Posted on 10/18/2007 3:57:59 AM PDT by Renfield
Oct. 5, 2007 — During the last ice age, Scotland was likely a desolate place covered by glaciers, but new evidence suggests intrepid settlers braved the elements by establishing a community there as early as 13,000 years ago.
The determination, published in the latest British Archaeology, further suggests the earliest Scots shared a common ancestor with the first Norwegians, meaning that some people of Scottish descent could be distantly related to modern Norwegians.
"So often we hear that conditions in Scotland during the late Paleolithic and early Mesolithic would have prohibited human settlements because the landscape was cold and icy, but now we have to wonder what was actually going on and why people appear to have been living in the area during what is thought to have been a glacial period," Naomi Woodward, who led the project, told Discovery News.
Ancient Weaponry
The so-called tanged points found in northern Scotland, shown here, are high-tech by prehistoric standards. The arrowheads feature grooves at the bottom for easy insertion into a spear or arrow.
Woodward, an archaeologist at Orkney College, and her team launched a field survey in April on the island of Stronsay, Orkney, in the north of Scotland. There they excavated two broken flint points, which either served as arrowheads or spear tips.
The points match others found at early Scottish sites, and they also match points, discovered in what is now northern Germany, dating to even earlier time periods. The Stronsay points date to around 13,000 years ago, and likely predate an 8,500 B.C. Edinburgh hunting campsite, previously thought to have been Scotland's oldest settlement.
According to Mike Pitts, the editor of British Archaeology, the points represented high technology for prehistoric hunters.
"They're called tanged points because they have a tang, or notch, that would have gone into a slot on a stick," he explained. "Fine thread bound them to the stick, and the connection would have been secured with resin, serving as glue."
The northern European plains location suggests Scotland's first settlers were reindeer hunters from the Ahrensburgian culture. Reindeer exist in Scotland, but the researchers suspect the hunters also went after more prevalent deer and other large herbivores. If attached to spears, the points could have also been used to stab fish and marine life.
Caroline Wickham-Jones, an honorary research fellow in the Department of Archaeology at the University of York, lives in Orkney and is an expert on early Scottish settlements.
She told Discovery News the points add to "a package" of flint weaponry findings from other early sites, such as Tiree and Wester Ross on Scotland's west coast.
Sea level was much lower at the time, and other researchers have found entirely submerged forests and valleys around Scotland.
Wickham-Jones suspects the Ahrenburgians hunted mammals and tapped marine resources, island hopping and moving by boat around the region. A more northerly trip likely took them to Norway, where they are believed to have established yet another settlement.
"It is probable then that some Scottish individuals share common ancestors with the Norwegians," Wickham-Jones said, adding that the discovery suggests early settlers did not just come up to Scotland from England, bringing their culture with them.
Instead, Scotland appears to have, at least in some areas, "developed its own unique identity," based on the early Ahrenburgian inhabitants, which seem to have first settled at Stronsay.
The finds may also explain the island's attraction and the origin of the name Stronsay, which means "Star Island" in Old Norse.
"The island juts out in points so, to the early boaters, it would have looked like an actual star," Woodward said.
Ping
/satire
Hope you have a day job....;<)
Great Scot!!!
13,000 years ago you could have walked from Scotland to Finland. The North Sea wasn’t there yet.
That capability had to have been developed earlier during the period of maximum glaciation ~ just about the time they figured out how far they could hunt seal along the Southern edge of the winter sea-ice (which turned out to be all the way to America).
Love those spear points ~ did that guy say "arrow head"? There were no bows, no arrows, so no "arrow heads" ~ just "spear points" at that time.
May be closer ~ I’m waiting on definitive stuff on these guys. The best stuff is probably just off shore, but it’ll turn up when the ice comes back.
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Ice Age + Kilts = Not-so-Great Scot
This is cool...I have Orkney ancestry...The men in the family have tested out as Haploid group R1a, which shows up in high proportion in the Orkneys
Interesting quick read article on Wikipedia about how this may signal an early group settling there:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplogroup_R1a_%28Y-DNA%29
would orkney have been land-connected to the modern north coast in this time period? I assume it would in fact have been ice-connected.
Hard to imagine it being anything but solid ice at that point in time regardless.
Above map, 18,000 year ago.
R1a's spend the Last Glacial Maximum(18-23,000 years ago) in the Ukranian Ice Age refuge. The above map shows the direction of migration at about 12,000 years go.
There is much debate presently as to which DNA group, R1a or I1a, are the 'Viking Gene.' In my opinion, it's both.
The Orkneys where the 'jumping-off' point for the Vikings on the way to Iceland.
The kilt is fairly recent in Scotland. (1700's I believe?)
In fact, Mel Gibson made the deliberate error of including it in the wardrobe when he made the movie Braveheart.
Don't you know about shrinkage?
Nah. I have Sami genes.
Lucky you.
I have Mr. Shyturtle...
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