OBAN PEOPLE MAY BE 8,500 YEARS OLD, SOME OF THEM

Scottish harpoon head made from the antler of deer. Dated to 4500 bc. Impressive?

Oban is famous amongst archaeologists who study very ancient people. Rubbish found in caves in the area has been dated to Mesolithic times. Because Mesolitihc people did not have permanent sites, they moved from place to place, their remains are very few and far between. Some of them are now underwater as sea levels have risen.

Dating evidence shows that the Oban finds were of the time when the older Mesolithic people, morphed into the Neolithic people who tended to farm and stay in one spot. It is the dating of this borderline between the two which makes the place so unique and important. Why, how, did the hunter gatherers, turn into farmers? This period is actually called the Obanian period.

On a Ne/Sw ridge facing inland is the rock shelter, Druimvargie. Inside they discovered marine shells, crab claws, red deer bones fish and wild fowl all in a midden.

Basically these middens are mounds of rubbish. This can be analysed in many different ways these days, and dated. They are found all around Oban Bay, for example near Dunollie castle, and they have found some on the Island of Oronsay nearby.

One other interesting thing. Very interesting if you have a mind like mine. The early Neolithic people in this area depended upon the sea for a living. They knew about navigation, about tides, about holding a course, about waypoints, about navigable channels, about boat handling, This was different from the knowledge of people from the interior. Professor Barry Cunliffe, the only famous one who is not on Time Team suggests that these higher skills would have given these coastal people a much higher status in ancient communities. They were the ones who could bring in the exotic stuff from foreign parts. They were the ones with tales to tell of far away lands.

Bring it up to date more and for centuries the MacDonald clan sailed these waters and commanded all the Islands. No one could move here without a MacDonald say so. About 1,000 years it lasted. Not for nothing were they called the Lords of the Isles.

Yes, I know. Every now and again, I go off on one. Hobby horsing around again...
John
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They've found your ancestor's house. 240 generations ago

The first farmers and the first villages in Scotland started probably 6,000 yeas ago. They have just found the remains of some of them, in Oban.

This is how Moira Kerr reported it in the Herald.

"Working on a routine survey of a Scottish hillside archaeologists have uncovered a treasure chest of historic artefacts dating back 6000 years. The find was made during preparatory work for a new housing development in Oban and is the biggest of its kind in mainland Argyll in recent years.


It includes a Stone Age or Neolithic axehead, dating back 5000-6000 years, three prehistoric roundhouses which are up to 3000 years old, and the remains of an 18th-century farmstead and metalwork store."

The little stones pictured lie here to-day on the shore of Kentallen Bay. You can see them from our cottage window. If they are the most recent rocks then they are over 50 million yeas old, the product of numerous volcanos. They are probably considerably older.

Almost certainly, a mesolithic hamlet would have existed here in 4,000bc. The conditions for farming, fresh water and sea fishing were ideal. Temperatures were much warmer, treelines were higher, the lions and elephants had been wiped out, the dog domesticated. Britain was already an island, and chambered cairns were being built - one in Ballachulish. It was savage, but liveable - just. The greatest danger came from other human beings.

They suffered from midgies, too.

John

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Do you want to do an archaeological dig in Scotland?

On the Island of Colonsay, South of Oban, they have identified over 60 ancient pre-historical sites. They are finding signs of houses, burial sites, and rock shelters as well as bone tools. The dig is also revealing how people may have lived in ancient times.
They will need volunteers next year, and if you would like to apply to the team they'll be happy to hear from you. They will start again in February. Who knows, you might be spotting a 7,000 year old stone tool from the Mesolithic period.

Contact Kilmartin House Museum, at 01546 510278 or email museum@kilmartin.org

John

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Ancient Scottish hunter-gatherers traced to Benderloch, in Appin

Reconstruction of Mesolithic settlement in Finland.

When our girls were young we used to go caravanning at Ledaig, near Benderloch on the Oban road. Once we climbed a small hill overlooking the village and picked up a tiny rock which seemed to be sliced into layers, interleaved with fibres, which looked burnt. It could not be natural.

I sent it to the British Museum who sent a report back to me that it looked like the remains of a Vitrified Fort. These strange embankments have no lime or cement to hold the stones together. It seems to have been done by the application of intense heart. But no one knows why. I remember our young Joanne was particularly disinterested at the time. When you are seven you have other things on your mind.

Now the archaeologists have gone back a lot further. They’ve found the bones of the Mesolithic people at the end of a garden in Benderloch. They lived between 3,500 and 5,000 years ago. They’ve found a jawbone and other bones and have uncovered some caves – in a garden! They think there are the remains of two individuals there possibly a youngster s well.

Times past, people roamed throughout Scotland, in small tribal groups. For 4,000 years, after the ice retreated the climate was warmer and wetter, For their living, woodland was good with its plant gathering possibilities, rivers and sea were good for fishing, They travelled, pursuing herds of animals as they moved inland in the Summer and to the West Coast in the Winter with its more tranquil, warmer climate. They butchered the animals with their stone tools, cooked the fish on open hearths. Nuts, fish and game is what they ate.

But the West Coast had one other thing in its favour. Caves. Caves were the housing estates of the day. Lewisian gneiss one of the oldest rocks in the world and it is perfect for creating rock shelters. That is what we have around this part of the country.

You know, this land is absolutely marvellous. We can trace the story of our people from the Mesolithics in their caves, the Neolithics with their the standing stones which are everywhere. The biggest in Argyll is just 2 miles down the road from the cottage. Then we have the unexplained vitrified Forts and the equally mysterious Brochs – on Lismore.

The duns and burial mounds of Kilmartin, the early Scots from Ireland, St Columba, the clash between the early Gaels and the Picts, followed by the Vikings, then their settlement and integration with the population. Angus Og, son of Somerled ruled the Western Isles and formed an alliance with Robert the Bruce. He won the War of Scottish Independence at the famous Battle of Bannockburn. This led directly to the Stewart Kings and Queens. The first Stewart to rule was his son-in-law. He led directly to Mary Queen’s of Scots, her son, James, the first Stewart King of England, ending with Bonnie Prince Charlie himself.

The rest is history.

What a place this is!

John
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