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Cup and ring marks or cup marks are a form of prehistoric art found in the Atlantic seaboard of Europe , Portugal, and Spain – and in Mediterranean Europe – Italy , Azerbaijan and Greece ], as well as in Scandinavia and in Switzerland.
Similar forms are also found throughout the world including Australia, Gabon, Greece, Hawaii, India , Israel, Mexico, Mozambique and the Americas. The oldest known forms are found from the Fertile Crescent to India.
They consist of a concave depression, no more than a few centimetres across, pecked into a rock surface and often surrounded by concentric circles also etched into the stone. Sometimes a linear channel called a gutter leads out from the middle. The decoration occurs as a petroglyph on natural boulders and outcrops and also as an element of megalithic art on purposely worked megaliths such as the slab cists of the Food Vessel culture, some stone circles and passage graves such as the clava tombs and on the capstones at Newgrange.