Hi folks.
I'm sure those of you with a particular interest in flint knapping, archaeology, human development, etc., are well aware of the Stone Age Tools Museum, so please forgive me if this is old hat. http://www.stoneagetools.co.uk/ The site includes a free e.book which is brief and concise, but contains the most interesting information.
One reservation I have is that both Paleolithic and Neanderthal man are depicted naked, which I very much doubt was the case in Britain of the inter-glacial periods of 1 million to 60,000 years ago, which climate in Surrey I imagine was probably like northern Scotland or Scandinavia today... and i'd put money on it that there were midges!
Interesting that the Mesolithic seems to have spawned our first chuck-away society, in that the craftsmanship of fine tools had been more or less ditched for a sort of microlithic, do-it-on-the-run, downsizing, as the pace of life speeded up with more time on our hands, yet more work to do during the gradual advent of farming, hence, time for tearing down the old and the building of the new vision to come, the great standing stone complexes of Carnac in Bretagne; the fairly recent discovery of a temple complex on the causeway between the Ring of Brodgar and Stones of Stenness on Orkney, destroyed in the early Mesolithic and rebuilt in a different "rock on" form, (plus, http://www.orkneyjar.com/archaeolog...onument-under-the-water-of-the-stenness-loch/) and the later upgrading of Stonehenge.
What I find most confusing is that a recent excavation in search of Orkney's earliest Mesolithic settlers actually used the word "disappointed" when declaring that they'd only found some postholes and a few microliths. They must have been drinking in the wrong pubs!
Even more tantalising to me, and just so human, is the rediscovery of flint technology in the Neolithic which took the craft beyond all earlier bounds (the great public projects were done, the corn was sown, the kye at pasture, and time on our hands!) that first caught my eye as a ten year old discovering the sleek elegance of a barbed and tanged flint arrowhead behind Auld Aibbie's Farm, on what had been the bank of a mile wide post-glacial river running into the Firth of Forth. It was so beautiful a thing that he must have searched for it, and a 10 year old boy found it, 4, 5, 6 thousand years later. A mind expanding privilege!
When a building project was announced for that area, I tried to plead my case with the Regional Archaeologist, whose answer was that the ground had been fully surveyed and nothing of significance found... in a zone peppered with ancient defences, monuments, settlements and graveyards for miles around.
A cist burial, complete with urn and bronze dagger, was discovered when Mrs. McKechnie's son was digging the garden when I was a bairn, followed by another 3 round the doors. I can remember looking into one of the graves as the local Bobby tried to shoosh us away. The beautiful Ashgrove bronze knife, black horn handled and gold pinned, was taken from a gravesite in direct line of sight from where I found my arrowhead, and Time Team excavated, and was probably deceived in the playing down of, a site less than a mile away, where numerous Bronze Age children had been buried around the much older grave of an adult male, his own burial capped by a massive boulder. The find was declared after it was safe to do so, and the housing project was complete, as the most important gravesite found in the area in the last 30 years, and the capping stone is now a feature for the bairns to play on.
Ten years on, I still feel gutted every time I drive past those housing estates!
A perfect argument for putting an end to the conflict of interests that places the Regional Archaeology Dept within the Planning Dept. Outrageous!
Right, enough waffle! I've been threatening to get off my butt and take a stroll around a wee woodland I know and love (I wrote that an hour ago), so sorry for wasting your time if you were expecting some revelation when reading this, rather than my streams of consciousness. And thanks for reading it.
Cheers,
Pango.
I'm sure those of you with a particular interest in flint knapping, archaeology, human development, etc., are well aware of the Stone Age Tools Museum, so please forgive me if this is old hat. http://www.stoneagetools.co.uk/ The site includes a free e.book which is brief and concise, but contains the most interesting information.
One reservation I have is that both Paleolithic and Neanderthal man are depicted naked, which I very much doubt was the case in Britain of the inter-glacial periods of 1 million to 60,000 years ago, which climate in Surrey I imagine was probably like northern Scotland or Scandinavia today... and i'd put money on it that there were midges!
Interesting that the Mesolithic seems to have spawned our first chuck-away society, in that the craftsmanship of fine tools had been more or less ditched for a sort of microlithic, do-it-on-the-run, downsizing, as the pace of life speeded up with more time on our hands, yet more work to do during the gradual advent of farming, hence, time for tearing down the old and the building of the new vision to come, the great standing stone complexes of Carnac in Bretagne; the fairly recent discovery of a temple complex on the causeway between the Ring of Brodgar and Stones of Stenness on Orkney, destroyed in the early Mesolithic and rebuilt in a different "rock on" form, (plus, http://www.orkneyjar.com/archaeolog...onument-under-the-water-of-the-stenness-loch/) and the later upgrading of Stonehenge.
What I find most confusing is that a recent excavation in search of Orkney's earliest Mesolithic settlers actually used the word "disappointed" when declaring that they'd only found some postholes and a few microliths. They must have been drinking in the wrong pubs!
Even more tantalising to me, and just so human, is the rediscovery of flint technology in the Neolithic which took the craft beyond all earlier bounds (the great public projects were done, the corn was sown, the kye at pasture, and time on our hands!) that first caught my eye as a ten year old discovering the sleek elegance of a barbed and tanged flint arrowhead behind Auld Aibbie's Farm, on what had been the bank of a mile wide post-glacial river running into the Firth of Forth. It was so beautiful a thing that he must have searched for it, and a 10 year old boy found it, 4, 5, 6 thousand years later. A mind expanding privilege!
When a building project was announced for that area, I tried to plead my case with the Regional Archaeologist, whose answer was that the ground had been fully surveyed and nothing of significance found... in a zone peppered with ancient defences, monuments, settlements and graveyards for miles around.
A cist burial, complete with urn and bronze dagger, was discovered when Mrs. McKechnie's son was digging the garden when I was a bairn, followed by another 3 round the doors. I can remember looking into one of the graves as the local Bobby tried to shoosh us away. The beautiful Ashgrove bronze knife, black horn handled and gold pinned, was taken from a gravesite in direct line of sight from where I found my arrowhead, and Time Team excavated, and was probably deceived in the playing down of, a site less than a mile away, where numerous Bronze Age children had been buried around the much older grave of an adult male, his own burial capped by a massive boulder. The find was declared after it was safe to do so, and the housing project was complete, as the most important gravesite found in the area in the last 30 years, and the capping stone is now a feature for the bairns to play on.
Ten years on, I still feel gutted every time I drive past those housing estates!
A perfect argument for putting an end to the conflict of interests that places the Regional Archaeology Dept within the Planning Dept. Outrageous!
Right, enough waffle! I've been threatening to get off my butt and take a stroll around a wee woodland I know and love (I wrote that an hour ago), so sorry for wasting your time if you were expecting some revelation when reading this, rather than my streams of consciousness. And thanks for reading it.
Cheers,
Pango.
