While others were perfecting their sourdough recipes, or embroidering replicas of the Bayeux Tapestry, I was working with the members of Mesolithic Deeside and various associated archaeologists to produce a publication of the first three years of work of the group. The final words might be mine – but the hard work was undertaken by many others. I had a wealth of reports and field notes, all supplied by the team, from which to hone our document. There were also extensive photographs, maps and drawings – all put together through the talent of others.

Did we succeed in producing an informative but readable account? Download it from the link here and judge for yourself. I think it is a fascinating story, but then I am biased.

The other thing to note here is all the help and expertise we have received from others. From the National Lottery Heritage Fund who provided the funding that got the group going, to Aberdeenshire Council Archaeology Service who were always there with support and advice, and Historic Environment Scotland who have supported the final publication, as well as many, many other funding bodies along the way. Then there was the fantastic team at the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland who edited and published the final report as part of their wonderful Scottish Archaeological Internet Reports series (wonderful not just for the content but also because it is freely available – not a paywall in sight). And so many people along the way. Community archaeology is a brilliant evocation of the variety of skills that can be brought to bear on unravelling the past when people care.

I won’t say that there were not moments when I woke up in the middle of the night and despaired at the size of the task I had taken on. But for me the end result justifies those odd moments of reflection (and I do love writing).

The work of Mesolithic Deeside continues. No matter how much we know about the work of the past, there is always more to learn. If you want to join in, get in touch with them. It is fun – and healthy! And hopefully there will be more volumes like this one: the finds, and sites, since 2019 are already beginning to mount up!

I’ve just been reading a wonderful book and I thought I’d write about it. I don’t often feel that I want to push a single publication, but this has really got me thinking.

The book is Woman of Labrador by Elizabeth Goudie. It was first published in 1973.

Elizabeth Goudie lived among the trapping communities of Labrador in the early twentieth century. Despite only having some four years schooling, she set out to describe her life there, because of the changes that she saw taking place around her as the decades progressed. It is a straightforward account. Compassionate, unrelenting, and yet never complaining. Elizabeth was just as much part of the twentieth-century as my own grandparents in central London, and yet she provides an intimate glimpse into a life that was so different. Despite talking about the past, her memories are so vivid that she often talks in the present tense, adding a sense of immediacy to the world she describes. I don’t think she meant to, but she has given us a beautiful evocation of the life of a hunter-gatherer.

The book is full of quotes that highlight the ethos of the community where she lived:

‘Then there would be no more hunting because the birds would lay their eggs and people would not hunt birds anymore until September. That was the custom of the country. Everybody kept it’ (p48).

Of course, you cannot extrapolate one person’s thoughts to another, never mind the customs of one community to another, much less the present to the past. But reading her book provided me with a strong sense of how it was to live from the land in a way that most of us will never experience.

There is a strong idea of community. Despite the fact that individual families occupied isolated houses in separate bays, they clearly felt together. Help was not refused, food was shared in times of hardship, and beds were always available for those who might turn up.

The care taken to conserve resources is clear. There is a time and place for everything and the families lived to a strict annual round. February was a month of rest, March for catching rabbits and partridges, in April trout were to be caught, and in May people caught smelts to use as fertilizer on potato patches, there were seals to be caught in June, while in July and August the winter wood pile was replenished and work started to repair canoes and equipment for the winter, September was busy with berry picking, October with drying and preserving, November was the time to make and repair clothing, it took a whole month just to prepare the kit for the men to leave for their trap lines which they did in December, returning home in January. As she said: ‘Our months were not wasted and we had little time for reading or any kind of pleasure’ (p119).

It is a highly mobile life, from salmon camps to winter houses and so on. Journeys were mostly undertaken by canoe or dog sled, though long journeys on foot also took place, making use of snowshoes. She describes long treks with the family, often over several weeks, and sometimes in sub-zero temperatures, spending the nights with the families who lived en route. ‘A team of dogs can be great company when you are alone’ (p89).

It was a hard life, something Elizabeth only acknowledges in the later passages, where she describes the easier life they had from the 1940s onwards. More or less everything, from clothes, to furniture, fuel and food, had to be made or prepared at home. In several locations fresh water required an arduous walk, and sometimes had to be brought home as blocks of ice. Very little was bought: mainly flour and fat. There is an interesting description of the problems caused when the flour supply fails on one occasion.

Much of the daily work is undertaken by the women, men were away at the traplines for long periods of time. For this reason, women were obviously as skilled with a rifle as they were with needle, frying pan, or axe. Although there were medical services, these were not always easy to access and home remedies as well as first aid knowledge were much in demand. I now know how to make an effective poultice from juniper stems. It is also interesting to hear her talk of the problems of mosquitos and flies. One of the enduring questions relating to the earliest settlement of Scotland regards the presence (or not) of the Scottish Midge and its likely impact on life and general morale – not good, if her feelings are anything to go by.

It is a resilient society. Struggles and hardship are depicted in detail, and yet with a mundane tone that belies the emotions that must have come to the fore. Life was not easy, or comfortable. Food shortages, temperatures of thirty or forty below zero that would leave us gasping, debts to the company store, illness and injury. There is a moving account of the problems of digging a grave for a toddler in frozen ground. People had to develop a way around it all, often moving on when times got too hard.

Of course, everyone knew and understood the land in considerable depth. This is clearly demonstrated, though there is little overt discussion of the landscape within which lives played out. In some ways it appears a passive backdrop. True appreciation of the world in which people lived is seen on the few occasions when there was time for leisure and the writing becomes positively lyrical to express deep feelings for the surrounding beauty of the mountains and coasts.

Elizabeth’s community were not the only people to live in the region. There were also ‘Indian’ families, most of whom did not speak English. Though there was mutual respect, there seems to have been little contact between the two groups except when help was needed. It was a different world.

All things change and by the 1940s the construction of a military air base in Goose Bay precipitated the arrival of the end for the mobile lifestyle. Paid work was soon followed by chocolate, movies, roads and electricity. This book is just one of a suite of publications that describe bygone ways of life around the world, but it is one of the most vivid. I’m so glad she wrote it.

‘I would rather live back fifty years ago, because today you turn on your radio or television and you hear all sorts of news about going to the moon or war or whatever and you feel afraid that something fearful is going to happen’ (p 192).

I’ve been working on a text about life in Mesolithic Scotland for a teaching resource. It has got me thinking about one of my favourite subjects: the ways in which our life differs so much from that of our Mesolithic ancestors and yet we still value skills that would have been very familiar to those who made their home here eight thousand years ago.

Today, we are accustomed to the home comforts that support our lifestyle. We take them for granted: central heating; hot water; sophisticated bathrooms and kitchens; an abundant and diverse diet; the convenience of shops that can provide for our every need, and transport at the touch of a button. While it is true that contemporary society accommodates a remarkable disparity between those with access to plenty of money and those who manage on very little, it is also the case that all aspire to certain elements of life and those who direct the apportioning of resources generally seek to facilitate a certain standard of living that makes use of aspects of the elements mentioned above.

Yet most of us have little idea of the processes behind them. The generation of electricity, the production of our complex foodstuffs, and the building of our houses all remain, by and large, a mystery and few of us possess the knowhow to create these for ourselves. The exigencies of dense populations and dwindling resources mean that even in extreme situations, such as most refugee camps, the authorities ensure survival by working to maintain distribution networks rather than facilitating on the spot production.  For those of us lucky enough to live within the urban west (and I include myself here in Orkney because the landscape of my home is nothing if not created by its human population) it has become hard to imagine a world in which these ‘basic essentials’ did not exist. It is hard to conceive a world in which individuals had to provide for themselves.

We have lost many of the links to nature that were once a fundamental element of life. Many of us only notice the passing of the seasons as a backdrop against which our lives play out. We go for a walk on a sunny day, we seek relaxation on a beach in the summer, when it rains we go indoors, winter storms will lead us to turn up the central heating and light the stove. Yet these links were once a vital part of our survival. Through them we understood when and where to seek for certain foods. We recognised the need to prepare and store a surplus to see us through the winter. We appreciated the qualities of different woods that allowed us to burn a long slow fire through a winter’s night, or a hot fire for cooking, a smoky fire to preserve meat. Today, we have forgotten the way in which the world (nature, weather, seasons), once ruled our daily routines.

I find it fascinating, therefore, that, as we apparently become more distanced from the world in which we live, we have, on the other hand, increasingly come to appreciate the skills of bushcraft. Foraged foods have become an increasingly popular part of exclusive restaurants and people will pay a lot to spend a few days learning ‘survival techniques’. There is a plethora of books on the subject and it is a frequent element of television, from straightforward educational programmes to a slightly weird component of some reality tv.

Where, you might well ask, is this all leading? By combining an understanding of the archaeology with knowledge of the ways of woodland and countryside, we can begin to approach and understand those of our earliest ancestors for whom these things were second nature. Maybe that is a bit purist. I feel that it also helps us to appreciate and think more about how we live today. What we have got. How we use resources. Perhaps it helps us to feel at one with the world. The success of technology over the last few millennia has led us to become distanced and complacent. We need to retrace our steps.

I have much enjoyed a couple of programmes on television recently: Neanderthals – Meet Your Ancestors. Presented by a new name (to me at least), Ella Al-Shamahi, the series gets over some serious concepts and is a good example of the way in which it is possible to use modern technology (and expectations) to put forward detailed points without dumbing down.

Of course, there were some things that annoyed me. It appeared to start with the premise, which always drives me mad, that the presenter is a highly-knowledgeable expert who has undertaken the research single-handed. In most cases this is followed by a programme that negates the contributions of the numerous academics who will be interviewed over the next hour or so (and yes, I have been one of those academics, and yes, maybe I have a grudge). It seems to be a popular premise, driven, no doubt, by our worship of the celebrity and distrust of experts. In this case, however, there were two differences that worked to allay my fears. Firstly, Ella Al-Shamahi actually is a palaeoanthropologist, specialising in Neanderthals and the Out-of Africa dispersal, and currently studying for a PhD at University College London. Apparently in her spare time she is a stand-up comic, thus elevating her considerably in my eyes. Secondly, once underway, it was clear that she intends to confine her role to that of presenter: interpreting and entwining the detailed contributions of a plethora of specialists, each keen to make a particular point. At times she is more like a chairperson, mediating and encouraging discussion among the panel of experts.

The programmes incorporate some gimmicky modern technology, notably using the actor Andy Serkis to bring our Neanderthal ancestors to life using adaptive performance capture. But they don’t stray away from the discussion of complex issues such as the size and function of the hyoid bones and the niceties of Neanderthal vocalisation. Overall, they provide a successful background to current theories about Neanderthals and their way of life. I had to wait for much of episode one for the obligatory mammoth (which pretty quickly ended up being eaten), and there is some discussion of the world in which the Neanderthal communities of northern Europe lived, though the focus was on the people themselves.

That leads me to perhaps the most controversial aspect. The Neanderthal contribution to modern populations. There was a fascinating discussion of the many ways in which Neanderthal DNA survives and the roles it plays today. And, it goes further than that. Imagine what it must have been like to live in a world populated by not one, but several, hominin species. How much did they recognise one another? How much did they interact? Was there more empathy than that shown today by our own population to the great apes. I hope so. But, while we are all very keen to send off personal DNA samples and find out the apparent percentage of Neanderthal, Viking, or hunter-gatherer in our past, I wonder if we would be quite so keen to promote it in the present. Not keen at all, if our recent social attitudes to those who look different or come from different places, is anything to go by. Diversity of makeup is, it seems, fine as long as it is confined to history. It is ironic that we boast about our diverse origins then vote for insularity.

Of course, the Neanderthal contribution to our present makeup is safely that of ancient history. But it is an important contribution nonetheless. This series has done much to dispel the image of Neanderthals as knuckle-dragging savages. It is, hopefully, only the start of research that will open up the sophisticated, specialised world of the Neanderthal population of Europe in ways that we, ‘old-fashioned Cro-Magnons’, can understand it. Meanwhile, it also gets us thinking about our current position, predilections, and future, and that is no bad thing.

Reconstruction of the face of Cheddar Man: Channel 4.

One of the reasons I love archaeology is the way in which it challenges us to recognise and rethink our preconceptions. It is very easy to live in the cosy world of today and focus on reassuring feelings of stability. Practices of mindfulness, among others, encourage us to ‘live for the moment’ and, amidst the insecurites of the present, this is not something with which I would wish to disagree. Nevertheless, I would add the caveat that there are also advantages to be obtained from a slightly longer term view and that perceived ‘problems’, when put into the context of past millennia, can diminish.

One recent story has got me thinking about the way in which an understanding of change can benefit both our understanding of ourselves and our understanding of the world in which we live. Both have undergone dramatic changes over the past millennia – but sometimes we forget. On the 7^th February, The Guardian was one of several papers to reveal, through DNA analysis of skeletal remains in the Cheddar Gorge caves, that those who lived in Britain at the end of the last Ice Age had dark skin and blue eyes.

For some people this was quite shocking news, but it is hardly ground-breaking. In 2010 I was able to report on research by Professor Johann Moan at the University of Oslo that suggested that the prevalence of pale skin in northern Europe was related to a reduction in vitamin D in the diet around the time that people switched to farming. Since then, several studies in various countries have looked at different aspects of this. It is, however, information that has taken a while to leak out into the general understanding and, as such, the research, a project at the Natural history Museum, is important. It has caught the public eye (or ear).

The research at Cheddar has been undertaken as part of a Channel 4 documentary looking at the study of ancient DNA. In the newspaper report the archaeological specialists take the opportunity to comment on the way in which their research sheds new light on our twenty-first century racial stereotypes; debunking, for example, the way in which we tend to regard skin colour as an indication of recent global origin. Varying skin colour, it seems, is a relatively modern feature of the human race, and its supposed links with geography are even more modern.

It sounds as if the programme is going to be one to watch. Our hunter-gatherer ancestors are rarely afforded the luxury of a programme to themselves, and it is always good to see some of the more specialised aspects of archaeology laid bare. The study of ancient DNA is a complex subject that has, on occasion, been open to misconception. There is even a link to my own current work interests: the submerged landscape, known to us as Doggerland, that lay between Britain and the continent provides the context for the movement in to Britain of the communities of hunter-gatherers who came here at the end of the Ice Age. The ancestors of ‘Cheddar Man’ must have been among these groups. (Though I disagree with the Guardian reporter who called this landmass a ‘land-bridge’ – surely an area that stretched from north of the Humber to south of the Thames was more than a land-bridge?). It is nice, though, to be reminded that the world our ancestors knew was a very different world – a world, ironically, in which for much of the time Britain was physically part of the continental landmass. I still come across people who are not aware of this, so it is a message worth repeating.

One thing does fascinate me: the title, apparently, will be First Brit: Secrets of the 10,000 Year Old Man. I think that I might feel slightly miffed if I were one of the many thousand people who lived here prior to 10,000 years ago, going back to those who left their footprints at Happisburgh on the Norfolk coast some 800,000 years ago. OK, so it was not known as Britain that far back, but it was not Britain 10,000 years ago either. The cynical might detect the use of hyperbole to bring in viewers. The programme press information justifies the use of the term ‘First Brit’ on the grounds that this is the oldest complete skeleton. The Natural History staff note that it provides the oldest complete DNA genome we have to date. You can tell that they are excited.

I’m still concerned by the use of superlatives that will, inevitably, be superseded with time. I’d love to focus on the intrinsic interest of archaeology without dressing it up. But it gets the message across. And I know where I will be on the 18^th February. Glued to the television!

For the past few years I have worked with a number of colleagues (and friends) to examine the traces of Mesolithic activity high in the Cairngorm Mountains of Scotland. Excitingly, one of the sites, excavated by Graeme Warren and colleagues with a team from University College, Dublin, yielded evidence for a small structure, occupied around 8200 cal BP. This is particularly interesting because it provides an indication that hunter-gatherer groups were active in the uplands even during a period of marked climatic deterioration.

A report on the site has just been published and may be accessed here. If you have problems getting hold of a copy for research do email me.

This project is significant because it interconnects with the research I have been undertaking on Mesolithic and earlier activity along the length of the River Dee. It is a great example of how smaller archaeological projects may be combined into a bigger picture. It all helps to provide an overview of some of the earliest settlement of Scotland.