Posted on 02/28/2004 12:51:32 PM PST by blam
Archaeologists uncover Ayrshire village ancient history
A village in Ayrshire has discovered that it could be the oldest continuously-occupied settlement in Scotland, dating back 5,500. Archaeologists have uncovered the remains of stone age houses in the middle of Dreghorn near Irvine.
They are having to re-write their local history in Dreghorn. Archaeologists have discovered that people may have been living here since 3500 BC - and it might make the village unique. They found evidence of occupation dating back to the Stone Age, through the Bronze Age to the medieval period.
Archaeologist Tom Addyman said: "People have always lived here, and have wanted to live here. Can't think of any other site that has that depth and layering of occupation."
The settlement has been found on the site of a modern housing development. Building work has been halted to allow the archaeologists to dig. They have made several intriguing finds.
Project supervisor Tom Wilson said: "It appears to be quite a large monument, like a standing stone, or some kind of totem pole, if you will, set up towards the centre of the settlement. That is an unusual thing to find in a settlement like this."
Pre-historian Mike Donnelly said: "Well, what we found here looks like a prehistoric pottery kiln, which would be very unusual for mainland Scotland, it would certainly be the first for mainland Scotland."
The archaeologists are noting down everything before the builders move back in. Dreghorn already had one claim to fame, as the birthplace of John Boyd Dunlop, the inventor of the pneumatic tyre; now it has a second, as - possibly - Scotland's oldest village.
27/02/2004 17:54
But it almost certainly doesn't.
I understand why they have to stop and re-evaluate everything whenever they make a significant discovery, but I wish they wouldn't be so quick to equate "the oldest thing we've found so far" with "the oldest thing that ever was." The one thing we know for sure is that we don't know much.
Well, we have 9,000 year old Cheddar Man just a short distance away that still has relatives living near by.
Isn't that amazing.
That's my opinion and, probably the Black Sea flood in 5600BC.
Maybe Jericho, but I think Jericho was abandoned for some periods.
Oh heavens don't tell them that! They might faint.
True though very true.
I know what you mean. I lived for 1.5 years in a rural area of East Anglia in the early 90's.
The Fens always seemed haunted by ancient history when I had to drive home at 2 A.M. through a heavy fog.
Once, I was putting along at 15 mph, barely able to see the highway center line, when some fool blew past me at 40 mph or above. What idiot would drive that fast, when he could not possibly see the road at all? A ghost car, or a drunk?
Amen to that.
That's my opinion and, probably the Black Sea flood in 5600BC.
I'm still trying to make up my mind on that issue. On the one hand, I can see that it would be easier to reconcile the present archaeological data with Scripture if the Flood is interpreted as local. On the other hand, Scripture describes the Flood as covering the highest mountains and wiping out all land life, which sounds like the Flood was coincident with the extent of human population at that time (or at least had repercussions that affected all human-occupied areas); and archaeological knowledge is in a constant state of flux, as I know, blam, you are well aware :) So I'm still trying to make up my mind on how to best reconcile the Scriptural and archaeological data on that one. Another hypothesis I've been toying with is that the Flood was global but earlier, at the end of the Ice Age, so that such phenomena as the draining of Lake Agassiz, the extinction of megafauna, and the end of Paleolithic culture might be related to the Flood; and conceivably the Black Sea may have gone through some changes at the same time Lake Agassiz did, prior to the 5600 BC changes mentioned above. Blam, I'd be interested to hear any thoughts you have on that idea or this subject in general.
One of the papers proposes something which sounds along the lines I was suggesting:
---
A comparative analysis of the Late Glacial history of the inner basins of Eurasia enables us to suggest an alternative to the Early Holocene Flood that Ryan et al. (1997) thought could be the basis for the legend of Noah’s Flood. At the Late Glacial time (16-13 ka BP; 14C on mollusk’s shells) a Great Eurasian Basin System (~1.5 million km2, ~650,000-700,000 km3) developed due to a climate warming, the melting of the Scandinavia Ice Sheet and massive river discharge. This is supported by freshwater and alluvial sediments (e.g., chocolate clays, loams and sands with a thickness of ca 20-30 m) with endemic Caspian mollusks Didacna, Monodacna, Adacna, and Hypanis widely distributed from the Caspian Sea to the Dardanelles including waterways between the basins. At the beginning (16-15 ka BP), the flood was especially rapid, increasing the Caspian Sea level by 100-150 m, reaching +50 m and pushing the Volga River mouth upstream in ca 1,500 km. The discharge of the large (Volga, Don, Dnieper) and small rivers increased by 2-4 and 20-35 times respectively, causing megafloods. The high speed of the flood can be seen from incising river paleomeanders not filled with sediment. A large amount of water could not be kept in the Caspian depression and was discharged into the Neweuxinian basin (ancient Black Sea) through the Manych-Kerch Strait at a speed 50,000 m3 sec-1, and from there across the Bosporus to the Sea of Marmara. As a result, the level of the Black Sea increased by 60-70 m and reached a level of approximately -20 m at the end of the Pleistocene. Archeological evidence from the late Paleolithic sites (e.g., Kamennaya Balka, Avdeevo, Byki, and Kapova Cave) suggests that large-scale flooding of the coastal zone by water from the late Pleistocene basins together with river megafloods caused a reduction of available living space and hunting areas, resulting in a mass migration and subsequent increase in population density. The decrease in available food resources per capita affected everyday life of the Palaeolithic people and was likely to have stimulated the transition from hunting and gathering to farming and cattle breeding in the region. Thus, it is possible that this flood affected the Late Paleolithic people so deeply as to form the legend of the Great Flood.
-- LATE GLACIAL GREAT FLOOD IN THE BLACK SEA AND CASPIAN SEA
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.