A burin was a flaked rock tool with a chisel-like edge probably used to remove flesh from bone. "Eperon" means "spur" in French. Here it refers to a blade with a thick-ended butt at one end. The toolkit suggests there were at least two major technologies in early Britain: Hamburgian and Creswellian. The latter was characterized by "Cheddar points," tools with trapezoidal-backed blades. Saville thinks early hunters followed migrating herds of big game beasts, "and that human groups would follow these migrations of what was a major food source for the time." He added, "We have no way of calculating numbers or densities, but the general assumption must be that inhabitation was low-level and sporadic." Archaeologist Mike Pitts, editor of British Archaeology, suggested to Discovery News that the nature of this find -- researchers simply digging up flint tools at a Scottish farm -- shows "what you can do without a lot of expensive technology or lengthy project designs." He said he made similar discoveries "while still at school walking over ploughed fields." Residents and visitors to Scotland might therefore do well to look downward while walking, as they could stumble upon the next big archaeological find. "In Scotland now," Pitts said, "the search is on for sites of this age with well-preserved stratigraphy that would hold out hope for seeing just what these people (the first Scots) then were doing." Related Links: |
advertisement
Put Discovery News on Your Site!
|
-
our sites
-
video
mobile
-
shop
-
stay connected
-
corporate
