‘One of the most taxing problems in archaeology is to determine about what and in what manner did prehistoric people think. Is it possible to make the ‘mute stones speak’, and will they tell us how (if not what) our predecessors were thinking?’
Richard Bradley’s extensive surveys of British prehistoric rock art lead him to conclude that the abstract motifs used may have been chosen ‘because their meanings were never meant to be disclosed to the casual observer’. He notes ‘that they were the work of a society in which sacred knowledge was important’. Above all, such rocks are re-used in later megalithic monuments, clearly indicating sustained importance.
Richard Bradley, ‘Making sense of prehistoric rock art’, British Archaeology No.9 Nov 1995, p8-9
Witch's Well 