Maarten van Hoek The Geography of Cup-and-Ring ... - StoneWatch

authorities (see Fig. 116), in order to facilitate inspection by tourists.
But this makes it almost impossible to ascertain the true lay-out and
the technique of carving of the figures. This painting-in has been done
a number of years ago, and recently a number of mistakes has been
noticed by researchers of the Rock Art Museum at Underslös, Bohuslän
(Jurri Jurriaanse 1999: pers. comm.). Moreover, the often delicate
engravings lose their detail when being painted in. So one can never be
absolutely sure about painted-in engravings and I am of the opinion
that any permanent enhancing of rock art should be avoided at all
times.
Another problem arises when one visits a rock art site which proves to
have been covered up without notice. Although I completely agree with
the decision to cover up a fragile rock art site for protection, it is
frustrating to travel quite a distance on bicycle and on foot to find the
engravings covered, making it impossible to check the number of
motifs. Thus, the sites of Aspeberget T 18B and Stenbacken in
Bohuslän could not be surveyed in the field, because they were covered
up by the officials. Their statistics had to be taken from published
works, which in some cases contained conflicting depictions (Fig. 118).
* CONCLUSIONS TO PART 1 *
In the previous Chapters I have tried to present a conscientious
picture of the four major cup-and-ring region of Europe, without,
however, describing each rock art panel. I started in the British Isles
and concluded that, although rock art and other prehistoric monuments
are not necessarily contemporary, cup-and-ring sites are definitely not
placed haphazardly in the landscape. The siting of this type of rock art
proved to be strongly related to the mobility of people and the
accessibility of the interior. This was confirmed in all the other cupand-ring
regions: Galicia, the Alps and Scandinavia.
In the final section of this book I focus on motifs instead of regions.
This material will provide the interested reader with useful conclusions
about dating and other issues. Please go to Part II by clicking on the
next Chapter hyperlink.
M. van HOEK: 151
GEOGRAPHY