Released gamekeeper's pigs lead archaeologists to earliest human activity in Scotland
This article originally appeared on Culture24.
Released pigs and volcanic ash help identify one of Scotland’s best-preserved Mesolithic sites
Dr Karen Wicks, who led a set of excavations which found Ice Age tools in Scotland, with some of the pigs who helped detect them© Courtesy University of ReadingThe pigs had been released on Islay to reduce bracken in 2009, but unearthed a distinctive set of Mesolithic objects made by the Ahrensburgian culture which flourished in mainland Europe towards the end of the last Ice Age.
A tip-off by a resident who knew about earlier excavations by experts on the island then led to a remarkable set of finds by a team from the University of Reading.
Late glacial chipped stone tools from Rubha Port ant-Seilich© Courtesy University of Reading“Archaeology relies on expert planning and careful analysis - but a bit of luck is also very welcome.
“The Mesolithic finds were a wonderful discovery, but what was underneath took our breath away.
“The Ice Age tools provide the first unequivocal presence of people in Scotland about 3,000 years earlier than previously indicated. This moves the story of Islay into a new historical era, from the Mesolithic into the Palaeolithic.
"Western Scotland was the northwest frontier of the Ice Age world, a continuous landmass stretching across Europe to Asia. It was originally thought that people first arrived in Scotland after the end of the ice age, around 10,500 years ago.
“However, we now know that a group of ice age hunter-gatherers visited Islay much earlier, discarding broken stone tools at what we think was maybe a camp site, on the island's east coast.
"At that time the highlands of northwest Scotland remained covered by glaciers and Britain was still attached to the continent by low-lying bogs and marshes – a region we now call Doggerland.
“We believe there were windows of opportunity, probably in the summer months, during the closing stages of the Ice Age when people would have visited Rubha Port an t-Seilich. It would have provided easy access via a sheltered bay to a rich array of natural resources from the sea, coast and land.
"The Ice Age hunters likely sailed in skin boats along the rivers and marshes of Doggerland and then around the north of Scotland to arrive at its west coast, where Rubha Port an t-Seilich provided an attractive camp site.”
Sites from the culture in Denmark and Sweden suggest the Ahrensburgian people may have been coastal foragers who hunted sea mammals from skin boats. Stone tools, animal bones, plant remains and a fireplace were also found before the spectacular final day discoveries, which were dated using tests on microscopic fragments of volcanic ash found at Rubha Port an t-Seilich.
"The 2013 trial excavation only scratched the surface of what might be buried at Rubha Port an t-Seilich,” said Dr Wicks, keenly anticipating a new phase of work which will come seven years after the pigs glimpsed prehistory.
“Excavation of the underlying Ice Age campsite there will take us into completely new archaeological territory for Scotland. We can't wait to go back next year."
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Three museums to see Mesolithic finds in
Museum of Islay Life, Argyll
The main collection includes more than 2,700 objects as diverse as stone implements used in the Mesolithic era, Victorian and Edwardian items from the Laird's house, farming implements and everything necessary for an illicit still. There are also relics from shipping disasters, more than 1,200 books, very substantial paper archives and nearly 5,000 photographs, some dating back more than 100 years.
Hull and East Riding Museum
Many of the finds displayed in the Prehistoric Galleries were originally collected by JR Mortimer, one of the most important amateur archaeologists of the 19th century. These include stone tools of the earliest human settlers.
Clun Town Trust Museum, Shropshire
This small and impressive independent museum includes a unique, noted collection of more than 6,000 flints from the Mesolithic period.
