4.5 Economy and Industry

77. Established models of how the ‘Mesolithic economy,’ or the ‘Upper Palaeolithic economy’ worked have been informed by theoretical models. These, in turn, have been heavily reliant upon ethnographic studies of hunter-gatherer societies with a comparable scale, technological ability, environment and resources. Such comparisons have generated the ‘seasonal round’ model (described in detail in Wright 2012, 45). This infers that groups moved between a range of settlement sites distributed throughout their local or regional territory. Visits were of short duration and exploited a varied range of natural resources. The degree of mobility was high, and the size of groups comparatively small, potentially organised along the lines of an extended family. 

78. Broadly, only the most durable artefacts have survived, with our assemblages dominated by flaked stone, known as ‘lithics’. These artefacts are commonly recovered from lithic scatters, these are spreads of lithic material that have been dispersed in the ploughsoil since deposition on a knapping floor (the surface where the stone was originally worked – knapped).  

79. As lithics are the fundamental marker for a site from this period, amost all published reports on sites from this period include analysis of a flaked stone assemblage however large or small. Across the last seventy years there has not been a consistent standard. Lacaille (1954) was an initial standard for the identification of different tool types which was then supplemented by Coles (1964). These texts do not provide a methodology for identification and analysis, rather they discuss their categorisation system, describing pieces and enabling other archaeologists to seek to adopt a common understanding. The identification and classification system was significantly enhanced and standarised in the early 1990s by the methodology and conventions of Wickham-Jones (1990) and Inizan, Roche & Tixier (1992). This in turn has been enhanced through consideration of Ballin (2000). However, there is commonly no ability to compare and contrast between lithic analyses across different specialists. 

80. Areas with dense concentrations of lithic scatters probably reflect long-term single-episode or frequent episodic settlement locations. These can commonly be recognised in the coastal zones like Glenluce Sands, Ballantrae, Girvan and Irvine Bay. The presence of evidence of manufacturing is not consistently co-located with settlement evidence. 

81. A lithic scatter most commonly comprises: nodules of the raw material (typically flint, chert, quartz or pitchstone); cores, which are the residual worked nodule from which blades and flakes have been struck; blades, flakes, microblades and chips of stone which have been removed from a core (known as debitage); and finished tools that have been retouched (specific types of tool are shaped by the removal of many smaller flakes); and coarse stone tools used in the working process (termed the ‘reduction’ process).  

82. Some of the finished tools are of types that appear in different periods – scrapers, burins, awls and blades. A distinctive tool of the Mesolithic was a small retouched lithic often less than 10mm in length that appears in a variety of geometric shapes that has been termed a microlith. These have been defined in several ways, but a good definition to follow is that quoted by Ballin (Ballin 2021, 4): 

‘Microliths are small lithic implements manufactured to form part of composite tools (mainly slotted bone points), either as tips or as edges/barbs, and which conform to a restricted number of well-known forms, which have had their (usually) proximal ends removed (Clark 1934a, 55). This definition secures the microlith as a diagnostic (pre Neolithic) type. Below, microliths sensu stricto (i.e. pieces which have had their usually proximal ends removed) and backed or truncated microblades (with surviving proximal ends) are treated as a group (‘microlith-related implements’), as these types are thought to have had the same general function.’ 

83. The reduction strategy of communities changed over time. When considering microliths, the Early Mesolithic (9800 to 8400 BC) knappers produced broad blade assemblages which included microliths that were isosceles triangles and obliquely blunted points. In contrast, Late Mesolithic (8400 to 4000 BC) knappers produced narrow blade assemblages – which are more common in excavated assemblages – that included microliths that were scalene triangles and crescents as well as edge-blunted forms. However, the move from broad to narrow blade assemblages was not an abrupt transition; rather, over centuries, there was a graduated move between these approaches. 

84. Analysis of the raw materials used has offered the potential to examine whether finished objects – or alternatively, the materials used to make them – travelled any distance from their source of origin, and if so, with what frequency. 

85. The knappers would use the most tractable stone available, that is, the stone that would fracture most predictably when force was applied – fracturing in a concoidal manner. Flint was a preferred stone, and most of the flint used in South West Scotland is Antrim flint. This flint is available as nodules of free flint in marine deposits in coastal locations, having been eroded from Antrim Chalk beds – so-called ‘beach flint’ (Gemmel and Kesel 1977). This enable recovery from both the modern and raised beach deposits along the Clyde and Solway with concentrations recognised in Irvine Bay, Luce Bay and Wigton Bay. Some Yorkshire flint is also evident in assemblages in small quantities; its means of transport to South West Scotland is uncertain. 

86. Another suitable stone is chert, which is available in the eastern, upland areas of the region, including around Loch Doon (Wickham-Jones 1986). Quartz is a highly varied stone that is more likely to be intractable to work, it is ubiquitous in South West Scotland and can appear within lithic assemblages but is rarely preferred. Arran offer a high quality volcanic glass, pitchstone, that is suitable for flaked stone tools. During this period pitchstone is almost solely used on Arran with almost no export of this raw material (Ballin 2009). However, pitchstone does appear to have been circulated off-island in small quantities with analysis of the lithic assemblage from West Challoch revealing a small number of pitchstone lithics from stratified Late Mesolithic deposits (Ballin 2021). 

87. There appear to be no substantive local or regional exchange networks of raw material or finished tools. The inference is that tool manufacture and repair appear to be opportunistic, using available raw materials worked to the immediate need of the individual knapper. Certain raw materials do not appear to have been sought out through exchange or travel in preference over others, even when their inherent qualities (as in pitchstone) made them particularly well-suited to the manufacture of the often-diminutive lithic types produced.  

88. There have been some instances where this trend can be challenged. The presence of non-local chert and amethyst on sites located east of the River Nith is a potential indication of contacts with inland sites around Annandale or Eskdale or even the Tweed Basin (Morrison 2010, 3).  

89. The lithic ‘industry’ can be characterised as small-scale, craft-based and focused on the creation of objects at or near the point of need. ‘Industry’ has also been used in lithic studies to describe objects which share sufficient traits in character and form, suggesting that they were made by those with affiliation to a particular social group. Creating these sometimes-complex forms would have been a skilled process, resulting in distinctive end products that performed their required tasks competently. The art of manufacturing such items must have been taught and passed through successive generations. Each practitioner could maintain a tradition exactly as taught, or adapt existing forms as they saw fit. Such individual decisions are now lost to us, but patterns of consistency and change over time remain perhaps the primary way of how material culture is organised into types and variants, which can then be mapped over discrete blocks of space and time.  

90. The distinctive character of the diminutive microliths has been particularly important in defining a distinct Mesolithic phase. Use of these microliths as barbs or armatures within hafts of wood or antler has been attested by the regular, close spacing of some examples recovered from around Luce Bay. Use in the hunting of large prey such as deer or perhaps even marine mammals might be inferred, but arrangements of microliths in a composite implement could also have been used for harvesting vegetable resources. 

91. Almost from the outset, perceived differences in the form of microliths were used to subdivide the Mesolithic into phases. It was primarily based on microlith morphology that Lacaille argued for an earlier, broad-bladed ‘Larnian’ culture, distributed along the coast of southwest and west central Scotland. This was seen as affiliated to a similar culture in northeast Ireland. The ‘Larnian’ culture was subsequently supplanted by a later narrow-bladed ‘Obanian’ culture, more widely occurring throughout Scotland. The Irish cultural affiliation was later challenged. Firstly, there was a move, led by Coles (Coles 1964) to argue for the presence of a South West Scotland Coastal Mesolithic, but recently there has been a more general distinction proposed, which argues for an Early Mesolithic characterised by broad-bladed microliths, and a Late Mesolithic where narrow-bladed microliths predominate. 

92. There does, however, still appear to be scope for the definition of regional trends particular to South West Scotland. In our region of interest, it is, for example, easy to over-emphasise the importance of the microlith. As more and more lithic scatters are collected and analysed, it has been argued that in South West Scotland, microliths ‘in general are few in number and many are not ‘typical’ of either the Earlier/ Later Mesolithic or Broad Blade/Narrow Blade subdivisions’ (Morrison 1982, 11).  

93. Some attempts have been made to characterise the composition of lithic assemblages on a statistical level. Mellars, for example, placed Low Clone and Barsalloch amongst his Type B – Balanced Flint assemblages through their composition of finished tool types (30-60% microliths and 25-50% scrapers and other types). This type of quantitative analysis does not, however, appear to have carried through into recent artefact analyses. 

94. A recent example of how detailed examination of a large lithic assemblage can enhance our broader understanding of the Mesolithic in South West Scotland (and further afield) resulted from West Challoch. From this analysis Ballin to argue for an abandonment of the terms ‘broad-bladed’ and ‘narrow-bladed,’ in favour of a division into ‘Early’ and ‘Late’ Mesolithic on the basis of not only the microliths, but also the range and character of the other forms (such as burins, scrapers) occurring (Ballin 2021).  

95. The other artefactual evidence for industry is the two biserial antler barbed points from Cumstoun and Shewalton (Bonsall and Smith 1990). These show the use of antler to create durable tools – raising the potential that other antler tools may have been deployed. Their recovery from river beds may inform us as to why these objects survived when otherwise we are so lacking in organic objects; their deposition in waterlogged or anaerobic environments such as peat bodies may have enabled this. Their subsequent erosion revealing them for recovery. 

96. One final reflection is the potential for lost or unprovenanced objects to be rehabilitated or discounted through an understanding of what items could have been produced at what time by the range of raw materials available. The region’s earliest recorded artefact, a Middle Palaeolithic handaxe from Bloody Moss has been shown to be a misprovenanced item (Saville 1998). Handaxe production at that time was carried out using local materials with no long-distance movement of the finished object. This flint axe was too large to have been produced locally from the flint nodules available. Instead, it can be concluded that the Bloody Moss axe was a specimen originating from southern England, probably Suffolk, lost during a lecture tour carried out by a visiting antiquarian during the 19^th century. In a similar manner, some archaeologists have raised concerns about atypical lithic artefacts recovered from the foreshore or found within potentially imported soils within medieval burghs due to the risk that these have inadvertently been relocated through the practice of transporting and discharging ballast in the post-medieval and modern period. 

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