Examples of the 14,000 year old flint tools unearthed at Howburn near Biggar. Image: Historic Scotland
Examples of the 14,000 year old flint tools unearthed at Howburn near Biggar. Image: Historic Scotland
Ice ages probably made earlier colonization prohibitive if not impossible.
Beware the Luddites. They’re thick around here.
When we first saw these rocks, we couldn't understand why most all of them were fractured. Sometimes the fractured pieces were together, though most times we would only find part of a nodule. The weather here is such that it very rarely freezes. Even when it does, chert is not porous enough to entrain water which can freeze and then cause fractures. Many of these rock chips also contained multiple fracture sites, not just a single break. We also found numerous pieces such as the ones in the photograph you linked, as well as a few arrowheads and identifiable tools such as the "Guadalupe biface".
We also found that most other parcels in the region had no chert on them. Our conclusion: We happen to own a quarry site where the natives of thousands of years ago mined and fabricated their flint tools!
That darned global warming.
- Norwegion Viking “Leod the Black” married a Danish Knight’s daughter and was given the Isle of Skye”
Search “Castle Dunvegan” and the McLeod Clan and also their participation in the Crusades
- It will become much clearer - some connections to Iceland, Greenland, and Vinland too -
Of course, if you ask the English, they would say that the first example of humans in Scotland was in 1296 AD, when the English invaded.
And 13.999 years ago the first one was embedded in a proto English skull :-)
Used to kill White Walkers.
