Prehistoric Rock Art Of The West Riding

In this latest book the prolific Stan Beckensall returns to his principal specialism, Britains prehistoric rock art.

This landscape study of the rock-art of Rombalds Moor, West Yorkshire, considers views of and from the sites. In an attempt to understand the rock-art landscapes of prehistory the study considered the environment of the moor and its archaeology along with the ethnography from the whole circumpolar region.

This lavishly illustrated volume presents a state of the art survey of the ancient rock art of Britain and Ireland. Bringing together new discoveries and new interpretations, it enhances our understanding and further establishes ancient British and Irish rock art as a significant archaeological assemblage worthy of attention and additional study.

Stan Beckensall is renowned for his work, done on an entirely amateur basis, discovering, recording and interpreting Atlantic rock art in his home county of Northumberland and beyond. Presented on his 90th birthday, this diverse and stimulating collection of papers celebrates his crucial contribution to rock art studies, and looks to the future.

While much has been achieved in understanding and managing weather effects and erosion phenomena affecting ancient imagery within the relatively protected environments of caves and rock-shelters, the same cannot be said of rock-art panels situated in the open-air. Despite the fact that the number of known sites has risen dramatically in recent decades there are few examples in which the weathering and erosion dynamics are under investigation with a view to developing proposals to mitigate the impact of natural and cultural processes. Most of the work being done in different parts of the world appears to be ad-hoc, with minimal communication on such matters between teams and with the wider archaeological community. This richly illustrated book evaluates rock-art conservation in an holistic way, bringing together researchers from across the world to share experiences of work in progress or recently completed. The chapters focus on a series of key themes: documentation projects and resource assessments; the identification and impact assessment of weathering/erosion processes at work in open-air rock-art sites; the practicalities of potential or implemented conservation interventions; experimentation and monitoring programs; and general management issues connected with public presentation and the demands of ongoing research investigations. Consideration is given to the conservation of open-air rock-art imagery from many periods and cultural traditions across the Old and New Worlds. This timely volume will be of interest to conservators, managers, and researchers dealing with aesthetic and ethical issues as well as technical and practical matters regarding the conservation of open-air rock-art sites.

Enigmatic, esoteric and fascinating, the rock-art of the British Isles has for a long time been a well-kept secret. This volume brings together a carefully selected collection of papers reporting on recent discoveries and regional surveys covering British prehistoric rock-art from over 10,000 years ago.

These papers highlight recent archaeological work in Northern England, in the commercial, academic and community archaeology sectors, which have fundamentally changed our perspective on the Neolithic of the area. Much of this was new work (and much is still not published) has been overlooked in the national discourse. The papers cover a wide geographical area, from Lancashire north into the Scottish Lowlands, recognising the irrelevance of the England/Scotland Border. They also take abroad chronological sweep, from the Mesolithic/Neolithic transition to the introduction of Beakers into the area. The key themes are: the nature of transition; the need for a much-improved chronological framework; regional variation linked to landscape character; links within northern England and with distant places; the implications of new dating for our understanding ‘the axe trade; the changing nature of settlement and agriculture; the character early Neolithic enclosures; the need to integrate rock art into wider discourse.