Mesolithic People Research Articles

Mid-Flandrian (Atlantic) landslide activity in the South Pennines

SUMMARY Investigation of the Coldside landslide in the Vale of Edale, Derbyshire, has revealed fresh evidence of landslide activity during late Atlantic time. The toe of the landslide overlies a brown loam rich in charcoal fragments which have been radiocarbon-dated to 5860 ± 120 years BP. A radiocarbon date of 5560 ± 80 years BP obtained from basal peat in a slump depression near the top of the landslide tends to confirm pollen evidence that the likely period of landslide activity was during the late Atlantic between approximately 6000 and 5500 years BP. This coincides with the time that Mesolithic peoples had deliberately used fire for forest clearance and hunting, and the occurrence of charcoal fragments trapped beneath the landslide raises the possibility of inadvertent landscape modification by human activity in the Mesolithic.

Early mesolithic disturbance: A force on the landscape

The first palaeoecological record from a wetland site located on the English chalk has provided data indicating that the early post-glacial flora of the Yorkshire Wolds contained a strong species-rich grassland element. It is suggested that before post-glacial forests had become fully established, mesolithic peoples had occupied the area and were causing forest disturbance as early as c. 8900 bp. Consequently, the species-rich grasslands, which had never been completely ousted by the initial forest expansion, were able to survive the Boreal and Atlantic periods and were a consistent component of the post-glacial chalkland landscape.

Blood groups of the Irish

Some 1800 blood donors from the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland have been tested for the antigens A A1 B H; M N Ss Henshaw; C c Cw D Du E e Ce; Wra; P1; Lua; K k Kpa; Fya Fyb; and Rd (Radin). The results are compared with those already available for Ireland and an attempt is made to interpret them in terms of populations movements. With the exception of the high O frequency in the West, believed to represent the remnants of Mesolithic peoples, the blood groups are very similar to those in the rest of Europe, and show no significant differences between the different provinces in Ireland.

THE NATUFIAN CULTURE: The Life and Economy of a Mesolithic People in the Near East. By Dorothy A. E. Garrod. (Proceedings of the British Academy, vol. XLIII, 1957, pp. 211–227.) Oxford University Press, Amen House, London, E.C.4.(Off-print pp. 16 with 9 plates. 4s.

THE NATUFIAN CULTURE: The Life and Economy of a Mesolithic People in the Near East. <i>By</i> Dorothy A. E. Garrod. (<i>Proceedings of the</i> British Academy, vol. XLIII, 1957, pp. 211–227.) Oxford University Press, Amen House, London, <i>E.C.</i>4.(<i>Off-print</i> pp. 16 <i>with 9 plates</i>. 4<i>s</i>.

Mesolithic Dwellings at Farnham, Surrey

EXHIBITS illustrating the culture of the inhabitants of mesolithic pit-dwellings at Farnham, Surrey, are now on view in the Prehistoric Galleries of the British Museum (Bloomsbury). These dwellings, on a site which is the only one of its kind as yet found in Britain, have been excavated by Dr. and Mrs. Grahame Clark. The results of the excavation, which has occupied two seasons, were described by Dr. Clark at a recent meeting of the Prehistoric Society. The site of the settlement, which is the property of the Farnham Urban District Council, consists of a number of irregularly shaped pits, three feet deep in places, which have been scraped out of the gravel of the old Blackwater River. These pits represent the chief habitations of a mesolithic people, who probably spent their summers hunting on the Lower Greensand, when they lived in temporary shelters. Four huts have been excavated. In one pit there was a hearth and near another there were signs of a post, which probably had supported some light framework arranged tent-wise. Generally, however, the roofing seems to have been of the nature of a lean-to. Large numbers of microlithic implements were discovered, with flint axes, scrapers and waste flint cores and flakes. Altogether, between forty and fifty thousand worked flints have been discovered, and fifteen thousand flints cracked by fire have been found. These houses are, as stated, the first of their kind to be found in Britain; and they probably represent the first type of habitation in use in Britain other than the cave. They are considered to date from about 3000 B.C., and support the contention that artificially constructed dwellings are more ancient than has been thought. On the Continent, evidence is accumulating that mesolithic man was nomadic, inhabiting light shelters in the summer, and more or less permanent dwellings, usually of the pit-dwelling type, in the winter. The exhibits now shown in the British Museum are drawn from two of the dwellings excavated, and include a large and representative selection of the implements found.