Conny Waters – AncientPages.com – A team led by Karen Hardy, Professor of Prehistoric Archaeology at the University of Glasgow, has discovered one of Scotland’s earliest known human populations.
Map of Scotland (modern coastline) showing the Loch Lomond Stadial (LLS) ice extent (in white) during the Younger Dryas period, from Bickerdike et al. (2018). Locations of LUP sites and isolated artefacts are marked in red. Topography hill-shaded to highlight relief.
The discovery of stone tools on the Isle of Skye, dated to the Late Upper Palaeolithic period around 11,500 – 11,000 years ago, presents a compelling case for further exploration.
Detailed analyses of these finds have been conducted with exact maps of local glacier formations and an intriguing set of circular stone structures now submerged beneath modern sea levels. This evidence strongly suggests that there is much more to uncover about our prehistoric past in this region.
Professor Hardy and local archaeologist Martin Wildgoose discovered these sites.
In light of this significant discovery, the west coast now constitutes the most substantial concentration of evidence for these pioneering human populations within Scotland. This finding shows how this era’s early humans ventured further north than was previously assumed.
“This is a hugely significant discovery which offers a new perspective on the earliest human occupation yet known, of north-west Scotland,” said Professor Karen Hardy.
The team from the universities of Leeds, Sheffield, Leeds Beckett, and Flinders in Australia reconstructed the local landscape and changing sea levels.
Sconser, circular alignment. Credit Jamie Booth
Following the Younger Dryas, also referred to as the Loch Lomond Stadial, a significant climatic event when much of western Scotland was covered in ice, nomadic hunter-gatherer groups likely belonging to the Ahrensburgian culture from northern Europe migrated. They traversed Doggerland-an area now submerged beneath the North Sea-and settled on Skye.
Back then, the landscape of Scotland would have appeared vastly different from the one we are familiar with today.
Professor Hardy adds: “The journey made by these pioneering people who left their lowland territories in mainland Europe to travel northwards into the unknown is the ultimate adventure story.
“As they journeyed northwards, most likely following animal herds, they eventually reached Scotland, where the western landscape was dramatically changing as glaciers melted and the land rebounded as it recovered from the weight of the ice,” said Professor Hardy.
“A good example of the volatility they would have encountered can be found in Glen Roy, where the world-famous Parallel Roads provide physical testament to the huge landscape changes and cataclysmic floods that they would have encountered, as they travelled across Scotland.”
Upon reaching Skye, early settlers crafted tools from local stone. Professor Hardy believes they strategically chose a location with access to coastal and river resources and valuable materials like ochre.
“While the number of Ahrensburgian findspots is low, they are spread widely across Scotland, including from the islands of Tiree, Orkney and Islay, that also imply significant sea journeys, suggesting a larger population than the number of finds might imply. To date, all Late Upper Palaeolithic (LUP) sites in Scotland have been discovered by chance, and there is insufficient evidence to address further questions regarding their adaptations and lifestyles. By reconstructing the geographical limitations imposed by ice sheet evolution, changes in Relative Sea Level?(RSL) and river courses, it may be possible to focus on other likely locations – both onshore and offshore – and begin to uncover more evidence,” according to the researchers’ scientific paper.
The paper adds: “Recovering evidence for a LUP presence in Scotland presents challenges unmatched in continental Europe. However, despite being distant from its central area, the evidence from Skye reflects an Ahrensburgian presence at the extreme north- west continental limit, extending their distribution.
Credit: Stinging Eyes – CC BY-SA 2.0
“The people who made these artefacts originated in the mainland of northwest Europe, crossed Doggerland into what is now Britain, and eventually reached the far north of the Isle of Skye. Here, they adapted to live in a fragmented, fluctuating, and volatile environment amid melting glaciers, mountains, and oceans – vastly different from the low-lying environments of their homelands on the northwestern edge of the Great European Plain,” the paper further states.
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While the sites can’t be visited, Sconser allows us to imagine the landscape early pioneers saw. Around 11, 000 years ago, after Cuillin Mountain glaciers melted, sea levels were lower, making it possible to walk to Raasay.
The discoveries are detailed in the paper “At the Far End of Everything: A Likely Ahrensburgian Presence in the Far North of the Isle of Skye, Scotland,” published in The Journal of Quaternary Science.
Written by Conny Waters – AncientPages.com Staff Writer