- The extent to which the mass migration of people took place during the transition between the Mesolithic and Neolithic has long been subject to extensive debate and discussion. Some manner of interaction was required with the inhabitants of continental Europe in order to introduce the various elements of Neolithic life which first appeared in mainland Britain. These included cultivated foodcrops, domesticated animals and new technologies such as the manufacture of pottery.
- The crucial question was this: how much was the appearance of a Neolithic lifestyle down to the movement of people, and how much was it down to the movement of ideas? Did the appearance of Neolithic material culture and the adoption of an agricultural lifestyle reflect the presence of an immigrant population? Or was it due to resident Mesolithic communities deciding to use these new resources, techniques and technologies as and how it suited them.
- It is now generally recognised that immigration did play an important role, but that this was a nuanced and complex process which may even have played out over successive generations (Sheridan 2003). It is also unlikely that these kinds of movements occurred in a vacuum. Existing Mesolithic communities may have already established networks of communication with lands further afield, although these networks never seem to have been formalised beyond the most limited exchange of exotic materials such as flint and pitchstone (see Chapter 4 Palaeolithic and Mesolithic).
- On land, travelling would have to be done on foot, over ground that may still have been densely wooded and overgrown in places. By far the easiest method of covering long distances would have been via rivers and seaways that – given the right weather conditions – would have enabled rather than prevented travel. Boats are thought to have been skin boats (Bradley, Rogers, Stuart and Watson 2016), with natural sandy inlets utilised by seagoing craft. The marginal ground between sea and land potentially provided a suitable – and neutral – place for local communities to interact with those from further afield.
- Two such sites of this kind have been identified in South West Scotland: Luce Bay, which opens out onto the Solway and now forms part of the larger Luce Sands and Torrs Warren dune complex, and the area around Irvine Bay, in particular Ardeer and Shewalton. Both areas have been noted for the vast quantities of artefacts recovered amongst their dune complexes, and the sometimes exotic nature of these artefacts.
- The assemblage recovered from over a century of antiquarian explorations and archaeological excavations in the area around Luce Bay has been studied in particular detail (Bradley, Rogers, Stuart and Watson 2016). Evidence for the working of pitchstone from Arran and volcanic tuff from Great Langdale in Cumbria, suggests that these exotic materials were shaped – or at the very least finished off – at their destination. Artefacts manufactured from flint sourced from Yorkshire or Antrim have also been recovered at Luce Bay, alongside axeheads fashioned from jadeite, a spectacular material sourced from northern Italy.
- The material from Irvine Bay (including Shewalton and Ardeer) has been less intensively studied, but a similar presence of exotic materials occurs. Here, pitchstone from Arran is represented, along with Antrim flint and objects fashioned from porcelanite. The latter is also sourced from Antrim and is often used for the manufacture of stone axeheads similar in form to those from Langdale, which occur in such numbers in Galloway.
- From Luce Bay, artefacts fashioned from these raw materials travelled throughout Galloway and beyond. Worked stone implements manufactured from Arran pitchstone were recovered during excavations at Slewcairn, and Cumbrian axeheads are a regular presence across the central and western regions of Dumfries and Galloway. Their concentrations around the Solway coast and the river valleys support the suggestion that travel via coastal or inland waterways was the preferred way of traversing the region (Sheridan 1998).
- The jadeite axes had travelled many hundreds of miles to reach South West Scotland and occur only in very limited numbers. The detail which underpins these journeys remains unknown, but it is more likely that they came here through a series of shorter regional exchanges rather than through one transaction directly from source to destination. Those who obtained such a precious object may, however, have been quite aware of the fact that these objects had travelled immense distances, as they invariably appear to have been treated in special ways. The contexts from which most jadeite axes were recovered have been lost, but one is known to be from within the burial chamber at Cairnholy I (Piggott and Powell 1951).