Ancient rock art baffles experts[UK]

Telegraph ^ | 15 Jan 2009 | Matt Ford

[BGHater]

Matt Ford scours the countryside for enigmatic rock carvings left by our ancestors.

While some people dream of the warm sun of southern Spain for their retirement, David Jones chose high fells, the sharp teeth of a gale and the quest to find 5,000-year-old artwork. "I decided to build a new life when I retired," says the former IT marketing specialist, as a bitter wind whips through his hair. "I wanted the last third to be quite different from the first two thirds. I walk a lot, I work with charities, and I do this."

"This" is joining more than 100 other Gore-Tex-clad volunteers scouring the moorland of north-east England, searching for traces of the enigmatic and weirdly beautiful carvings our ancestors made on stretches of flat rocks and boulders. The project is a collaboration between English Heritage and Northumberland and Durham County Councils. So far, more than 100 previously unknown carvings have been discovered, featuring a mysterious mix of concentric circles, interlocking rings and hollowed cups. They are broadly dated between 4,000 and 6,000 years old.

"Sometimes you do need the eye of faith to spot them," he says. "I could come up here seven or eight times and not see anything, and then suddenly, in a different light, a panel would be revealed right in front of me." Together with a group of volunteers we wade knee-deep through the heather of Barningham Moor, Co. Durham in search of one of the volunteer's most impressive discoveries, with the wind tearing in from the west, swirling curtains of fine rain.

No stone unturned: rock art in Northumberland

[Renfield]

I’ve been to that petroglyph.

[BenLurkin]

The explanation for the prevalence of spiral designs is simple: They are easy to execute.

No surprise that different people at different places used them for decoration — before they developed more complex designs.

[muawiyah]

BTW, you and I are "Cro-magnon Man" for the most part. They are the first known Eur-Asian modern humans. Jet planes and atom bombs also date from Cro-magnon Man as it turns out.

Note, those are not ROCK PAINTINGS, the material is CARVED into the rock, just like the same symbols are carved into the rock on some of the background stuff in things you've posted. This stuff is several thousand years older.

I think you may not realize how widely traveled ancient people could be when they didn't have massive ice fields in their way.

Did you notice the "crop circle" formations for some of 'em?

[gleeaikin]

Thanks for the images. Do you have date on the Tucson carvings? Someone suggests that these might be Cro-Magnon. While we are probably descended in a significant degree from CM, CM culture is considered to be 20 to 30,000 years old. These kind of spirals were showing up in Britain a lot later than that.

[Fred Nerks]

No, can’t help with dating, sorry. There are several more examples of petroglyph spirals at the link in my comment.