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Flints from 12,000 B.C. found in Scotland

Submitted by coldrum on Thursday, 18 June 2009  Page Views: 3814

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Artifacts found near Biggar, Scotland, suggest humans roamed the area 3,000 years earlier than previously thought, archaeologists at the National Museum said.

Stone flints found in a field north of Biggar are from the Upper Paleolithic age, or Old Stone Age, 14,000 years ago, said Alan Saville, an archaeologist and senior curator at the National Museum of Scotland.

The field where the flints were found may have been a camp used by hunters following migrating herds of reindeer, elk or wild horses across land now covered by the North Sea, The Times of London reported Friday.

Until the find near Biggar, archeologists said the earliest evidence of human habitation in Scotland was at Cramond, near Edinburgh, where artifacts had been radiocarbon-dated to about 8,400 B.C.

The artifacts from the Biggar site include piercing flints used for hunting and scraping flints used on hides, said Tam Ward, an archeologist at the site.

"It is impossible to go further back in time in Scotland for evidence of human occupation, making this a hugely significant find," Ward told The Times.

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"Flints from 12,000 B.C. found in Scotland" | Login/Create an Account | 3 News and Comments
  
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Thousands of tools found near Biggar reveal first Scots as hunters 14000 years ago by bat400 on Monday, 28 July 2014
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Coldrum sends a brief update on this story:

Thousands of flint artefacts found in a South Lanarkshire field were the tools of hunters chasing herds of wilds and horses during the late late-glacial period, say archaeologists investigating the oldest evidence of human occupation ever recorded in Scotland, from 14,000 years ago.

Roaming before the re-emergence of glacial conditions which saw Scotland depopulated once more, the first settlers in Scotland left more than 5,000 artefacts at Howburn, near Biggar, where the local archaeology group unearthed them between 2005 and 2009.

They are said to be “strikingly similar” to similar European discoveries from the same period.

“These tools represent a real connection with archaeological finds in north-west Germany, southern Denmark and north-west Holland - a connection not seen elsewhere in Britain at this time,” says Alan Saville, a Senior Curator in Earliest Prehistory at the National Museums of Scotland who is also the President of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland and a specialist in the study of flaked flint and stone tools.

“This discovery is both intriguing and revolutionises our ideas about where humans came from in this very early period.

“In southern Britain, early links are with northern France and Belgium. Howburn is just one chance discovery and further such discoveries will no doubt emerge.”

The climate had improved when the game hunters arrived, but the return of glacial weather is thought to have driven humans away until around 1,000 years later. A now-destroyed cave in Argyll had previously provided the earliest evidence of humans in Scotland.

Detailing the findings, which will be fully published in a Historic Scotland report next year, Cabinet Secretary for Culture Fiona Hyslop also announced more than £1.4 million in funding for dozens of archaeological projects across Scotland during the next year.

Source: http://www.culture24.org.uk
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Hunters’ remains earliest known by Andy B on Tuesday, 08 December 2009
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SCOTLAND’S foremost amateur archaeologist, Tam Ward of Biggar Archaeology Group, was guest speaker at the November meeting of Lanark and District Archaeological Society.

The subject of Tam's talk was about the excavation work at Howburn Farm, near Elsrickle, which turned out to be the most important dig in Scotland this year.

Tam related how the site had been discovered through diligent field walking. Initially, Tam thought the site was early Neolithic but a talk with an expert in pre-history revealed the amazing fact that some of the tools that Tam and his team had discovered were about 16,000 years old (later Paleolithic). This was quite a revelation as nothing this early had ever been found in Scotland. What was also staggering was the fact that the people who came to Howburn actually walked across the area known now as the North Sea. The route would have been via the Dogger Bank which is the only bit left of the land route from Northern Europe. About 9000 years ago this route became flooded with the melting of the glaciers and the collapse of the Norwegian Trench which led to a devastating tsunami affecting Northern Europe.

Tools fashioned by the people of the palaeolithic period in Scotland were similar to those produced in Denmark, Northern Germany and Holland. They came to Scotland chasing the herds of migrating reindeer and living off their meat and utilising their hides for clothing. No reindeer remains were found was due to the high acidity of the Scottish soil.

During question time after the lecture the domestication of reindeer was discussed as the palaeolithic people of Scotland needed something to assist with the transportation of flint from Northern Europe to Scotland. The interesting question was did they use the reindeer to do this – if so this would be the first time that animals were domesticated in the world.

Tam also said that investigations of what would have been a nearby lake had not revealed any evidence of the vegetation of the period. Maybe the vegetation such as it was would be similar to the Tundra in Lapland and the landscape would be treeless. He also indicated the glaciers returned to the Howburn area and that accounted for some of the flints being buried in what appear to be natural soil.

The next meeting will be the members' night which is on December 14.

http://www.hamiltonadvertiser.co.uk/news/local-news/lanark-and-carluke-news/2009/11/19/hunters-remains-earliest-known-51525-25199478/
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Signs of earliest Scots unearthed by coldrum on Thursday, 18 June 2009
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Signs of earliest Scots unearthed

Archaeologists have discovered the earliest evidence of human beings ever found in Scotland.

The flints were unearthed in a ploughed field near Biggar in South Lanarkshire.

They are similar to tools known to have been used in the Netherlands and northern Germany 14,000 years ago, or 12,000 BC.

They were probably used by hunters to kill reindeer, mammoth and giant elk and to cut up prey and prepare their skins.

The discovery conjures up a picture of wandering groups of hunters making their way across dry land where the North Sea is now, after the end of the Ice Age.

The details are revealed in the latest edition of British Archaeology magazine.

The editor, Mike Pitts, said the finds were "the most northerly evidence for the earliest people in Britain".

Similar finds have been made in England, but they have mostly been south of the river Humber.

Up until now, the earliest evidence for humans in Scotland has come from sites such as Cramond, near Edinburgh.

Waste pits and discarded hazelnut shells found there have been dated to about 8,500 BC.

Tam Ward, from the Biggar Archaeology Group, which carried out the dig, said: "To push Scotland's human history back by nearly 4,000 years is remarkable.

"We didn't set out to do that," he added. "What we wanted to do was tell the story of the landscape."

He warned that "a lot of people won't believe this. Not until they see the hard evidence".

"But it'll be great fun proving them wrong. We've got the physical objects, so we can just put them down on the table and say argue with that".

One of the flints
This pointed flint would have been used as an arrow head

At first the flints were thought to date from the Neolithic period - about 3,000 BC.

But their true significance was later realised by Torben Ballin, an expert in stone finds, and Alan Saville from the National Museums of Scotland.

Mr Saville told BBC Scotland: "There would have been a temporary camp site where the flints were found, so there's a faint possibility that there might be post holes and waste pits there."

He added that the chances of finding that evidence were "fairly slim, but we live in hope".

He said the diggers from Biggar were planning to go back to the site in the summer to explore it further.

Historic Scotland provided some funding for the work.



http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/glasgow_and_west/7992300.stm
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