Mesolithic lives in Scotland / Graeme Warren.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Warren, Graeme.

Contributor:

George Clapp Vaillant Book Fund.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Mesolithic period--Scotland.

Mesolithic period.

Prehistoric peoples--Scotland.

Prehistoric peoples.

Scotland.

Physical Description:

160 pages : illustrations (some color) ; 25 cm

Place of Publication:

Stroud : Tempus, 2005.

Summary:

The mesolithic, or middle stone age, dates from the end of the last Ice Age at c.9600 BC until the adoption of farming at approximately 4000 BC. At this time, varied communities of hunter-gatherers settled the space now called Scotland. These groups lived from the wild resources available in the diverse, striking and changing landscapes that surrounded them. For approximately half of Scotland's past it has been a land of hunter-gatherers: and yet the stories of those lives are rarely told.

This book seeks to redress some of this loss. Introducing a rich variety of evidence, from pollen analysis through to deliberate deposition of human bones, Graeme Warren's account focuses on understandings of landscape, skilled practices such as seafaring, scales of community, and the routines that constituted the fundamental rhythms of life. Other discussions include environmental and landscape change, appropriate scales and methods of analysis, and interpreting mesolithic stone tool manufacture. Written for the general reader, evening class student, undergraduate or postgraduate student and a professional audience, and including the latest research, this book offers a vivid archaeology of the distant past that can be found in some very familiar places in the Scottish landscape.

Contents:

Introduction: the mesolithic in the modern world 9

1 Time and the mesolithic 23

2 The changing landscape 44

3 Living among the trees 63

4 The stuff of life 78

5 Craft and skill 97

6 Space and place 116

7 Communities 134

Epilogue: thinking about real conditions 151.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the George Clapp Vaillant Book Fund.

ISBN:

0752434489

OCLC:

61425627