3 - The Late Upper Palaeolithic (Epi-Palaeolithic) and the Mesolithic periods
The dating of these periods has been greatly improved by the use of a new method of radiocarbon dating known as AMS (Accelerator mass spectrometry) which allows very much smaller samples of organic matter to be used and can push back the timespan for using radiocarbon from 50,000 to 80,000 years.
Climatic research has shown that the period from c1300BP to after 10,000BP was one of fluctuating temperatures and the climate does not seem to have settled down to a regular improvement in temperature until after that time. This had an effect upon the vegetation that changed in step with the improving climate into a flora that we are familiar with today. At Kent's Cavern, near Torquay in Devon, grasses and sedges seem to have been the commonest together with juniper, willow and crowberry in the pollen sequence of the plants growing around the cave c12000BP, while oak and elm trees do not make a significant appearance until after 10000BC.
The earliest dates for what some describe as the re-occupation of Britain lie between 12000 and 13000BP and are based upon bone and antler that was shaped by the hunter/gatherers of the time. It seems that the tradition of making bone points that is represented in the Mesolithic Star Carr site had begun at least by the twelfth millenium BC when some hunter dropped one on the (then dry) North Sea bed. The point is very similar to those from Star Carr.
Occupation during the Epi-Palaeolithic period was in caves. Open sites only became common during the Mesolithic period. The Mendip region of north Somerset has several sites with good assemblages of material of this period. At Aveline's Hole the flint industry consists mainly of backed tools (tools blunted at one side so that they would not cut the hand of the user) and a bone point was found as well. A human bone from the level gave a date of 9114BP.
Gough's Cave is the most prolific Late Upper Palaeolithic site in Britain. It has provided examples of two kinds of flints that are typical of this period. One is the Cheddar point with a double- angled back that produces a trapeze-like shape and the other the Creswellian point with a single-angled blunted back and both were probably used as either knives or points. Bone implements included a baton with a hole bored through the broad end of the antler, a decorated rib bone, an awl and human bone which provided a date of 9080BP.
Occupation has been found at King Arthur's cave, Herefordshire, at Paviland cave in South Wales, on Gower in Cathole cave and in caves in Pembrokeshire, particularly at Hoyle's Mouth cave where there was a large assemblage of flint tools including 42% of backed implements.
Another group of cave sites lies in Derbyshire, in the Creswell Crags area. At Robin Hood's cave along with flint tools were the bones of horses, reindeer, red deer, hyena, hares, voles and lemmings. Backed tools formed a large percentage of the tools at Mother Grundy's Parlour together with the bones of horses, bison and giant Irish deer. From Pin Hole cave comes the only representation of a human figure in palaeolithic Britain scratched on a rib bone. At Church Hole an eyed needle was found and at Fox Hole cave a buried brown bear skull. At Langwith cave tools of the period were associated with human remains and hearths.
A rare open site has been excavated at Hengistbury Head in Hampshire where Creswell points, scrapers, awls and burins were amongst the tool assemblage. An arrangement of stones on the site has suggested to the excavator that it may have been used to hold down the edges of a skin tent. The site must have stood on a high point overlooking a plain to the south which is now covered by the English Channel.
On the basis of human remains recovered, although not all preserved, mainly from Aveline's Hole, a tentative suggestion has been made that, during the Epi-Palaeolithic period, the number of hunter- gatherers in Britain lay somewhere between 500 and 5000. The main sources of animal food seemed to have been horses and reindeer involving hunting using Cheddar and Creswellian points, shouldered points and tanged points.
The best-known site of the earlier Mesolithic period is Star Carr, dated to 10,700BP by AMS. The site is near Scarborough and during the Mesolithic was on the edge of a lake where hunter/gatherers laid down a substantial wooden platform. This is one of a number of similar sites along the lake margin. Further excavations have taken place during the 1980s and more platform was discovered which contained at least two split and worked planks. Apparently, charcoal particles in the peat suggest successive horizons of burning of the reed swamp vegetation around the margins of the sites which themselves probably represent successive re-occupations over a number of years.
A wide range of organic materials was preserved in the waterlogged and peaty area including a wooden paddle, rolls of birch bark, deer antler, bones of roe deer, red deer and elk. Red deer antler frontlets may have been used for disguise in hunting or for rituals. Most of the materials could have been obtained from places within one hour's walk of the site. Bone- and skin-working seem to have been the main activities. The flint assemblages therefore contained a high proportion of burins and scrapers, tools for these tasks. There were eight or so hearths. The excavation of Star Carr was the first time that a mesolithic settlement was viewed as a camp site and interpreted anthropologically.
Tool industries of the Mesolithic period in Britain are divided into two. Earlier technology is characterised by a high proportion of obliquely blunted blades among the microliths while the later narrow blade industries have smaller, more varied microliths such as scalene triangles. Microliths are very small blades which could only be used by being hafted as arrow points or placed side by side in a grooved handle of wood, antler or bone and used as saws or sickles.
Another important early Mesolithic site was found at Broxbourne in Herefordshire which is more typical of the character of sites normally found. What there was there was a scatter of flints from a single temporary occupation. There were 28 scrapers, 25 microliths (almost all obliquely-blunted points), two burins and two core (tranchet) axeheads.
In northern England a large number of upland sites have been discovered. Some have been suggested as summer camps of hunters whose base camps were in the lowlands below the Pennines. It is in this area that regular burning of forest cover was practised by these hunters in order to improve the grazing for red deer.
The earliest evidence for man in Ireland is during the Mesolithic period. The site at Mount Sandel in Co. Derry lies on a bluff above the River Bann. Postholes of several near-circular huts up to six metres in diameter with central hearths. A series of pits in groups may have been used for storage. The flint assemblage has mainly geometric microliths of the narrow blade form. There are no burins, few scrapers, some core (tranchet) axeheads and some flake axeheads. The most common animal remains were wild pigs but there were hares, birds and fish bones. Autumn/winter occupation is suggested for the site and the date somewhere between 9000 and 7500BP.
Narrow Blade geometric industries in England and Wales belong to the second part of the Mesolithic period. Sometime round about 8000BC Britain was separated from Europe by the rise in sea-level consequent upon the melting of the northern ice-sheets. This meant that the subsequent development in microlith technology that happened on the Continent did not reach Britain.
Evidence for coastal sites is greater in the later Mesolithic, earlier sites having been lost to marine transgression and the sinking of the southern North Sea region. As supplies of food from the coast are far more regular than inland and, indeed, are available all the year round, it is possible for people to stay longer in campsites in these littoral situations.
At Culver Well, on the Isle of Purbeck, in Dorset, a large shell midden consisting of limpet and winkle remains, flint artifacts and charcoal was partly covered by a 'floor' of limestone slabs 3-4m wide and over 31m long. The most common microlith was the scalene shape and there were numbers of heavier 'picks', presumably for prising limpets off rocks. Chert was used as a raw material for artifacts. Charcoal from hearths within the midden and under the limestone has provided dates of round about 8000BP.
A site where seafood was not the only diet was found at Westward Ho! in Devon where a midden containing mussel, limpet shells, bones of deer, pig and hedgehog and flints was overlain by a layer of peat dated to c7000BP.
In Wales the best-known sites are all littoral with middens of mussel, limpet and whelk shells, flints and limpet scoops (elongated beach pebbles).
In Ireland there appears to be division between Earlier and Later Mesolithic stages. Coastal regions and river valleys seem to have been the areas frequented by hunter/gatherers. Pig may have been a more important prey than red deer.
In Scotland the site of Morton, Tentsmuir Sands in Fife, has been extensively excavated. A littoral site, it produced an assemblage of stone tools made from a whole range of rocks. There were also some bone tools. Postholes have been interpreted as the foundations of shelters made from branches and/or skins. Animal bones included red and roe deer, aurochs and pig while guillemot, gannet, cormorant and razorbill remains were present. Fish included cod, haddock, turbot, sturgeon and salmon or sea-trour as well as twenty different kinds of marine molluscs and a large quantity of common crab remains. The vegetable food ranged over fat hen, corn spurrey, orache and chickweed while off-shore fishing must have been done with the use of a boat and, indeed, one was discovered in the nineteenth century at the site which was 4.5m in length and about a metres wide with a dug-out cavity measuring 1.8m by 0.6m deep.
The Morton evidence suggests discontinuous occupation by small groups ranging over a territory in which they seasonally exploited a variety of habitats - coastal, estaurine, lowland and upland. Radiocarbon determinations suggest a concentration of occupation around 6500 to 6300BP.
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