A WEM author and archaeologist has collaborated with the National Museums Liverpool to publish a new book on a Neolithic site.

Dr George Nash, along with colleagues from the museum have recently published a new book on the Calderstones, a now destroyed Neolithic passage grave dating to 3,000 BC.

The site originally stood outside Calderstones Park in Allerton.

Despite its destruction in the early part of the 19th century, six large sandstone blocks were rescued.

These stones remained in a nearby farmyard to Calderstones Park for over 60 years, before being re-erected in a traffic island during the early part of the 20th century.

During the 1960s, the six stones were transferred to a large greenhouse in Calderstones Park and there they remained until several years ago.

The six stones are all engraved with prehistoric motifs that date to the Neolithic and later Bronze Age periods.

The engraved art is accompanied by medieval and 19th-century graffiti.

Although the Neolithic passage grave site no longer exists, the stones are regarded as the most elaborately decorated examples of what is termed 'Megalith art' in England; the prehistoric art is similar to engraved art found in two Neolithic passage graves in Anglesey and eastern Ireland.

Dr Nash and his co-authors consider the art on the Calderstones to be part of a pan-European tradition that extended as far south as Spain and Portugal and continued northwards to Ireland, the western British Isles, and on to Western Scotland and Orkney.

Dr Nash said: "The symbols and motifs – mainly cupmarks, concentric circles, spirals, and rare examples of engraved footprints probably represent a graphic and symbolic language that would have been understood by artists and social elites.

"The Stones that once formed the Neolithic passage grave are now on display in Calderstones Park, having been fully recorded and conservated."