Mountains: Time out of mind? Contextualising the landscape: the significance and use of the Cumbrian fells in the neolithic and early bronze age

Debate on the Cumbrian Mountains has centred on the widely distributed Group VI polished stone axes that were quarried, from the volcanic tuff found here, in the Neolithic period. However, little research has been undertaken discrete from the stone quarries, with the region becoming marginalised in the national Neolithic narrative. This thesis examines the evidence for the presence of people living in the mountainous areas in the Neolithic and Early Bronze Age and how this relates to settlement and mobility patterns in the neighbouring lowland locales. Monumental, settlement, artefactual and environmental data from the area is combined, along with for the first time, the recently discovered idiosyncratic rock art of the Lake District. Original fieldwork includes the identification of several new rock art sites within the Lake District and a survey of the upland Rydal Valley. From the results of these researches a model is proposed for the uptake of farming in Cumbria, with the role of animal herding considered in relation to vegetation change in the mountains. It is argued that there was a continuity of hunter-herder-fisher-gatherer peoples in the west of this region who discovered the tuff sources; whereas a Neolithic lifestyle developed in the east of the county influenced by contacts with the Yorkshire Wolds. This thesis concludes by raising several questions, together with a hypothesis which proposes: That cup marks developed as a consequence of mountain mythologies developed by transhumanant herders in the mountains, who were the first to exploit the stone axe source. Subsequently these beliefs and customs were transmitted to the neighbouring regions and throughout the British and Irish Isles by the agency of the axe quarried here that had been imbued with mountain "magic". This included the transference of the tradition of rock marking across the Irish Sea which was then disseminated to other areas, later returning to eastern Cumbria as passage grave style motifs