Understanding the initial colonization of Scotland.

FINLAYSON, BILL

Introduction

Scotland was substantially ice free by 13000 BP and by around 12,500 BP temperatures were probably similar to those of the present time. The subsequent Loch Lomond stadial glaciation did not entirely cover the country and left most eastern and southern parts still free from ice. Much of Scotland was therefore available for colonisation from 13,000 BP onwards, with reindeer herds providing a possible reason for human immigration. The earliest radiocarbon dates for the occupation of Scotland are 9000-8500 BP; they come from excavations on the island of Rum off the west coast (Wickham-Jones 1990), from Daer in Clydesdale (SAN 1998) and from Fife Ness in Fife (Wickham-Jones & Dalland 1998). There is therefore a 4000-year gap between deglaciation and the first dated site.

Evidence exists that may point to earlier occupation, but it is very fragmentary (Wickham-Jones & Woodman 1998). The tendency in recent years has been to assume that there was an earlier occupation, but that we have so far failed to detect it, either because we have been searching in the wrong places, or because the evidence is not recognizable among later quantitatively diagnostic material. In the absence of hard data, the hypothesis of occupation before 9000 BP is based on a number of arguments, including (tenuous) environmental and artefactual evidence, and our understanding of human behaviour.

The continuing and noteworthy scarcity of evidence presents us with an interesting challenge, far more interesting than a quest for the date for the arrival of the earliest person in Scotland. Some scholars such as Rowley-Conwy (1997) now propose that the complex hunter-gatherer societies they have identified in the late Mesolithic may have developed earlier, but that evidence for such early societies is undiscovered because of coastal inundation. Indeed, Coles has suggested that Doggerland, the land between southern Britain and Denmark, may have been the focus for population in the early Mesolithic (Coles 1999). To assess such a proposition it is important to determine what is happening around 9000 BP. Contra Rowley-Conwy, was there an increase in European Mesolithic populations? In southern Scandinavia did it cause an economic intensification, and in Britain did it lead to an increase in the range and density of occupation, followed by an intensification that produced the marine-dominated economy visible in the Obanian shell midden sites? Is it possible that this intensification is a result, not so much of an overall population increase, as of the cumulative increase in local population densities associated with sea-level rise?

Bjerck, looking at the colonization of the Norwegian coast, has raised three important points that appear relevant to the colonization of Scotland (Bjerck 1995):

1 The Norwegian coast was not occupied as soon as it became available, but when colonization occurred it appears to have been relatively rapid. This appears to be similar to the situation in Scotland.

2 What appears with hindsight to be a rich coastal environment may not have appeared as such to people who had not developed the specialized skills and kit for exploiting an arctic marine economy. The marine aspects of the Scottish Mesolithic economy are clear. While perhaps not requiring such an extreme specialized adaptation as they would in the Arctic, they would certainly have required some elements similar to those needed in Norway, not the least of which would have been seaworthy boats and a good knowledge and understanding of local weather, wind, waves and coastlines. Once these essentials are grasped, then colonization of these areas could proceed rapidly as the environmental wealth could be exploited.

3 Perhaps the most important point is the issue of motivation. Colonization is not just a matter of available land, especially where economic adaptations may be required. The motivation may be visible in terms of increasing population density, but we should be wary of assuming a simplistic cause and effect process here. Changing environments and a population rise may have acted together to create greater stress and social competition, when old economic and social traditions became untenable.

This paper briefly reviews these arguments, but also suggests that the search for earlier dateable material should not have a high priority. That approach to archaeology is much less important than a continued effort to improve our understanding of hunter-gatherer behaviour throughout the Mesolithic.

Environmental background

Britain was separated from continental Europe by about 8500 years BP (Ballantyne & Dawson 1997: 33). Before this separation the rate of isostatic rebound was greater than the eustatic sea-level rise and produced a net fall in relative sea level. After separation there was a period of rapid sea-level rise that outstripped the isostatic rebound. Because of local variations in this rebound, mainly caused by proximity to the centre of the previous ice sheet, the maximum sea level occurred at different heights and dates around the Scottish coast. Eventually it outstripped the rate of sea-level rise, and the relative sea level fell. This has left a succession of raised beaches and, in some areas distant from the centres of isostatic rebound, drowned shorelines.

Shoreline changes must have had some effect on the detection of Mesolithic occupation in Scotland. The main postglacial transgression may have destroyed many coastal sites, although it is, of course, impossible to quantify this effect. Many of the earliest sites, including the site at Kinloch on the island of Rum, lie just above the maximum sea level. On Islay, Edwards and Mithen have estimated that coastal evidence has been lost for the period between 13,000 and 6500 BP (Edwards & Mithen 1995: 350), making it unlikely that evidence for an early postglacial coastal occupation can be found, although a pre-13,000 BP late-glacial might have survived.

A unique find that has been used to support the idea of a late-glacial or early postglacial occupation is the flint scraper recovered from the North Sea, 150 km from Shetland, during sampling by the British Geological Survey. It is not a chronologically distinct type and it may have been lost at sea at some subsequent date, but the area would have been dry land 18,000 years ago, at the maximum extent of glaciation. The sands Which contained the flint are thought to be coastal, or near-coastal, in character, and it has been argued that some parts of this area may have remained dry land until the beginning of the Holocene, about 10,000 BP (Morrison & Bonsall 1990).

Edwards and Mithen have argued that evidence from a pollen core from Loch a'Bhogaidh on Islay may indicate early occupation. At two points it shows a decrease in hazel pollen and an increase in grass and birch. The radiocarbon dates have a large standard deviation, but they suggest that the first change happened `probably before 9000 BP' (Edwards & Mithen 1995: 355). The second similar change occurs around 7550 BP, which fits well with dates from the nearby sites of Bolsay Farm and Gleann Mor, providing some support for the interpretation that the earlier change is related to human activity.

Human behaviour

Bjerck suggests that in Norway there was a period after deglaciation when the arctic coasts remain unused, and that then, just after 10,000 BP, there was a rapid colonization of the coast by people with a specialized marine economy (Bjerck 1995: 140). Inland and upland occupation followed, apparently rapidly after deglaciation (Bang-Andersen 1996).

Recent ethnographic examples show that the limits of hunter-gatherer colonization are best defined by the availability of food resources, and not by environmental conditions. This analogy was one reason why the evidence from the Creag nan Uamh caves at Inchnadamph in the northwest of Scotland suggested late glacial occupation. A large sample of reindeer antlers, among other remains, were recovered from these caves in the 1920s. Lawson & Bonsall (1986) proposed that humans might have collected the antlers (a bulked sample of which produced a date of c. 10,000 BP). Subsequent research has shown that the antler accumulated over a very long period of time, and was probably a natural deposit (Murray et al. 1993). However, this find of antlers reinforces the point that food resources were available in Scotland prior to the 9000 BP human occupation.

Evidence for early human occupation of Scotland

A number of artefacts have been found that typologically predate the narrow blade material from Rum and Daer. They are of three types: a barbed bone point; tanged points; and broad-blade microliths.

A single example of a barbed bone point has been found which is visibly different from the main series of such artefacts found in the shell middens of the later Mesolithic in Scotland. It resembles a Maglemosian artefact, dating to between about 12,000 and 9000 BP (Morrison & Bonsall 1990). Unfortunately its context is so poorly known that it is uncertain which county it came from.

A small number of tanged points have been recovered, including two from the Orkneys (one from Stronsay and one from Mainland), and three from the Hebrides -- one from Tiree (Livens 1956), one from Jura (Mercer 1980) and one from Islay (Edwards & Mithen 1995). They appear to have close affinities with Ahrensburgian material from north Europe dating to about 11,000 BP (Morrison & Bonsall 1990: 138). Arguing against such an early date, Woodman notes that in making stone tools it is possible to produce items accidentally that appear to belong to other periods, and that these could occur in any large assemblage (Woodman 1989). However, the best examples of tanged points occur, not as one-off pieces mixed in with thousands of later Mesolithic artefacts, but as isolated finds. Rather than normal, although rare and accidental components of the narrow-blade material, they therefore appear to be an unrelated phenomenon. Consequently they seem to provide evidence for an early human presence, while their northern and western distribution perhaps suggests a maritime entry route around the west and north of Britain. There are tanged points in the Fosna culture, representing the earliest settlement of northern Scandinavia, and it is possible that this represents a common inheritance (Wickham-Jones & Woodman 1998). Edwards & Mithen (1995) have argued that the Islay tanged point may support their interpretation of pollen data as indicating human impacts on vegetation before 9000 BP.

On a different scale to these occasional finds there are a number of small assemblages of broad-blade microlithic material, principally at three sites: Morton (Coles 1971), Glenbatrick (Mercer 1974) and Lussa Wood (Mercer 1980). In England such material is associated with the earlier Mesolithic and dated to between 10,000 and 9000 BP (Morrison & Bonsall 1990: 140).

Woodman has queried whether the broad blades are not simply a part of the narrow blade repertoire in Scotland (Woodman 1989: 11). They were once thought to represent a late and marginal survival of broad-blade forms, but following analysis by Bonsall (Morrison & Bonsall 1990: 140) there seems little reason on typological grounds not to assume that they are contemporary with the English examples. The doubt as to their date or cultural association can be put down to the fact that, in every case, these broad blades have been found mixed with later, narrow-blade material; and that in all cases radiocarbon dates from these sites have been late Mesolithic and thus appear to date the broad blades as well as the narrow-blade material. There are in any case relatively very few broad-blade assemblages and all appear to have been recovered from disturbed sites reused in the later Mesolithic. These considerations make it more doubtful that they represent an earlier, separate phase, or perhaps indicate that if they do, it was a time of relatively small-scale pioneering.

The final piece of evidence to examine is the microscopic charcoal record. It has for some time been argued that microscopic charcoal may be evidence for human occupation, either as the product of cooking fires, or as evidence of attempts to manipulate the environment through the use of fire, either to create forest clearings and improve browsing conditions for deer, or to encourage the growth of hazel (Smith 1970; Mellars 1976; Simmons et al. 1981; Morrison 1980; Edwards & Ralston 1984; Edwards 1990). Recent work, however, has suggested that there may be climatic reasons for the increase in microscopic charcoal (Tipping 1996). In any case, even if the ambiguity of the charcoal record is accepted, it is clear that it is a phenomenon largely related to 9000 BP or later. If the charcoal record tells us anything about human occupation, it confirms the pattern of the narrow-blade evidence, in so far as it is widespread and relatively late.

Discussion

In essence, the above summarizes the evidence for an early Mesolithic in Scotland. The finds are poor in both typological range and overall quantity. The argument is not that the tanged points do not have Ahrensburgian affinities, nor that broad-blade microliths continued to be made in Scotland after they had been abandoned elsewhere in Britain, but that the evidence of occupation from the periods represented by these artefacts is minimal.

There may be circumstances to explain this poor quality of evidence, for example that the main postglacial marine transgression has removed the coastal sites. However, that is not an adequate explanation by itself. Scotland could have been peopled early by inland and upland settlement. In England, the Early Mesolithic has been identified as an inland, upland occupation, although this conclusion itself may be due to the loss of the coastal element, at least south of Lancashire. It would be reasonable to suspect that if there had been a significant coastal occupation in Scotland, we would have similar surviving inland evidence. The proposed early human impact on vegetation on Islay would be the result of inland occupation -- and indeed the later vegetation changes recognized there are associated with inland sites on the island.

It has also been argued that the poor quality of evidence may be the result of insufficient fieldwork and that the database in Scotland cannot be compared with databases elsewhere, even with that of England, where there has been more research and a greater tradition of amateur fieldwalkers collecting flints (Woodman 1989). This was certainly true in the past. Only one scholar, Lacaille, had a serious interest in the Mesolithic in the 1950s (Lacaille 1954) and little happened in the 1960s. In the 1970s there were Coles (1971) and Mellars (1978), and also a significant amateur input. However, the quantity of fieldwork, artefact and environmental studies increased dramatically in the 1980s and 1990s (see Finlayson & Edwards 1997 for references). There have been upland excavations, test-pitting surveys, deliberate examinations of cave sites that could contain early deposits, and a clear demonstration that later Mesolithic occupation spread over most, if not all, of Scotland. Scotland may still be relatively unexplored, but it can no longer be stated that there is such a huge lack of fieldwork. And what has been the result of this? Hundreds of thousands more narrow-blade microliths and related debitage, but only one tanged point recognized in the last 15 years or so and no broad-blade microlithic sites.

Occupation, colonists and visitors

On the evidence, people did come to Scotland before the late Mesolithic, but their presence was ephemeral. They did not stay, at least in the sense that they did not form a significant population. In contrast, when it took place, the occupation by people producing narrow blades appears to have been both extensive and intensive. The sudden increase in evidence may have been exaggerated by environmental changes which favoured the better preservation of coastal data, but this evidence does not by any means depend exclusively on the coastal data -- narrow blades rapidly appear everywhere, on east and west coasts, and in the uplands.

Hunter-gatherer colonization may occur, not as a wave of population expansion, but by the selective colonization of favourable areas by a dispersed population. It would have taken a long time for a substantial rise in population to occur and there is no evidence for dense populations until late in the Mesolithic. We should not be seeking only a simple date of first arrival after Scotland became available for colonization. We should rather be looking for reasons why Scotland eventually did become substantially occupied. Slowly rising population may be one factor. Another potential motive for settlement would arise from the restriction of movement when Britain became separated from the continent. This event would have had a significant effect on populations that would probably have incorporated significant patterns of mobility and long-range social contacts within their economic and social strategies. This restriction may have provided the necessary impetus for Scotland to have become settled by a significant population. The loss of Doggerland cannot be used as a simple explanation for colonization. Although the land area would have been reduced, the coast length and estuarine habitat will have increased (Coles 1999), and if these are understood to have been the main economic resources then sea-level rise may have increased available resources.

The previous paragraph is clearly speculative, but refers to topics that must be examined. The review by Historic Scotland of state-funded `rescue' archaeology in Scotland (Barclay 1997) accords priority to sites earlier than 7500 DC. The problem with this is that the evidence suggests that any such early occupation was probably ephemeral. The real priority in the study of early Scottish prehistory is an increase in our understanding of what the evidence indicates about hunter-gatherer behaviour.

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BILL FINLAYSON, Centre for Field Archaeology, University of Edinburgh, Old High School, 12 Infirmary Street, Edinburgh EH1 1LT, Scotland.

Received 7 November 1997, resubmitted 14 May 1999, accepted 2 July 1999, revised 31 August 1999.