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

Many instances prove that the manufacturers of the petroglyphs were
well aware of the relief of the Galician landscape and, indeed, also of
the rock itself and certainly did not select rocks haphazardly. Bradley
has demonstrated that a number of Galician rock art sites are related
to entrances to shallow valleys and the passages between them (1997:
183).
photo
FIG. 53: DISTRIBUTION OF MOTIFS AT GARGAMALA.
Also at Gargamala the relief plays an important part in the distribution
of rock art sites (Figs 53 and 50 section). It must be emphasised here
that the lines in the Figures 53 and 50-section do not represent true
contours. These lines only give my impression of the relief based on
naked eye observations of the area.
* 1.3.2.2.1 The relief of the main area creates four distinctive
sub-zones. First there is the area of higher ground on which sites 1,
13, 6, 8 and 9 are situated (Fig. 52). Then there are two rather flat
parts of land, one centring on sites 3 and 4, the other on sites 10 and
11. These two flatter areas are separated by a distinctive ridge on
which sites 7 and 26 to 30 are situated.
It is this ridge that seems to have been the focus of the area. This
does, however, not mean that the most important engravings are to be
found on this ridge. Strikingly, the most important and complex sites
(sites 3, 4, 6, 9, 10 and 11) prove to encircle the ridge. The sites with
the biggest number of concentric rings around a cupule (Fig. 53) again
M. van HOEK: 76
GEOGRAPHY