The Later Prehistoric monuments and have been seasonal, periodic or a more their accompanying rock art assemblage permanent fixture. During later prehistory have been the focus for research for over (and within historical times), the Mòine 160 years (Simpson 1867; RCAHMS 1915; Mhòr area would have been a seasonally- Scott 1969; Morris 1977; Needham & Cowie flooded salt marsh. The intermediate 2012; Meiron Jones 2012). Based on field slopes, the terracing and the small islands observations and support from various lit- of exposed gravels and clays would have erature sources, the later prehistoric monu- supported pockets of woodland. During ments groups within the Kilmartin Valley the Early Holocene eustatic rise (isostatic comprise: uplift/rebound) would have been roughly equal to sea level rise. Between c. 4-6,000 • Neolithic chambered cairns (of the BCE sea-level rise along the west coast of Clyde-type); Scotland is estimated to be between 6.5 • A Neolithic henge monument; and 7.5m AOD; however, by the time of the • Neolithic/EBA round cairns (with and Early Neolithic, sea level rise was down to without rock art); 4m AOD. Between the former salt flats of • Bronze Age round barrows; Mòine Mhòr and the upper section of the • Neolithic/EBA hybrid monuments (with Kilmartin Valley where a number of burial and without rock art); monuments stand, the topography rises by • Bronze Age cist graves (with and with- c. 13m; ranging between c. 5 and 18m AOD. out supporting cairn, and with and The Kilmartin Burn (river) flowing from the without rock art; top of the valley and eventually meeting • Neolithic/EBA standing stones (mono- the River Add, east of the Later Prehistoric liths) (with and without rock art); and fort and medieval settlement of Dunadd • Neolithic/EBA engraved open-air rock would have provided a sizable volume of art sites. water to feed into the south section of the valley, which formed a vast lake.

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