On July 26, 2020, I posted a column titled This Rock Art In Wales May Be Britain’s Earliest about an early petroglyph discovered in a cave in Wales. Since then another site has been announced that challenges the cave in Wales as the earliest art in Great Britain. Whereas the petroglyph in Wales has been dated to from 12,000 to 14,000 BP, the new find has been tentatively dated to the Magdalenian period, 17,000 to 12,000 years ago. (Wikipedia) This site, discovered on the island of Jersey, is known as Les Varines, St. Saviours. At this location “ten fragments of engraved fine-grained flat stones were recovered during different seasons of field excavations between 2014 and 2018.” (Bello et al. 2020)
“Stone plaquettes make up a significant proportion of Magdelenian mobiliary art. Plaquettes are flat pieces of stone used as a support for engraving on at least one surface. They are rarely larger than 300 mm in maximum dimension and common materials used include sandstone, limestone and schist, though organic examples on flat bone (scapulae) are also known. They are typically engraved with figurative animals or abstract ‘signs’, which can reflect a range of artistic skill.” (Bello et al. 2020)
Such plaquettes are quite common in Magdalenian site deposits. “In France, about 1,100 stone plaquettes were found at Enlene cave. On the Iberian Peninsula, over 5,000 stone plaquettes were uncovered at Parpallo cave in Spain and over 1,500 were found at the open air site of Foz do Medal Terrace in Portugal.” (Sci-News Staff 2020) While it is tempting to assume that the engraved stones were propped up against cave walls as items of art decorating the living areas of the people, there is no indication of that. Some of these pieces, however, may have been part of a stone floor or pavement laid in the area where they were found, whether before or after engraving is not known.
“Specimens LVE4607 a and b were examined in order to determine the rock type and its minerology. The rock is an aplite comptised predominantly if inter-grown fine-grained crystals of albitic feldspar and quartz, with ver minor amounts of muscovite and biotite micas, the latter seen as black sub-millimetre clot-like aggregates dispersed sparsely throughout the aplite. Minor chlorite is also associated with biotate. The rock is texturally homogeneous and has an overal ‘sugary’ aspect, with a thin ( 1mm) white lightly-weathered surface overlying blue-grey and white aplite. The incised lines are seen on these surfaces, which in places have fresh aplite exposed as contrasting bluish-grey patches.” (Bello et al. 2020) Aplite is a rock that is chemically and mineralogically very much like granite, but the grains are much finer.
The dating, while exciting, is somewhat soft as it represents comparative analysis instead of any sort of hard scientific testing. “Precision for dating the site comes from the typological analysis of the lithic assemblage, which is dominated by narrow backed bladelets. Such assemblages predate the Cepoy phase of the Final Magdalenian, suggesting that Les Varines site is broadly contemporaneous with the classic northern Magdalenian sites of the late sixteenth and the first half of the fifteenth mellennium BP such as Gonnersdorf (Germany), Pincevent and Etiolles (France). It is also potentially predates the Magdalenian of mainland Britain as this lacks backed bladelets and displays chronologically later, derived features.” (Bello et al. 2020)
Interpretations of some of the possible compositions by S. Bello.
The researchers carefully examined ten pieces that had various markings engraved into the surface. “The designs consist of straight lines more or less in parallel and longer, curved incisions. The two types of mark were probably produced by the same tools, in short succession - perhaps by the same engraver. Co-author Dr. Silvia Bello, from the Natural History Museum, said: ‘Many of the lines, including the curved, concentric designs, appear to have been made through layered or repeated incisions, suggesting that it is unlikely that they resulted from the stones being used for a functional purpose.’ She told BBC News that most were ‘of abstract nature (simple intersecting lines), however, some fragments seem to depict zoomorphic representations (horses, mammoths, a bovid and possibly a human face).’” (Rincon)
So the question remains - what is the earliest art in Britain? Is this it, or will we see other candidates appear? I am expecting new candidates. It truly seems as if there is no end to interesting discoveries.
NOTE: Some images in this posting were retrieved from the internet with a search for public domain photographs. If any of these images are not intended to be public domain, I apologize, and will happily provide the picture credits if the owner will contact me with them. For further information on these reports you should read the original reports at the sites listed below.
REFERENCES:
Bello, Silvia M. et al.
2020 Artists on the edge of the world: An integrated approach to the study of Magdalenian engraved stone plaquettes from Jersey (Channel Islands), PLos One 15 (8): e0236875; doi: 10.1371/journal.pone/0236875
Faris, Peter,
2020 This Rock Art In Wales May Be Britain’s Earliest, https://rockartblog.blogspot.com/search/label/Wales
Rincon, Paul, Science editor,
Earliest art in the British Isles discovered on Jersey, BBC.com
Sci-News Staff,
2020 15,000-Year-Old Abstract Art Found in Channel Islands, Sept. 2, 2020,http://www.sci-news.com
Wikipedia,
Magdalenian, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magdalenian
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