4.3 Subsistence

Direct evidence of the subsistence strategies of the Neolithic inhabitants of south-east Scotland is very sparse. There are no cultivation traces (such as spade- or ard-marks) and soil conditions are not favourable to the survival of bone. Only carbonised organics, and absorbed lipids in pottery survive.  

The paucity of bone applies to human remains as well as to faunal remains, and the only human remains that survive from this part of Scotland are cremated. Cremated bone survives from Duns Law Farm and Meldon Bridge Scottish Borders; Eweford East and West and Pencraig Hill, East Lothian (SESARF Chapter 4.6). This means that it is not possible to obtain dietary information from the extant human remains, since currently the only isotopic data that can be obtained from calcined human bone are strontium ratios, which inform on mobility, rather than diet (Snoeck et al 2018). The analysis of carbon and nitrogen ratios in human bone to inform on diet cannot be undertaken on calcined bone (Bird et al 2022). It would, nonetheless, be worth trying strontium isotope analysis on the cremated human bone to investigate mobility. 

Nevertheless, it is possible to create a broad-brush picture on the basis of evidence at our disposal, and to use from evidence elsewhere in Neolithic Scotland (and Britain more widely) to infer the subsistence strategies of these early farming communities. 

Evidence from absorbed lipids was obtained by Lucy Cramp et al (2014) at the University of Bristol from Early Neolithic Carinated Bowl sherds from Doon Hill, East Lothian and The Hirsel, Scottish Borders. Degraded animal fats were found in both of the sets of samples, indicating that the pots had been used to cook meat. At the Hirsel this was ruminant meat from the carcasses of cattle, sheep or goats. The Hirsel samples also confirmed the presence of dairy lipids, which indicate that the early farmers practised dairy farming, keeping their domestic ruminants for both meat and for milk. Also present in one of the Hirsel samples were traces of epicuticular wax from plant matter that had been cooked alongside the meat, suggesting the former presence of some kind of meat and vegetable stew. The distinctive distribution of mid-chain ketones (C₃₁-C₃₅) indicated that the meat had been heated to over 300°C. This evidence is consistent with the evidence from other lipid analyses of Early Neolithic pottery in Britain. 

Cramp et al (2014) also tested for the presence of marine lipids, and found none. In the Britain-wide project only two Neolithic pots were found to contain traces of marine lipids from settlements at Lesmurdie Road, Elgin, Moray (a Carinated Bowl) and Barpa Langais, North Uist (a Hebridean Incised Neolithic Pot). Moreover, isotopic analysis of Neolithic human remains from coastal areas in Britain (for example Richards and Schulting 2006) has confirmed that, at least as far as the Early Neolithic is concerned, there seems to have been a deliberate avoidance of the exploitation of marine resources by the early farmers who arrived from the near Continent. Sheridan and Pétrequin (2014) provide a discussion of the debate about Neolithic marine resource exploitation pointing out that a low level of consumption can leave no isotopic trace. However, the absence of Early Neolithic fishing equipment in Scotland does support the view that the early farmers did not fish. 

What little faunal bone material survives supports the evidence obtained from the lipid analysis. At Eweford West, East Lothian, clusters of unburnt bones and a tooth of cattle were found among stones – many of them burnt – that were used to cover a pit where one or more ox or cow had probably been cooked, seemingly as part of feasting activities associated with the establishment of the funerary monument there (Lelong and MacGregor 2007, 20; Smith 2007a). One fragment of bone had cut-marks suggestive of butchery, and a radiocarbon date of 3960-3780 cal BC (SUERC-5280, 5065±35 BP) was obtained from a cattle radius. 

At the Middle Neolithic settlement at Overhailes, East Lothian, a very small burnt phalange of a pig was found (Lelong and MacGregor 2007, 104; Smith 2007b) but it was impossible to tell whether this had been a domestic pig or a wild boar. Evidence from elsewhere in Neolithic Britain (eg Claish, Stirling: Smith 2002) has confirmed that domestic pigs were among the domesticated animals brought over by boat by the incoming Continental farmers. 

Sheep will also have been brought over, along with dogs, and at Eweford West, a calcined fragment from a sheep or goat astragalus was found above the layer containing the cattle bones (Smith 2007a).

As for whether goats were among the domestic livestock brought over to Britain by Continental farmers, Catherine Smith’s recent review of the evidence (Smith 2022) has concluded that there is no definite evidence that this was the case. The claim for the presence of goat faeces in an Early Neolithic context at Maybole, South Ayrshire (Becket and MacGregor 2009) requires investigation using ZooMS, and the reference to goats in reports on lipid analysis of Neolithic pottery is due to the generic identification of ruminant carcass and dairy lipids: ruminant species encompass cattle, sheep and goats. 

The evidence for plant foods from Neolithic south-east Scotland is more abundant, confirming that several varieties of wheat and barley – which will have been brought across the sea by the pioneering farming groups, as seedcorn – were cultivated (Table 4.1). Oats, attested at Ratho Quarry (and elsewhere in Scotland), may have been introduced more as an accidental by-crop and were probably not cultivated as a crop in its own right during the Neolithic (Bishop et al 2009, 88).

Elsewhere in Scotland, evidence for the cultivation of flax from the Early Neolithic has been found for example at Lockerbie Academy, Dumfries and Galloway (Bishop et al 2009, no. 45). 

It is clear, from the evidence from south-east Scotland and elsewhere in Neolithic Britain, that the early farming communities were exploiting wild food resources as well as domesticated plants and animals. Hazelnuts regularly appear in Neolithic plant assemblages. Bishop et al’s (2009) review of the plant foods in Neolithic Scotland lists other wild food resources, including crab apples and various berries and seeds, that have been found in other parts of Scotland. 

The exploitation of wild animals is also attested elsewhere in Neolithic Scotland – the intriguing find of an Early Neolithic flatbow at Rotten Bottom, high in the Moffat hills, Dumfries and Galloway, suggests it was probably used in a deer hunt (Sheridan 1999) – but no definite evidence for hunting has yet been discovered in south-east Scotland. 

The coastal location of the finds of Neolithic pottery in East Lothian, at Hedderwick (Middle and Late Neolithic: Callander 1929; Stevenson 1946), ‘Tusculum’, North Berwick (probably Middle Neolithic: Cree 1908, fig. 10) and on the Archerfield Estate (Late Neolithic: Curle 1908), raises the question of whether marine resources were exploited over the course of the Neolithic period. Unfortunately, the association between the pottery and marine food refuse found in the ‘middens’ is not sufficient to be sure that they are contemporary. The ‘middens’ in question also contained Beaker pottery and, without directly dating the shells, it is impossible to tell whether the shellfish were collected during the Neolithic or during the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age.