Megalith (abstract root)

cupmarks 260m NNW of Braeval Farm

United Kingdom

DatedEst. 4000–2400 BCE

No licensed photograph yetWe have no photograph we may publish for this site, so the interpretive 3D view leads instead.

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Overview

About this site

Overview

Cupmarks 260m NNW of Braeval Farm is a megalith in Highland, United Kingdom. It lies at 57.4282° N, 4.0988° W.

Catalogue recordSources and licences

Where it sits in time

The site's dated range, placed against world reference points.

The scale is logarithmic: each step to the left is about ten times older than the last.

Est. 4000–2400 BCEHow this date was established: Type comparisonTypical for this type

What this badge meansThe published range for this kind of monument in this region. It is not a date for this site.
Source for this date

Article

cupmarks 260m NNW of Braeval Farm

2 min read326 words

Context

Sources for this section

Most of the "megalith" records for Britain in the Atlas come from the Scottish register of monuments, and many are not standing stones at all but carved rocks. Cup and ring marks are a form of prehistoric art found along the Atlantic seaboard of Europe, in Ireland, Wales, northern England, Scotland, Brittany, Portugal and Galicia. They consist of a concave depression no more than a few centimetres across, pecked into a rock surface and often surrounded by concentric circles; sometimes a linear channel, called a gutter, leads out from the middle. They occur as petroglyphs on natural boulders and outcrops, and also as an element of megalithic art on worked stones, such as the slab cists of the Food Vessel culture, some stone circles and passage graves, and the capstones at Newgrange. The regional background, “Prehistoric rock art and standing stones of Scotland”, is given below.

Dating

Sources for this section

No scientific date has been published for this site. Monuments of this type in United Kingdom are generally dated 4000 BCE to 2400 BCE; the site itself may fall inside or outside that range.

Megalithic construction in England is placed at c. 4000 BC; the first henges in Britain appear c. 3000 BC and hundreds of smaller stone circles were built c. 2400 BC.