This pdf of your paper in Visualising the Neolithic belongs to the publishers Oxbow Books and it is their copyright. As author you are licenced to make up to 50 offprints from it, but beyond that you may not publish it on the World Wide Web until three years from publication (October 2015), unless the site is a limited access intranet (password protected). If you have queries about this please contact the editorial department at Oxbow Books ([email protected]). VISUALISING THE NEOLITHIC Visualising the Neolithic: Abstraction, Figuration, Performance, Representation Neolithic Studies Group Seminar Papers 13 Edited by Andrew Cochrane and Andrew Meirion Jones ISBN 978-1-84218-477-7 © Oxbow Books 2012 www.oxbowbooks.com This book is dedicated to the artist and photographer Ken Williams whose work is actively forwarding archaeological research and whose photographs embellish the cover of this book. To view more of Ken’s wonderful photography go to: www.shadowsandstone.com Contents Foreword by Timothy Darvill and Kenneth Brophy ..........................................................................v List of Contributors ......................................................................................................................ix 1. Visualising the Neolithic: an introduction...........................................................................1 Andrew Cochrane and Andrew Meirion Jones 2. Strange swans and odd ducks: interpreting the ambiguous waterfowl imagery of Lake Onega ........................................................................................................15 Antti Lahelma 3. ‘Noble death’: images of violence in the rock art of the White Sea ...........................34 Liliana Janik 4. Reading between the grooves: regional variations in the style and deployment of ‘cup and ring’ marked stones across Britain and Ireland ..........................................47 Kate Sharpe 5. Ben Lawers: carved rocks on a loud mountain ...............................................................64 Richard Bradley and Aaron Watson 6. Living rocks: animacy, performance and the rock art of the Kilmartin region, Argyll, Scotland ..................................................................................................................... 79 Andrew Meirion Jones 7. The halberd pillar at Ri Cruin cairn, Kilmartin, Argyll ..................................................89 Stuart Needham and Trevor Cowie 8. Painting a picture of Neolithic Orkney: decorated stonework from the Ness of Brodgar ................................................................................................ 111 Nick Card and Antonia Thomas 9. Inside and outside: visual culture at Loughcrew, Co Meath ........................................125 Elizabeth Shee Twohig 10. The figurative part of an abstract Neolithic iconography: hypotheses and directions of research in Irish and British Passage tomb art ...............................140 Guillaume Robin 11. Assuming the jigsaw had only one piece: abstraction, figuration and the interpretation of Irish Passage tomb art ..........................................................161 Robert Hensey 12. Composing the Neolithic at Knockroe ..........................................................................179 Andrew Cochrane 13. The circle, the cross and the limits of abstraction and figuration in north-western Iberian rock art .................................................................................... 198 Lara Bacelar Alves 14. The Grimes Graves Goddess: an inscrutable smile ........................................ 215 Gillian Varndell 15. The life and death of Linearbandkeramik figurines ........................................ 226 Daniela Hofmann 16. ‘The ‘no’s’ to the left have it!’: sidedness and materiality of prehistoric artefacts .......................................................................................... 243 Bisserka Gaydarska 17. The shell, the pin and the earring: Balkan Copper Age mortuary costumes in context ............................................................................................... 260 John Chapman 18. Trapped in postures .............................................................................................. 279 Stratos Nanoglou 19. Discussion: personality and Neolithic visual media ........................................ 291 David Robinson List of Contributors LARA BACELAR AL V ES RO B ERT HENSEY [email protected] Contact via: Dept. of Archaeology School of Geography and Archaeology RICHARD BRADLEY NUI Galway, Co. Galway Department of Archaeology http://independent.academia.edu/ University of Reading RobertHensey Whiteknights Reading, RG6 6AH DANIELA HOFMANN [email protected] Cardiff University Centre for Lifelong Learning Senghennydd Road NICK CARD Orkney Research Centre for Archaeology Cardiff, CF24 4AG Orkney College (UHI) [email protected] Kirkwall, KW15 1LX LILIANA JANIK [email protected] Department of Archaeology University of Cambridge JOHN CHAPMAN Downing Street Durham University Cambridge, CB2 3DZ Department of Archaeology [email protected] Durham, DH1 3LE [email protected] ANDREW MERION JONES Archaeology ANDREW COCHRANE Faculty of Humanities Sainsbury Institute for the Study of University of Southampton Japanese Arts and Cultures Highfield 64 The Close Southampton, SO17 1BF Norwich, NR1 4DW [email protected] [email protected] ANTTI LAHELMA TRE V OR COWIE Department of Archaeology Department of Archaeology University of Helsinki National Museums Scotland Unioninkatu 38F Chambers Street P.O Box 59 Edinburgh, EH1 1JF 00014 Helsingin yliopisto [email protected] Finland [email protected] BISSERKA GAYDARSKA Durham University Department of Archaeology Durham, DH1 3LE [email protected] GUILLAUME RO B IN ANTONIA THOMAS Università degli Studi di Sassari Archaeology Department Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia University of the Highlands and Islands Piazza Conte di Moriana, 8 Orkney College 07100 Sassari East Road Italy Kirkwall, KW15 1LX [email protected] [email protected] DA V ID RO B INSON ELIZA B ETH TWOHIG School of Forensic & Investigative Sciences Annestown University of Central Lancashire Co. Waterford Preston, PR1 2HE Ireland [email protected] [email protected] STRATOS NANOGLOU GILLIAN VARNDELL [email protected] Deptartment of Prehistory and Europe British Museum STUART NEEDHAM Gt. Russell St. Langton Fold London, WC1B 3DG South Harting, [email protected] West Sussex, GU31 5NW [email protected] AARON WATSON www.monumental.uk.com KATE E. SHARPE [email protected] Department of Archaeology Durham University South Road Durham, DH1 3LE [email protected] Chapter 10 The figurative part of an abstract Neolithic iconography: hypotheses and directions of research in Irish and British passage tomb art Guillaume Robin INTRODUCTION The principle characteristic of Irish and British passage tomb art is the abstract nature of its repertoire, which is exclusively composed of geometric motifs: circles, spirals, arcs, radiate motifs, chevrons, triangles, lozenges, scalariform motifs and meandering lines (Shee Twohig 1981; Robin 2009). This contrasts with the other traditions of megalithic art found in western France and Iberia where figurative motifs, such as weapons, animals or human figures, were represented together with abstract motifs. Why is there a total absence of figurative forms in Irish and British passage tombs? What are the origin and reasons for this specificity, which distinguishes the isles from the continent? In reality, the problem may be more complex, and the frontier between abstraction and figuration less clear than it appears. These classifications depend on the degree of knowledge that we have of the art. For example, the aboriginal Walbiri iconography is composed of geometric figures only that look totally abstract at first glance: but the descriptions and analyses of Nancy Munn (1973), who was explained the art by its creators and users, have shown that a large number of the motifs are in fact very schematised figuration of objects or scenes. A penannular motif, for instance, represents the plan of a hut, and a circle with radiating arcs (a ‘flower-like’ motif as the ones found in the Neolithic tombs of Loughcrew in Ireland) represent people sitting around a fire (Munn 1973, 66, 79). Many other signs are direct references to identifiable beings or objects and show that despite its abstract appearance, Walbiri art has a significant figurative dimension (also see Hensey this volume). In this paper I will examine the potential figurative elements within Irish and British passage tomb art. Does this art include motifs that are graphical references to the world of the Neolithic people? How can this be identified today without the direct explanation of the Neolithic carvers? After a presentation of the historical debates and theories about a possible figurative dimension of the art, I will focus on a selected number of case studies that are interpreted as schematic figurations of objects and abstract concepts. These hypotheses are based on an analysis of the design of the motifs but also and above all from an analysis of their location on the stones, their relationships with other motifs and with the architecture of the tombs. Comparisons with continental contexts, such as the megalithic art of Brittany and Iberia, or the hypogea art of Neolithic Sardinia, will also be used. 10. The figurative