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

the rock art groups as their ritual centre, but simultaneously as
territorial markers.
* 1.2.2.1.3.2 But there is another discrepancy in this area.
From Fearnan a line of simple petroglyph rocks indicates a movement to
the north, but most sites are still found on lower level and on both
sides of the small valley. At the spot where the route turns east again
(Fig. 20), two cup-and-ring rocks at Croft Garbh overlook that turning
point. It is moreover remarkable that rock art does not exist further
west in Glen Lyon (except for the rock at Camusvrachan). This recalls
the situation at Duncroisk and reinforces the idea that the initial
movement was directed to the east. However, the line of rock art sites
turned north again via Keltney Burn and connected with the valley of
the river Tummel where a few rock art sites exist. Further north of
the river Tummel rock art is completely lacking in a very large area.
It is remarkable that, when rock art is still indicating this route, it
remains rather simple of character; only cupules and a few simple cupand-rings
occur. Numbers are also fewer (see Fig. 20 graphs, and
Appendix 1). This pattern changes when one goes further east.
East of Acharn and more or less opposite Fearnan a small number of
FIGURE 21: URLAR, LOCH TAY, SCOTLAND.
cupmarked rocks is still found on low level, some even near the banks
of Loch Tay (Fig. 20). But east of Acharn rock art is mainly found
rather high up the steep slopes. The differences between the north
and south slopes become even more evident. From Acharn to Ballinluig
the south (north facing) slopes have more sites, more cupules, more
cups with rings and more complex motifs than the north slopes. At
Urlar, also on the south slope, I discovered a group of cup-and-fiverings
(Fig. 21), the maximum number of concentric rings for the study
area, whereas the most sophisticated petroglyphs are found at the
Tombuie group, also on the south slope, in particular on the rock with
M. van HOEK: 39
GEOGRAPHY