Connecting the dots. Cupules and communication in the English Lake District.

Abstract

A new corpus of rock art has recently emerged in the northwest of England. Targeted surveys and chance discoveries have revealed around 35 decorated panels on the hard, igneous rocks of the Lake District in the county of Cumbria (Beckensall, 2002; Brown; Brown; Sharpe, 2012; Style, 2011). All of the panels lie within a region defined as the Cumbria High Fells (Natural England, 2010). During the British Neolithic period these crags were also the focus of another reductive use of stone: the production of axe-heads. Outcropping around the mountain summits is a ribbon of finegrained andesitic tuff, a distinctive raw material which drew the attention of prehistoric stone-workers. This paper suggests a possible relationship between the carved panels and the movement of prehistoric people around this challenging landscape in pursuit of the precious stone at its heart.