The oldest evidence of our ancestors can by found beside the streams that reach the sea at places like Fascadale and Camas nan Geall. Scottish people of the mesolithic age, some 4-6,000 years ago, were hunter-gatherers who had crossed from Africa around Gibraltar and moved steadily north. In Ardnamurchan, they made temporary camps along the shore-line, subsisting mainly on shellfish - though no shell middens have been found here yet.
The mesolithic tools which survive were made of flint and other forms of chert, such as bloodstone from Rhum. Worked tools were a precious commodity, the high-technology of their age, so large tools would have been prohibitively expensive. Most would probably have been traded along the coast, the best flint coming originally from chalk outcrops far to the south of us.
Many of the tools are tiny, and are recognisable because they have been worked by breaking off conchoidal flakes, this being done by striking them - a skilled job. So valuable were the tools that, when they became blunt - and flint is harder than the best Sheffield steel - they would have been worked again and again, becoming smaller and smaller. Even the broken-off flakes would have had a use.
These flint tools were used for cutting meat and fish, for scraping fat from the inside of hides, for making holes in cured skins so they could be sewn into clothing. Larger implements could be made by setting several of the flakes in a line into wood or antler.
Sea level was some 10-20m higher than today, so, to find these precious remains, search the beds and banks of streams along the 10m and 20m contours, or flat, grassy platforms that were the old stream terraces, or the beaches around the mouths of the streams. Please report any finds, or photograph them and send in the pictures.
All the tools pictured were found on West Ardnamurchan by Tim Steele, to whom many thanks for educating The Diary in this fascinating area of our history.
Even though I've collected and looked at hundreds of these skillfully made tools, I'm most taken with the fact that the tools I've found on surveys and excavations here in the northern USA (Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Iowa) are twins to those elsewhere.
ReplyDeleteAny of the tools in your photos could have come from sites near my home in southern Minnesota or nearby states.
There was a global tool culture (even if not taking place at the same time everywhere) created by the physics of making sharp edges on bits of stone. The people from all over the world who discovered the process and practiced the art of stone tool making would have been able to discuss their craft with a universal translator and often a bit of time travel.
Hi Blake -
ReplyDeleteMany thanks for your very interesting comment.
Everything you say of these Mesolithic peoples and their technology might be said of today's human population. Put someone from Japan who has an iPhone with my daughter, and both have an intimate understanding of that piece of technology.
What to me is so amazing is that, as you say, the lines of communication existed 6,000 years ago. They may have been slow compared to our technology - but they worked.
On a purely personal basis, I look forward to finding my first Mesolithic tool. At least I now know where to look.
Jon