lanarkshire-1978/03_035

Transcription

PART II. THE MONUMENTS

1. THE MESOLITHIC PERIOD (c. 6500-4000BC)

The earliest evidence for Man's presence in Lanarkshire comes from eight sites which have
yielded surface scatters of primitive stone implements of Mesolithic type. Made usually of
chert or mudstone. and occasionally of flint, these artifacts indicate intermittent settlement
by small bands of people whose economy was based primarily on hunting, fishing and gather-
ing. Five of the sites, Eastfield (NT 014362), Annieston (NS 996366), Quothquan Law Farm
(NS 983381), Parkhouse (NS 987391) and Bagmoors (NS 951434), occur on the arable haughs
bordering the River Clyde along a limited stretch between Symington and Pettinain; ¹ situated
at the western end of the Biggar Gap, these sites represent a westward extension of the early
settlement of the Tweed basin. The sixth and seventh sites, at Mountainblaw Farm (NS
975558) and Dunsyre (NT 071481), may belong to this general group, but it should be noted
that the presence of Arran pitchstone at Dunsyre may indicate contacts with the west, in
particular from Ballantrae on the Ayrshire coast. ² The eighth site is near Coatbridge, where
a considerable assemblage of worked tools and waste flakes was recovered from the north shore
of Woodend Loch (NS 708668). ³
The artifacts are not of sufficiently diagnostic types to allow firm conclusions to be drawn
about their dates and affinities. However, flake tools, scrapers, knives and a small number of
microliths show a general resemblance to those from sites in Peebleshire, ⁴ while in typological
terms several of the microliths from Woodend Loch appear to be late in the British sequence. ⁵
A date within the sixth or fifth millennium is proposed for the beginning of the Tweed valley
industries, and a similar date seems likely for those of Lanarkshire. Radiocarbon dates from
the shell-heap at Inveravon, West Lothian, indicate that Mesolithic occupation of this area
was certainly under way by the beginning of the fifth millennium BC. ⁶


2. THE NEOLITHIC PERIOD (c. 4000-2000 BC)

Only four monuments, two long cairns (Nos. 1 and 2) and two henges (Nos. 169 and 170),
together with a number of stone axes and other implements, can be attributed with certainty
to the earliest agricultural communities of Lanarkshire. It is, however, possible that some
of the small cairns (Nos. 60 and 64) that occur in the vicinity of the two long cairns may
themselves be of Neolithic date; the reasons are discussed below on p. 10.
The principal area in Lanarkshire settled by these early farmers appears to have been in
the Carnwath district, at the south-western end of the Pentland Hills, where the two long

1. Lacaillie, A D, The Stone Age in Scotland (1954), 187-93.
2. TDGAS, xlvii (1970, 86-7, 101.
3. PSAS, lxxxiii, (1948-9), 77-98.
4. TDGAS, xlvii, (1970), 81-110.
5. Cf. Jacobi, R M, in Koslowski, S K (ed.), The Mesolithic in
Europe (1973), 238, 250-2.
6. PPS, xxxviii (1972), 413-15.

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