George Nash

Polytechnic Institute of Tomar · Geosciences Centre

King Arthur’s Cave has been the focus of archaeological attention since 1870, when the Reverend Symondsexcavated much of the [eastern] main chamber to the bedrock. An assemblage of early and later prehistoric flint tools,along with an array of faunal remains was retrieved. The western chamber was investigated by Taylor (1926-27) wherethe famous mam...

The caves of Escoural (Portugal) and Maltravieso (Spain) are the target sites of a documentation and sampling campaign that is part of a European Interreg project called “FIRST-ART: Conservation, documentation and management of the first manifestations of Rock Art in the SW Iberian Peninsula: Escoural e Maltravieso caves” directed by Professor Hipó...

Western Iberia is one of the richest areas for open air rock art in Europe. Panels with figurative and abstract engravings have been diachronically created in various rock formations next to major rivers and their tributaries. The origins of this pattern of behaviour can be traced back to the Upper Palaeolithic, with distinctive themes that include...

El objetivo de esta investigación ha sido caracterizar la naturaleza química y mineralógica del pigmento empleado en los motivos esquemáticos prehistóricos de la cueva de Los Buitres 1 (Capilla, Badajoz), y tratar de identificar la presencia de materia orgánica en su composición. Para ello se han realizado análisis de espectroscopia Micro-Raman y A...

In the 1970s, prehistoric rock art was found in the Tagus River Basin, just as a dam project was set to raise water levels. In a race against time, archaeologists sought to find a way to record thousands of images before they were submerged. Now the results have been carefully studied using a variety of new technological approaches. Sara Garcês and...

In June 2011 SLR Consulting was commissioned by Menter Môn to undertake an archaeological evaluation, building survey and earthworks survey in and around the remains of a medieval church ruin known as St Dwynwen’s, located within the central part of Llanddwyn Island, west of the village of Newborough, Ynys Môn (centred upon NGR SH 38691 62759) (SLR...

Back cover Blurb: Old Oswestry is considered to be one of England's most precious archaeological jewels, described by Sir Cyril Fox in the 1930's as 'the outstanding work of the Early Iron Age type on the Marches of Wales', and its design is unique amongst hillforts in the UK. Located on the edge of the Shropshire Plain and just a kilometre north o...

Throughout many parts of Europe, cultural heritage has become a sensitive issue in terms of the economic development and the planning process. In the UK successive planning guidance has been in existence over many years. Relatively recently, between 1990 and 2012, three guidance documents aimed at protecting the historic environment have been intro...

This presentation is an extract from a forthcoming 1902 Committee newsletter and deals with the question: did Neanderthals do art? The extract is not referenced, it is merely a conversation (I suppose with myself!). Please feel free to add your views. Go to: https://www.1902committee.com/ or visit the Facebook page.

The origins of Neolithic tomb building in Europe are often difficult to pinpoint. We know that the Neolithic Revolution occurs in what is termed the ‘Fertile Crescent’ around 10,000 BCE but in terms of understanding the development and tomb architecture and how it spread across Europe is still unclear. We do know that during the 4th and 5th millenn...

There has been in recent years much interest in the Iron Age hillfort of Briteiros, near research has focused on the substantial rock art assemblage that is scattered over much of the this chapter we pose several questions including: was there an understanding, either as ancestral interested in discussing the implication of the ideology behind the...

In this chapter I discuss the mindset of one of the most influential late 20th century artists who adopted the concept of the class-divide landscape. The artist - James Lawrence Isherwood used the politics of a rigid class system to express his politik, his mindset through a large number of paintings that reflected Post-War Britain. Perversely, dur...

By the mid-fifth millennium BCE, Neolithic communities along the Atlantic Seaboard of Europe began to witness the emergence of a pictographic language based on a common repertoire of abstract and figurative motifs. This distinct art form is arguably an extension of a much wider pan-European schematic art tradition which was mainly confined to commu...

The caves of Escoural and Maltravieso are the only caves with Palaeolithic rock art in the Southwest Peninsula. These two contexts are similar in their geological characteristics, circumstances of their discoveries, state of conservation, location outside the preferential territorial scope of Palaeolithic art and in the absence of a tradition of sc...

The Tilley Timber Project accurately dated 21 buildings with a total of 33 phases of development by tree-ring analysis in and around Tilley, a small village in north Shropshire. A spike of timber construction in Tilley when decorative wall-framing was at its height is identified. Using this data together with 261 previously published tree-ring date...

Pigments from several preHistoric rock art painting samples were analysed through a multiproxy archaeometric approach. Sampling occurred in two rockshelters within the National Park of Serra da Capivara National Park area (a UNESCO World Heritage Site): Toca do Paraguaio and Toca do Boqueirão da Pedra Furada. Five complementary techniques x-ray mic...

The Negev Desert of southern Israel holds many secrets from the distant past. Its landscape and environment are no longer what they were during the Byzantine period, which roughly extended from the 5th century AD through to the mid 15th century (when its capital Constantinople fell), but one of its secrets is a group of six abandoned Byzantine citi...

Scholar and artist John Clegg made a pioneering contribution to the study of rock art. He was the first in the Australian academy to teach rock art research as a dedicated subject (Sydney University 1965-2000), supervising the first graduate students with such specialty, subsequently supporting their careers. He is honoured here for much more than...

Regarded as one of UK’s largest dendrochronology projects to date, the Tilley Timber Project ran from 2015 to 2018 and involved surveys on 19 separate buildings. Supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund the project also included geophysical surveys in gardens and open ground in order to determine the size of the village, and point cloud technology wh...

Throughout early prehistory the horse is featured in rock art, none more so than within the steep-sided valleys of the western Iberian Peninsula. The engravings are of a generic style, found within a limited number of locations across central and northern Portugal, in particular, along the major river systems of the Côa, Douro, Zêzere, and Tagus. B...

When telling stories through rock art, the artist formed an intimate relationship with the audience through the act of conveying such stories. Ethnographic evidence in many parts of the world suggests that the artist is merely a device through which stories are transmitted from rock surface to audience, whereby the artist becomes an intermediary wi...

This introductory chapter presents a general overview of the history of rock art research in South America, as a way of setting the ground for the contribution of the chapters in this book. It is argued that despite the influence of foreign, mainly Euro-American, theoretical and methodological frames, the study of rock art in South America has a di...

Rock art in South America is as diverse as the continent itself. In this vast territory, different peoples produced engravings, paintings, and massive earthworks, from the Atacama to the Amazon. These marks on the landscape were made by all different kinds of peoples, from some of the earliest hunter-gatherers in the continent, to the very complex...

Over the course of the past millennia, pastoral nomads migrated from the Arabian Peninsula and neighbouring regions into the Negev desert. Particularly with the last major wave of Bedouin migration in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, these groups introduced the 'Bedouin Phase' into Negev rock art, a tradition that was central to the Negev B...

One of the largest 'cluster' dendrochronological projects to be undertaken in the UK, involving surveys and part-surveys on 35 buildings. Project also included geophysical survey and archaeological excavation.

This book discusses both ancient and modern shamanism, demonstrating its longevity and spatial distribution, and is divided into eleven thought-provoking chapters that are organised into three sections: mind-body, nature, and culture. It discusses the clear associations with this sometimes little-understood ritualised practice, and asks what shaman...

Using point cloud technology, a team from TerraMeasurment in Derbyshire (Andy Beardsley's team) produced a 3D point cloud image and fly-through of the village.

Within this volume, archaeologists and allied researchers have admirably presented a set of papers that, in many ways, attempts to promote the concept of shamanism within a 'distant past' context. As we are aware, in order to discuss the intricacies of such a complex phenomenon, one needs to get inside the mindset of the people who considered Shama...

It is becoming increasing clear that the visual archaeological record, as witnessed through those elements of the site that remain visible (in the case of Neolithic chambered monuments, the surviving stone architecture) is just one sensory element. For this short paper, and pertinent to this journal issue, we will focus our attentions on what Scand...

Studying the prints from Ramat Matred, their place within the different engraving phases and their relation to other motifs, abstracts, zoomorphs and inscriptions, several observations can be made referring to their date and possible meaning. Foot and sandal prints are not one of the most common motifs found in the Negev rock art. When examining th...

The Limarí Valley stands within Central Northern Chile and forms part of the foothills of the western Southern Andean region. In terms of altitude, much of the upper reaches of the valley stands over 1000 m above sea level. The natural environment comprises mainly semi-arid scrubland. During later prehistoric times, the Limarí Valley would have pro...

The Limarí Valley stands within Central Northern Chile and forms part of the foothills of the western Southern Andean region. In terms of altitude, much of the upper reaches of the valley stands over 1000 m above sea level. The natural environment comprises mainly semi-arid scrubland. During later prehistoric times, the Limarí Valley would have pro...

Celtic Art in Europe: making connections – essays in honour of Vincent Megaw on his 80th birthday. Edited by Gosden Chris , Crawford Sally and Ulmschneider Katharina . 290mm. Pp x + 372, ills (some col), maps, plates. Oxbow Books, Oxford, 2014. ISBN 9781782976554. £60 (hbk). - Volume 96 - George Nash

Recent investigations within Cathole Cave have revealed several rock engravings that date from the Upper Palaeolithic including a stylised cervid, possibly a reindeer and, as yet indistinguishable engravings above and below the cervid. In advance of the erection of a protective steel grille in 2014, several archaeological trenches revealed evidence...

This paper discusses in depth a recent discovery, among other observations, made by the authors in 2015 at the Le Déhus passage grave in eastern Guernsey, Channel Islands. The discovery involves the probable medieval or post-medieval pigment enhancement of a Neolithic carving of a figure, arguably a warrior, known as the Le Gardien du Tombeau. We r...

The Christianisation of later prehistoric sites has been hitherto rarely discussed (e.g. Holtorf 1997). However, it is becoming increasingly clear that many churchyards, in particular within the west of Britain possess histories that extend way before their current use and meaning. In this brief note, the authors describe and contextualise a recent...

Recent investigations within Cathole Cave have revealed several rock engravings that date from the Upper Palaeolithic including a stylised cervid, possibly a reindeer and, as yet indistinguishable engravings above and below the cervid. In advance of the erection of a protective steel grille in 2014, several archaeological trenches revealed evidence...

Excavation monograph looking at the prehistoric and palaeoenvironmental investigations at Barleycroft Farm/Over, Cambridgeshire. Found within the excavation was rock art.

Gál. Erika . Fowling in Lowlands: Neolithic and Chalcolithic bird exploitation in South-East Romania and the Great Hungarian Plain (Archaeolingua Series Minor 24). 149 pages, b&w & colour illustrations. 2007. Budapest: Archaeolingua Alapítvány; 978-963-8046-85-7 paperback €28. - Volume 82 Issue 317 - George Nash

This paper identifies newly-discovered engraved rock art in Cathole Cave

Prehistoric Rock Art of India. By Neumayer Erwin. 230mm. Pp xv+299, ills (some col), maps, Cd-Rom. Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2013. isbn9780198060987. £115 (hbk). - Volume 95 - George Nash

This paper explores the processes involved in the production of prehistoric paintings using inorganic pigmentation. The focus for discussion involves a number of rock-shelter sites that contain rock art within the western part of the Iberian Peninsula, with particular reference to the sites that contain Schematic rock art. A direct date cannot be o...

This book gathers the most recent studies on a subject which has only recently been approached by archaeology. Today, the current literature on the topic of shamanism is not current compared when with other subjects studied by archaeology. Therefore, since it existed in all the regions of the world, we think it necessary to update the subject and t...

סצנות ציד, הקשר לציידים–לקטים ולשינויים חברתיים יש הרואים באמנות הסלע של הנגב שיקוף של חיי היומיום ושל כלכלת הקיום בחברות שבהן חיו האמנים. לפי תאוריה זו, אמנות הסלע בנגב בכלל, וסצנות הציד המופיעות בה בפרט, נעשו בידי ציידים מחברה של ציידים–לקטים, כלומר חברה פרהיסטורית. לדעתנו תיארוך והבנה אלו מוטעים ואין לקשר באופן ישיר בין המתואר באמנות הסלע ובין כ...

This Note reports on an initial observation made in 2012 of a distinct sound reflection of a percussive incident noise made at the restored Neolithic chambered tomb of Bryn Celli Ddu that emanated from an outcrop of rock in the ritual landscape surrounding the monument. The outcrop is marked with numerous cupmarks, presumably singling it out as a p...

There are thousands of panels with hundreds of thousands of petroglyphs that occupy the rock outcropping of the Negev Highlands in southern Israel. These include abstract, zoomorphic and anthropomorphic elements, which are sometimes presented as hunting scenes. In this paper we will define hunting scene, review the themes and relate these figures t...

The San Pedro Viejo de Pichasca rock-shelter, located some 70 km east of the provincial town of Ovalle in the Limarí Basin is considered one of Chile's most important prehistoric sites with human occupation evidence dating to at least 9000 BCE. The rock shelter in the foothills of the Southern Andes Mountains is in a semi-arid environment. Since th...