Category Archives: Hunter-gatherer-fisher

Anything hunter-gatherer.

Severn Estuary | Mesolithic rescue archaeology ahead of barrage

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GoldcliffExtending from human and animal footprints preserved in mud at Goldcliff East (Newport, south Wales), Prof Martin Bell (University of Reading) heads a project to recover Mesolithic artefactual and environmental evidence ahead of the construction of the Severn barrage. The barrage will artificially raise water levels and so the archaeology is at risk of silting and erosion.

Prof Bell said the proposed Severn tidal barrage would have “very serious consequences” on a site that was “giving archaeologists an unparalleled glimpse into the life of a Stone Age settlement”.

» BBC coverage 6-Jan-2013 |  » Scoop.it Mesolithic News | UK Mesolithic Sites and Finds →

Mesolithic | Hazel Nuts : Britain’s first farmed food? | Guest blog

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HazelnutsHazel Nuts: Britain’s first farmed food? Part 3 »

Francis Pryor’s (blog) experiments with our first Great British Post-Glacial staple. The humble hazelnut: favourite of our Mesolithic ancestors, gathered (excuse the pun?) by the quantities found on some sites like Howick, Northumberland. But why did they burn them | or how did they get burnt? Hazelnuts are also a staple for archaeologists who want and need Radiocarbon (AMS) dating for their sites. They’re a short-lived species and therefore much better than “old wood”.

I mean the hazelnuts, not the archaeologists.

♦ Spence | Old Wood

World Ends | Mesolithic dreamscape | Northern lights

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Dear microburins,

Northern LightsWith the world ending today (21-Dec), and my perennial procrastination around lithic assemblage analysis (I promise 2013 would be better if it weren’t all ending today!) I wonder what our Mesolithic forebears made of this? How do you spin a story about green and purple lights for 6,000+ years if not 700 thousand years and more? What part of your social psyche does it re-enforce or challenge?

A Mesolithic child buried on a swan’s wing (Denmark)?

♦ Spence

Search for Mesolithic campsite continues | NE Yorkshire Coast | PastHorizons News

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Microburin Goldsborough flint findenjoying lithic finds during 2012 fieldwork at Goldsborough near Whitby on the north-east coast of Yorkshire.

Could this be the site of another Howick or more?

Discover more | Past Horizons article 17-Dec-2012 » | UK Mesolithic Sites and Finds →

PastHorizons homepage »

Name three things you find in the Whitby Gazette | Mesolithic?

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Sea-faring news | Adventure archaeology | The best fish & chips in the world

Image_Goldsborough_FieldwalkingDear microburins,

I’m teasing slightly, but glad to see archaeology in local news in North Yorkshire—and a new scoop-it mesolithic news item from the Whitby Gazette.

The North-East Yorkshire Mesolithic Project is completing its current funded phase in 2013 by looking at a ‘coastal’ site near Whitby where flints recovered from volunteer and professionally led field walking suggest activity from the Mesolithic through the Neolithic and Bronze Age. Nearby locations complete the story through to the Roman period (farms, villas and signal stations), IMGP1251Anglo-Saxons (royalty) right up to the present. It’s also a stunning location today, right above cliffs (near Runswick Bay) with views southwards towards Whitby, north over some of the highest sea cliffs in England, eastwards toward Denmark and The Netherlands over the dark North Sea (there since only around 6500 BC).

I’m chuffed I made it into the volunteer field-walking pic (I’m the one in the middle) and may be able to eat Whitby fish & chips off myself? More seriously, the Mesolithic in NE England is compelling—a nexus of chronological, social and territorial themes—and back to the end of the last glaciation (Late Devensian) over 13,000 years ago.
Read more | Summer 2012 adventures →

♦ Spence

UK Mesolithic Sites and Finds | New page added

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Go to the UK Mesolithic Sites and Finds pageA selective list of recent projects, excavations and discoveries. Includes websites where available and media coverage—look out for the “biggest, tallest, deepest, oldest” headlines.

Regional research frameworks, also included, provide a useful review of current knowledge across periods and heritage themes, archaeological assets, historical contexts, gaps in knowledge, research priority recommendations and extensive bibliographies.

Feel free to contribute more! | Go to the UK Mesolithic Sites & Finds page →

♦ Spence