ABSTRACT
When Eóin Mac White (1946) defined the characteristics of Atlantic rock art, he compared the various motifs found in different areas. That approach still commands considerable support today. Megalithic art is often analysed through the distribution of a range of distinctive designs, and some authors classify the images found in prehistoric petroglyphs across wide areas of Europe. Van Hoek, for example, has divided a single element-the rosette-into sixty-one distinct variants, extending from Scotland and Ireland into north-west Spain (1990).
