Since 1840, a number of anthropomorphic wooden figures have been discovered in Britain and Ireland. They are described and illustrated, and aspects of their manufacture discussed. Previous interpretations of date and function are reviewed, noting the lack of recent interest, and the evidence available for dating the figures is summarized, demonstrating that although they were generally attributed to the later prehistoric period no firm evidence supported this conclusion. AMS radiocarbon dates have recently confirmed the prehistoric age of the carvings, ranging from about 3000 BC cal. to about 350 BC cal. Similar wooden figures from the continent are briefly examined, along with comparative representations in other media, and some common features are identified. The significance of various similarities and attributes is discussed, noting affinities with Scandinavian rock-art and bog-burials. The sexual ambiguity of the figures is recognized, along with a tendency to asymmetry and slighting of the left side of the face. It is suggested that these attributes may relate to the original symbolism of the carvings.

The prehistoric rock art of Great Britain — England, Scotland and Wales — is surveyed, with specific reference to the over 900 sites bearing motifs more complex than cup-marks alone and apparently random grooves. Of sites bearing cup-marks alone, there are at least 700.

The majority of motifs is geometric, with a few animals, weapons and human hands and footprints. Two main groups are recognized, the Boyne or Passage Grave type and the Galician type. The former occurs mainly on the slabs of Neolithic tombs, especially in Ireland, and includes spirals, rings, lozenges, zigzags and flower-like figures, only some of which occur in Britain. The latter is more restricted in design, with mainly cup-and-rings, rings, and spirals, usually on rock outcrops and boulders. A third group is recognized by some workers, in which cist and burial stones are carved with mostly the Boyne type, but sometimes with Galician or simple cup-marks or a mixture of these. There is also occasional overlap between Galician and Boyne types, occurring on natural rocks and tombs.

The main characteristics, locations in relation to topography and archaeology, and distribution are detailed. Dating and significance are briefly discussed.

Most of the art occurs in a central belt of Britain, but within that it is recognized as being distributed spatially among 16 main regions which are defined both geographically and with regard to concentrations of sites.

There is a gazetteer of all sites, similarly arranged.

Nearly seventy years ago Wilhelm Worringer first wrote that ‘ultimately all our definitions of art are definitions of classical art’ (Worringer, 1953, 132). Today, the study of Western European art history, old or modern, the products of peasant craft-centres or urban ‘schools’, has in the course of time developed its own methodology and, almost, mystique. In contrast, the study of many branches of prehistoric art in Europe and elsewhere is all too often seen as a mere extension of the skilled but subjective approaches of classical archaeology without considering the suitability of the latter's application. The use of the classical art-historian's intuitive methods built up not just from visual exprience but a detailed background of literary, historical and philosophical studies must in fact be almost entirely denied the student of prehistoric or primitive art. It is perhaps only natural that principles of classical art history should be applied to later European prehistory, though it is often difficult to arrive at a precise definition of these principles. It was Johann Joachim Winckelmann who made the first systematic application of categories of style to the history of art (Gombrich, 1968, 319). Sir John Beazley, the greatest of all modern classical art historians followed in this tradition basing attributions ‘on the grounds of tell-tale traits of individual mannerisms’ (Carpenter, 1963, 115 ff.) a scheme first applied to painting less than a century ago by the Italian physician Giovanni Morelli (Gombrich, 1968, 309 ff.) and followed at the turn of the nineteenth century in the study of Italian painting (Lermolieff, 1892–3). With Beazley it is, however, difficult to follow step by step his methods of work.