Home | Category: Early Settlements and Signs of Civilization in Europe
MESOLITHIC PERIOD
Glaciers and land brdiges during the last Ice Age
The Mesolithic Period (Middle Stone Age) was an archaeological period between the Upper Paleolithic and the Neolithic primarily used to describe Europe and the Middle East. It refers to the final period of hunter-gatherer cultures before the arrival of agriculture in these regions between the end of the Last Glacial Maximum and the Neolithic Revolution. [Source: Wikipedia]
The Mesolithic Period extends roughly from 15,000 to 5,000 years ago in Europe; and from 20,000 to 10,000 years ago in the Middle East. But other dates are used. Some say the the Mesolithic period extends from 10,000 to 4000 B.C. in Europe. The term is less used of areas farther east, and not at all beyond Eurasia and North Africa. The term Epipaleolithic is often used synonymously, especially for outside northern Europe, and for the corresponding period in the Levant and Caucasus. The Mesolithic has different time spans in different parts of Eurasia.
Ice sheets began disappearing during the Mesolithic period. Rising sea levels isolated Britain from Europe about 8,500 years ago, According to Live Science and National Geographic: The Mesolithic period for humans was a time of severe climate change across the world. At this time, the ice sheets that covered much of northern Europe, Asia and North America began to melt away, creating new lands that became populated by animal herds and people. About 14,500 years ago, as Europe began to warm, humans followed the retreating glaciers north. In the ensuing millennia, they developed more sophisticated stone tools and settled in small villages. [Sources: Andrew Curry, National Geographic, August 2019; Tom Metcalfe, Live Science, June 24, 2019]
14,700-Year-Old Skull Cups Found in British Cave
In 2012, British archaeologists said they had found 14,700-year-old skull cup in a cave in southwest England. Gregory Katz of Associated Press wrote: “Ice age Britons drank from human skulls and may even have eaten flesh and bone marrow, but they were far from barbarians. The bowls look almost like works of art, ritual items laced with meaning. Look more closely, however, and it becomes clear they are made from human skulls. Scientists say they are the oldest known carbon-dated skull cups, said by experts to be about 14,700 years old. [Source: By Gregory Katz, Associated Press, February 28, 2011]
“British scientists writing in the Public Library of Science journal maintain the cups were fashioned in such a meticulous way that they only credible explanation for their manufacture is that they were used as bowls to hold liquid. If the hunters and gatherers simply wanted to eat the deceased person’s brains, there would have been far easier ways to get at them, scientists said. Experts believe the rare cups — two made from adults skulls, one from a child thought to be about three years-old — were used in some sort of ritual, as was common in many parts of the world. “It is likely that this was part of some symbolic ritual and not mere necessity,” said Sylvia Bello, lead author of the study. She said that the artifacts demonstrate how skilled early humans were at the manipulation of human bodies.
skull cup from Gogh's cave
“The practice of using human skulls as cups or bowls has been well documented in many cultures, and in some cases skull cups have been elaborately decorated and used to adorn temples and in religious ceremonies. The practice was documented by the Greek historian Herodotus in the fifth century B.C.. But the three skull cups found in an English cave are the only known examples from the British Isles, scientists said. The three skulls aren’t the first historic clues to early man found in Gough’s Cave in Somerset. In 1903, the complete skeleton of a man dated to about 10,000 years ago was found at the same site. Explorations of the site, which in human and animal remains, began even earlier.
“Although the team found indications that some of the flesh and bone marrow from the skulls was eaten, they concluded that cannibalism was unlikely to have been the main purpose of the modifications. It is impossible to say the flesh was consumed,” Bello said. “They could have de-fleshed to have a clean skull to work with, but then did they consume part of the brain or the soft tissue? We can’t prove it. I don’t know if they then consumed the brain, but that wasn’t the first purpose.” She did say the bone marrow seems to have been consumed.
“The use of skulls as cups or bowls in northern Europe is thought to have been fairly common during that time frame, but it is very rare to find actual examples that can be accurately dated by modern techniques, said Rick Schulting, an archaeology professor at the University of Oxford. “These finds are important because there are so few finds from this period,” he said. “These are fully modern humans like us but we have very little insight into what they thought about themselves and their world. We know they had some burials, we know they cared about their dead. This adds complexity to their world.”
“He said they were probably used in the ritual consumption of human remains, but said details cannot be known. “It’s not some barbaric bloodthirsty example,” said Schulting, who was not involved in the project. “It’s always a ritualistic setting where you eat the remains of the dead, but we can’t know in this case whether you’re eating your own revered ancestors, to keep in contact, or eating the outsider, the enemy, as a way of insulting them and imbibing their power and their spirit.” He said it was not unusual in that time period for people to consume the brain, which is seen as the seat of an individual’s identity, but it is not clear because of the lack of evidence whether this was done as an act of respect or contempt. The distribution of cut marks seen on the skulls indicates that they were scrupulously “cleaned” of any soft tissues, and subsequently modified by the removal of the facial region. The skulls were then meticulously shaped into cups by retouching the broken edges, Bello said. “All in all it was a very painstaking process given the tools available,” she said.
Earliest Evidence Found of Settlers in Scotland — 11,500 Years Ago
In 2001, British Archaeology News reported: “The earliest known remains of human settlement in Scotland have been uncovered at Cramond, near Edinburgh. Mesolithic stone tools, tool waste and hazelnut shells from a hunting camp overlooking the Forth Estuary have been radiocarbon dated to about 8500 B.C. Meanwhile, at Sand near Applecross in Wester Ross, a shell midden from about 1,000 years later than the Cramond site has produced a range of intriguing evidence for Mesolithic life including pigments, dyes and possible items of jewellery, as well as tools, animal and bird bones and shellfish. [Source: British Archaeology News, August 2001]
“The site at Cramond was found when a team of amateur archaeologists from the Edinburgh Archaeological Field Society began digging for Roman remains close to a bath house. At the base of one trench they found a concentration of mainly chert stone tools and hazelnut shells, revealing a well-stratified single-phase Mesolithic site uncontaminated by later material. Subsequent work, including the radiocarbon dating of six hazelnut shell fragments (each one ranging between about 8600 and 8200 B.C.), was carried out with the help of Edinburgh’s City Council archaeologists, Historic Scotland, and the National Museums of Scotland.
Cheddar Man upper body
“The site, on a bluff near the junction of the River Forth and the River Almond, represents a classic Mesolithic camp location providing hunter-gatherers with access to a range of freshwater and marine foodstuffs. No animal bones survived in the site’s acid soils but pits, scoops and some 20 stakeholes suggested an encampment. According to Alan Saville, curator of early prehistory collections at the National Museum, the site provides the earliest date in Britain for the ‘geometric’ style of microlith tool manufacture – an advanced style traditionally regarded as a Late Mesolithic development, not found in England before about 7800 BC – thus raising intriguing questions about the origin and spread of the new technology. The site also raises questions about the early post-glacial climate in Scotland, an area traditionally regarded as uninhabitable until about 9600 B.C.
“At Sand, excavations by the Scotland’s First Settlers project based at Edinburgh University have uncovered the bones of red deer and birds, and shellfish (mainly limpet) shells in a midden outside a coastal rockshelter, along with numerous ‘pot-boiler’ stones used for cooking the food. Tools made of stone, bone and antler were found including part of an antler harpoon and bevel-ended tools for opening shellfish. Perforated cowrie shell beads and a boar’s tusk – both interpreted as items of jewellery – were found at Sand with lumps of ochre and a type of dog whelk which produces a purple dye. Some of the tools are thought to have been brought from the Isle of Rhum and from Staffin on Skye, underlining the ease with which people travelled by sea in this period.”
11,000-Year-Old Human Remains Found in Northern England
In 2023 it was announced that Martin Stables of the University of Central Lancashire uncovered a 11,000-year-old human bone inside Heaning Wood Bone Cave, about 450 kilometers (280 miles) northwest of London. with a periwinkle shell bead. “I never expected anything like the Early Mesolithic connection in my wildest dreams,” Stables said in a news release. “After six years digging it’s all ended up in a place I never expected it to get to. I can’t wait to hear all the final results, it’s staggering so far, difficult to imagine what it would have been like around here over 11,000-years-ago.”[Source: Moira Ritter, Miami Herald, January 28, 2023]
According to the Miami Herald: Before his latest discovery, Stables also unearthed other human and animal bones, stone tools, ancient pottery and shell beads, the university said. Archaeologists at the University of Central Lancashire have analyzed Stables’ finds, and they have identified a total of at least eight prehistoric humans who were buried in the cave, according to the university. Other artifacts found at the site indicate that all were deliberately buried within the cave.The newest find adds to experts’ theory that the cave was used for burials during three different periods in time: the Early Bronze Age about 4,000 years ago, the Early Neolithic era about 5,500 years ago and — thanks to Stables’ find — the earliest stages of the Mesolithic period about 11,000 years ago.
The remains also provide a glimpse into some of the earliest human activity in Britain after the end of the last Ice Age, the archaeologists said. Older remains have been found in southern England and Wales, but past glaciations have destroyed such evidence in northern Britain making Stables’ find even more rare. Stables’ discovery replaces the previous oldest evidence — a 10,000-year-old burial which was found in 2013 in a nearby cave, the university said.
“Cave burials like this are well known from some periods of British prehistory and the Heaning Wood burials are an important addition to our knowledge of funeral practices,” he said in the release. “Together with the slightly later dates from Kent’s Bank Cavern, it shows, as people re-occupied the land, how important the whole of Britain was to this process.”
Britain's Oldest Home? An 11,000-Year-old Thatch-Roof Dwelling in Northeast England
Perhaps Britain's earliest houses looked something like this
In 2010, archaeologists said they had discovered the site of Britain’s oldest house, a waterside home used nomad hunters about 11,000 years. David Stringer reported on newsvine.com: “The dwelling, which has lake views, a thatched roof and very original features, predates the country’s famous Stonehenge monument by around 6,000 years and was built at a time when Britain was still connected to continental Europe. [Source: David Stringer, newsvine.com, October 10, 2010
“Teams from the University of York and the University of Manchester working at the site believe the circular shaped home was built in about 8,500 B.C. next to an ancient lake at Star Carr, near Scarborough, in northeastern England. “This is a sensational discovery and tells us so much about the people who lived at this time,” Nicky Milner from the University of York said. “From this excavation, we gain a vivid picture of how these people lived.”
“Discoveries made at the site suggest the house was about 3.5 meters wide (11 feet, 6 inches), constructed of timber posts and likely had a roof of thatched reeds. The site was probably inhabited for between 200 and 500 years, and there were possibly several homes built at the site. Archaeologists have also uncovered a 11,000-year-old tree trunk, with its bark still intact, and found traces of a wooden jetty-like platform on the bank of the ancient lake that could be the first evidence of carpentry in Europe.
“The house is about 500 to 1,000 years older than a building in Howick, northern England, previously thought to have been the country’s oldest home. “This changes our ideas of the lives of the first settlers to move back into Britain after the end of the last Ice Age. We used to think they moved around a lot and left little evidence. Now we know they built large structures and were very attached to particular places in the landscape,” said Chantal Conneller, an archaeologist at the University of Manchester. Artifacts found at the site — which include part of an oar, arrow tips and deer skulls — offer clues to the lives of the settlers. It’s thought they kept domestic dogs, hunted deer, wild boar and elk, fished on the lake and had rituals that involved the use of headdresses fashioned from animal skulls.
10,500-Year-Old British Hunter-Gatherer Settlement in Eastern England
A team from the University of Chester and The University of Manchester unearthed remnants of a settlement inhabited by hunter-gatherers about 10,500 years ago. “It is so rare to find material this old in such good condition,” Nick Overton, a co-director of the project from The University of Manchester, said. “The Mesolithic in Britain was before the introduction of pottery or metals, so finding organic remains like bone, antler and wood, which are usually not preserved, are incredibly important in helping us to reconstruct peoples’ lives.” [Source: Moira Ritter, Miami Herald, January 20, 2023]
possible signs of cannibalism from Gough's Cave
The site is near Scarborough, about 400 kilometers (250 miles north of London) and was located on the shore of an island of a lake. Since then, the lake has been filled with peat deposits, burying but preserving the remains at the site. According to the Miami Herald: Archaeologists said they found a variety of artifacts, including bones of animals that were hunted, handmade tools and weapons and traces of woodworking — a rare find. These remains have revealed previously misunderstood aspects of prehistoric life. For example, the fossils discovered at the site indicate that humans were hunting a range of animals in various habitats, including elk and deer, a Manchester University press release said. The way the animals were butchered and deposited around the settlement also demonstrates that certain rituals existed within the civilization.
The hunting tools and weapons also shed light on unique rituals that may have existed within the ancient society. Some of the weapons and antler were decorated and taken apart before they were placed along the island’s shore, indicating that there may have been rules about disposing of animal remains and the weapons used to kill them. “People often think of prehistoric hunter-gatherers as living on the edge of starvation, moving from place to place in an endless search for food, and that it was only with the introduction of farming that humans lived a more settled and stable lifestyle,” Amy Gray, a co-director of the project from the University of Chester, said in a news release. “These aren’t people that were struggling to survive. They were people confident in their understanding of this landscape, and of the behaviours and habitats of different animal species that lived there,” Gray said.
Hunter-Gatherer Gathering Place in Scotland
In 2022, archaeologists said they believed they had found a place where some of Scotland's last hunters-gatherers may have rested on their journeys through the Cairngorms mountains. The BBC reported: Scotland was home to hunter-gatherers from about 10,000 years ago, after the end of the last ice age. At Sgòr an Eòin in Glen Dee, archaeologists have uncovered artefacts that could date from that time in the Mesolithic period. Teams of experts from University College Dublin (UCD) have been surveying and excavating there since 2013. Hunter-gatherer sites have been found at other locations in the Cairngorms. [Source: Steven McKenzie, BBC, October 8, 2022]
The BBC reported: Evidence of hunter-gatherers were found at Geldie Burn and Chest of Dee in earlier phases of the work, and confirmed through radiocarbon dating. Sgòr an Eòin, a flat area on an ancient river terrace on National Trust for Scotland's Mar Lodge Estate, has been an area of interest since the site was discovered in 2015. Flints, a by-product of stone tool manufacture, have been found at Sgòr an Eòin
A team from UCD worked with archaeologists from Norway's University of Stavanger and local group Mesolithic Deeside, in an excavation at Sgòr an Eòin. Prof Graeme Warren, of the School of Archaeology at UCD said 200 tiny flint artefacts — the debris from tool-making — were found. The nearest source of this type of stone for making tools would have been about 43 miles (70 kilometers) away on either the Aberdeenshire or Moray coasts. He said: "What it seems like is someone or a small group of people have come up to this place and stopped there for a short time. "There were fires involved, because we have charcoal, and they have manufactured a few tools as we have got some distinctive by-products of those tools. And then they have carried on their journey."
Prof Warren said at the time the area would have been wooded, or on the edge of woodland, with the hunter-gatherers possibly travelling through the glen and on into the Lairig Ghru mountain pass. Today, the same route is popular with hillwalkers trekking from Braemar to Aviemore. Prof Warren said in Mesolithic times, people may only have stopped at Sgòr an Eòin for an afternoon, a night's stay or for a couple of days. He said: "It is quite unusual in that it is such an intimate little snapshot of just a few moments."
8,500-Year-Old “Superhighway” of Ancient Human and Animal Footprints in Western England
Erosion along a nearly 3-kilometers (2-mile)-long stretch of beach near Formby in western England revealed dozens of 8,500-year-old human and animal footprints, offering great insight into what the inhabitants of England were like at that time. Jennifer Nalewicki wrote in Live Science: The footprint beds show how, as glaciers melted and sea levels rose after the last ice age ended around 11,700 years ago, humans and animals were forced inland, thus forming a hub of human and animal activity seen in the commingled footprints. [Source: Jennifer Nalewicki, Live Science, October 14, 2022]
In a study published in the October, 2022 issue of Nature Ecology and Evolution, researchers found that the trackways, some of which are more than 8,000 years old, date from the Mesolithic period, or Middle Stone Age (15,000 B.C. to 50 B.C.) to medieval times (from A.D. 476 to A.D. 1450). Researchers recovered seeds from alder, birch and spruce trees scattered within the layers of the route and radiocarbon-dated them to pinpoint the age of the tracks.
In total, there are a dozen "well-preserved" footprint beds, some of which are stacked, creating roughly 36 exposed layers, or "outcrops." These patchworks of prints contain foot impressions from not only humans but a variety of animals, including aurochs (an extinct species of ox), red deer, wild boars, wolves, lynx and cranes. "Only some of the outcrops are visible at any one time," Alison Burns, the study's lead author and an archaeologist at The University of Manchester in England, told Live Science. "The farther down you [dig], the older the outcroppings are."
The mishmash of tracks was originally discovered in the late 1970s by a geologist who thought they were "cattle footprints.” In the 1990s, a retired teacher saw the trackways and began dating them, "realizing that they were of some antiquity," Burns said. "Before then, people didn't think [the prints] were particularly interesting or old." Since then, the footprints have continued to reveal themselves "due to erosion of the coastline as the sea eats away at the covering sand dunes that helped to preserve the footprints," Burns said.
"The footprints are preserved under the sand, and as the coastline is being eroded, the water is eating away at the cover that helped preserve them," Burns said. "When the tracks were made, they were filled with sand and then a layer of mud. That's how you get these stacks [of footprints]. Once you have four or five beds on top of each other, the top layer is vulnerable [to erosion], but the ones beneath it are quite well preserved."
Of the dozens of prints discovered at the site, one in particular stood out, not only because it's the oldest track, imprinted approximately 8,500 years ago, but also due to the story it told researchers, Burns said. "It was a human track that proceeded forward four or five paces and then the person stopped," Burns said. "They were barefoot, and the footprints were fantastic; the mud has oozed up between each toe, so you get all the features of the footprint. Immediately adjacent to them were prints from a crane. The person could very well have been looking for birds to hunt during a scouting expedition. And beside the crane, there is a clear set of adult red deer tracks nearby. Within 2 square meters [22 square feet], we get this amazing snapshot of the past. Many footprint studies typically focus on the human prints and not the animal prints. I was really interested in seeing how the animals and humans shared this very populated environment."
First British Farmers
The first farmers arrived in Britain about 6,000 years ago. Their ancestors are believed to have originated in southeast Europe. Early farmers chopped down trees so they could grow crops and vegetables. They kept cattle, sheep and pigs. These people began to settle down in one place and build permanent homes. These also built tombs and monuments on the land, of which the most enduring and famous is Stonehenge, thought to have been a gathering place for seasonal ceremonies. Other Stone Age sites include Skara Brae on Orkney, off the north coast of Scotland. It is the best preserved prehistoric village in northern Europe, helping archaeologists to understand more about how people lived near the end of the Stone Age. [Source: “Life in the United Kingdom, a Guide for New Residents,” 3rd edition, Page 15, Crown 2013]
According to Archaeology magazine and Associated Press report, a genetic study of human remains dating to as early as 8500 B.C. indicates that early farmers from the region around the Aegean Sea arrived in Britain some 6,000 years ago and replaced the local hunter-gather population. Previous studies have suggested these same early farmers mixed with local populations as they dispersed across continental Europe, and those who reached Britain were genetically similar to those living in Spain and Portugal. It appears, however, that the farmers did not mix with the Britons. “It is difficult to say why this is, but it may be that those last British hunter-gatherers were relatively few in number,” said Mark G. Thomas of University College London. “Even if these two populations had mixed completely, the ability of adept continental farmers and their descendants to maintain larger population sizes would produce a significant diminishing of hunter-gatherer ancestry over time.” [Source: Archaeology Tuesday, April 16, 2019]
Bruce Bower wrote in sciencenews.org: “Agriculture’s British debut occurred during a mild, wet period that enabled the introduction of Mediterranean crops such as emmer wheat, barley and grapes, say archaeobotanists Chris Stevens of Wessex Archaeology in Salisbury, England, and Dorian Fuller of University College London. Farming existed at first alongside foraging for wild fruits and nuts and limited cattle raising, but the rapid onset of cool, dry conditions in Britain about 5,300 years ago spurred a move to raising cattle, sheep and pigs, Stevens and Fuller propose in the September Antiquity. With the return of a cultivation-friendly climate about 3,500 years ago, during Britain’s Bronze Age, crop growing came back strong, the scientists contend. Farming villages rapidly replaced a mobile, herding way of life. Many researchers have posited that agriculture either took hold quickly in Britain around 6,000 years ago or steadily rose to prominence by 4,000 years ago.” [Source: Bruce Bower, sciencenews.org, September 6, 2012 ~|~]
“Stevens and Fuller compiled data on more than 700 cultivated and wild food remains from 198 sites across the British Isles whose ages had been previously calculated by radiocarbon dating. A statistical analysis of these dates and associated climate and environmental trends suggested that agriculture spread rapidly starting 6,000 years ago. About 700 years later, wild foods surged in popularity and cultivated grub became rare. Several new crops — peas, beans and spelt — appeared around 3,500 years ago, when storage pits, granaries and other features of agricultural societies first appeared in Britain, Stevens and Fuller find. An influx of European farmers must have launched a Bronze Age agricultural revolution, they speculate.” ~|~
Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons
Text Sources: National Geographic, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Smithsonian magazine, Nature, Scientific American. Live Science, Discover magazine, Discovery News, Ancient Foods ancientfoods.wordpress.com ; Times of London, Natural History magazine, Archaeology magazine, The New Yorker, Time, Newsweek, BBC, The Guardian, Reuters, AP, AFP, Lonely Planet Guides, “World Religions” edited by Geoffrey Parrinder (Facts on File Publications, New York); “History of Warfare” by John Keegan (Vintage Books); “History of Art” by H.W. Janson (Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.), Compton’s Encyclopedia and various books and other publications.
Last updated May 2024