One of the really fun things about my work has been the opportunity to work with artists on reconstructions of the past. Usually, but not always, these have focussed on Mesolithic communities. I’ve been doing it for nearly 40 years, and it has been so interesting trying to bring the world of prehistory to life. I thought it might be interesting to review some of them here. Of course, no reconstruction drawing is ever going to be 100% accurate. They can only ever be used to give an idea of how things might have been.  Nevertheless, in their changing styles and information, they provide a wonderful reflection on how my archaeology has changed over the years.

The first image I worked on was a depiction of the Mesolithic site at Kinloch, Rum, drawn for the Glasgow Herald by Marion O’Neil in January 1985. Kinloch got quite a bit of publicity and went on to inspire several images.

In all of these pictures you can see that people, tasks, and shelters are prominent, though some of the detail is left vague.

In 1994, Alan Braby drew a series of images for a general publication about Mesolithic Scotland. While many pictures focussed on specific aspects of life and details of settlement, others were much more general landscape views. For the first time, I was thinking about the world inhabited by the Mesolithic communities of Scotland.

The Mesolithic site at Fife Ness did not offer evidence of a full-blown shelter. In 1998, Mary Kemp Clarke drew this image to focus on the resources and the suggestion that the site had been occupied in the autumn. The nature of individuals is left for the viewer to discern.

Jump forward to 2006 and Phil Austin completed three images moving from the detailed to a broader landscape view for the Scotland’s First Settlers project which was published as a Scottish Archaeological Internet Report.

In 2012 I was able to work with Dominic Andrews regarding a Mesolithic Panorama for the displays at the Tomb of Eagles Museum in South Ronaldsay. People, while providing considerable action are less prominent and the overall focus is upon a landscape view, giving a good idea of the world within which the community lived.

In the same year, Brian Lee worked on images for a Historic Environment Scotland guidebook to Orkney for which I was writing text. He somehow captured both close detail and landscape in his series of images of different periods.

Most recently, I have been working with Jan Dunbar to bring to life the different periods of settlement evidenced by the work of Mesolithic Deeside along the River Dee in Aberdeenshire. The detail here is wonderful, though the settlement itself is well hidden within the landscape. The real star is the river as you will see from the main report. The full results are to be published as another Scottish Archaeological Internet Report.

There are so many things I love about these images. You can see how my focus has shifted from the people to the landscape. You can see how our ideas about clothes have evolved (it is interesting to me that we always depict our characters clothed – there is no direct evidence for this and while the inhabitants of many parts of the globe have gone clothed, there are locations where the wearing of complex costumes was seen as disadvantageous, even in cold climates). I’ve always tried not to be too gender specific in task divisions. And you can see so much about ideas of complexity, sophistication and comfort. In many ways the production of a reconstruction drawing is a minefield, but they make us think, and, in my opinion, the worries are well worth the fun!

Our understanding of the past inhabitation of Scotland is constantly changing as our archaeology becomes more sophisticated and new interpretations are developed. That is part of the fun of archaeology: there is always something new to think about and to work on. I thought it might be useful to set out a quick framework for the principal terminology relating to the main periods that are identified. Although there have been many attempts to move away from a typo-technological cultural framework like this, none has ever taken off so that the main terms: Palaeolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic, etc are still in use.

The ‘Three Age’ system’, which divided the remains of past societies chronologically by raw material was developed in Denmark in the 19th century. Stone Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age are names that still resonate today, though they have acquired additional meaning. Layers of socio-cultural significance were added in the early 20th century by archaeologists such as Gordon Childe and economic interpretations were subsequently developed by Grahame Clarke among others. The past is a complex place! It is still important, nevertheless, to have a basic understanding of the central framework. My own work is concerned principally with the ‘Stone Age’, which has, of course, been subject to much division and refinement. I also focus on Scotland and it is this that I shall cover here (and see here for more detail on both the National and Regional pictures).

The evidence indicates that ancient human communities have lived, on and off, in Britain for some 800,000 years, over which time there has, of course, been considerable environmental change as well as much change in the archaeological record. The very earliest communities were not ‘modern humans’, indeed, other species such as Neanderthals were well settled here. To date, the archaeological record for Scotland indicates a much shorter period of human settlement and one which only contains traces of modern humans: Homo Sapiens. This interpretation may well reflect the shortcomings of the way in which we study archaeology rather than the reality of the past. I’m guessing it is only a matter of time before we find older sites.

The evidence suggests that small Late Upper Palaeolithic groups arrived in Scotland in the thirteenth millennium BC, during the Late Glacial Interstadial, as conditions ameliorated after the last ice age. This was a warmer phase; the landscape would have been largely open but with some stands of low woodland dominated by birch and juniper. The human communities at the time share many characteristics with communities to be found further south in the British Isles, and on the continent, to which Britain was still connected through the landscape of Doggerland. The evidence indicates that they may have travelled long distances in the course of an annual round, and that they possessed detailed understanding of the landscape within which they lived and from which they derived all the resources necessary for survival. Large mammals such as reindeer are likely to have provided an important resource, and groups may have followed them and other species as they moved across the landscape. Population levels were very low and settlement may have been intermittent.

The Late Upper Palaeolithic lasted for some three thousand years during which time there was considerable climatic and environmental change. Communities had to be adaptable and resilient and there is evidence of this through changing technologies and behavioural practices, especially further south in the British Isles and on the Continent where archaeological evidence for this period is more abundant. In Scotland, the evidence to date focusses on characteristic stone tools, including particular types of tanged spear points, which allow us to compare different communities one with another. In general these groups are known to archaeologists as Hamburgian (with later subdivisions), though we have no idea how they would have named themselves. Around 10,900BC an abrupt return to cold conditions marked the period known as the Younger Dryas, at which point small local glaciers returned to some parts of Scotland. Current interpretations suggest that population numbers may have dropped dramatically at the time.

Around 9,700BC a period of rapid amelioration is recorded in the environmental record, and this marks the start of the Holocene, at which time conditions improved and vegetation increased, including the establishment of mixed woodland and forest. Population numbers grew and the marked changes to lifestyle allow archaeologists to classify the communities as Mesolithic. Life still revolved around a high degree of mobility and the acquisition of all the resources necessary for survival from the land, though this was a very different world to that of the Late Upper Palaeolithic. The evidence suggests that aquatic and marine species joined land mammals and birds as significant resources. Technological developments include the manufacture of small stone blades which could be shaped into microliths among other things, and a new range of bone and antler tools. Improvements in marine technology may have facilitated increased travel around the coast. Generally rising relative sea levels meant that this period saw the isolation of Britain as an island with the submergence of the final vestiges of Doggerland.

By 4000 BC changes to local lifestyles included the earliest archaeological evidence for farming in Scotland and this period is known generally as the Neolithic. Current interpretations indicate the arrival of immigrant communities bringing a dramatically different way of life from the continent (some great lectures on Neolithic Scotland here). Population levels grew and communities became more settled. In the east of Scotland the Early Neolithic occupation focussed on large timber halls which may have housed several families, though across the country a range of other buildings was also used. Changes to familiar everyday goods included the development of new types of stone tool that were less focussed on blade technologies, as well as the introduction of innovative materials such as pottery. Farming included the cultivation of a range of crops as well as the care of domestic animals such as cattle, sheep/goats, and pigs though wild resources were still used and some sites (permanent or transient), may reflect the use of different parts of the landscape for different lifestyles. Settlements were more permanent and increasing human impacts on the wooded landscape are visible. From around 3,200BC, further changes to the material culture evidence a social and cultural change known to archaeology as the Late Neolithic. The main settlements grew to comprise several households, in smaller buildings, and diverse monuments were developed for burial together with ceremonial sites such as stone circles.

The introduction of metal took place around 2,500 BC and, though it made little impact on everyday life at first, this period marks the end of the Stone Age and is known as the Bronze Age. Farmsteads and villages of round timber and turf houses became more common and there were different styles of pottery and other material goods. Metal goods were rare at first, but over time, the stone tools that had marked earlier periods became less common. Different types of burial and changes to the ceremonial sites suggest that there were marked changes to belief and ritual practice at the time as well as considerable social change.

I love academic conferences. I find that people are divided into conference-goers and conference-avoiders. I am an unashamed conference-goer. I love mixing with people to whom I do not have to explain my weird interest in subjects that other people find boring such as the Mesolithic or stone tools. I love listening to people present things that really fire them up. I love the intellectual parrying of question and answers as well as stream-of-consciousness thoughts among the audience. And I love settling down for the evening with some good food and wine, knowing that a few hours of interesting discussion lie ahead.

One of my favourite events is the Mesolithic in Europe conference which takes place every five years in a different centre of Mesolithic research. I have attended most of the meetings since 1975 and I can now look out for old friends as well as new colleagues, in addition to the intellectual stimulation of the week. 2020 should have seen a September gathering in Toulouse, France.

So, this year has not been easy in that respect.

Of course, it has been much harder for the organising committee than it has for me. Early on they had to take the decision to hold the conference online with a knock-on impact on conference organisation, attendees, papers, everything. Thankfully, I had nothing to do with the physical effort of getting everything online and making sure that the systems worked. But the impact of transferring a week of intellectual endeavour to the ether surprised me.

Throughout lockdown I have been giving, and listening to, online lectures roughly once a week. It has been an important way to connect with others and maintain some learning and thinking. I have enjoyed it. I feel that it worked, and many people found the lectures interesting (hopefully). A whole conference was something else altogether. Perhaps I was just naïve, but I was surprised at how tiring I found it to participate.

First of all, I had to devote most of the previous week to watching presentations. Even then I did not manage to see them all. There were just so many contributions! Thankfully, the conference organisers have taken the decision to leave material online for longer than the duration of the meeting. Watching recorded presentation after recorded presentation over a period of several hours becomes very intense. It allows you to get a fantastic overview, but it is exhausting.

Then there were the discussions. Discussion took place in real time, according to a strict timetable, allowing one to get a whiff of the atmosphere of a conference hall. It was easy to submit questions, and, though, as in any conference session there were more questions than could be asked, the system worked well. In some cases I felt I was earwigging a discussion between specialists, in other cases I wanted to (and did) join in. It was pretty all-embracing if you tried to take advantage of every session. Yet, after a while, a feeling of isolation crept in; I was alone – it felt quite lonely and I missed the banter of the coffee break (or whispered comment). My cats were appreciative but not forthcoming.

As a seasoned Mesolithic aficionado, I was both co-presenting and, in a different session, co-organsing material. That was a bit stressful, not least because the international version of Zoom proved to have quirks that I had not encountered before, resulting in my computer system crashing. At one point my co-organisers and I were reduced to our valiant PhD student colleague who held the fort admirably while we rebooted hardware. In the end I was able to take questions for my paper and I did manage to play my part in the discussion of our session. It was stressful, and all felt a bit curtailed without the usual pub discussion afterwards, but we did achieve a lot. And it will be published.

I’m glad to have taken part. And relieved that the organising team chose not to just cut and run. There are big advantages to virtual conferences. Your travel and subsistence bills are negligible, and conference attendance was free. Access was available around the world, enabling many who would not normally participate to join our Mesolithic fellowship – hopefully we have not put them off. there was a great variety of papers, and I got the opportunity to look at them all without running between venues and yet somehow missing the vital beginnings to papers. Everything will be published – not surprisingly in an on-line publication which will be openly available to all. That is brilliant (if you like the Mesolithic).

There are also disadvantages to going online… Quite apart from the stress, isolation, and exhaustion, I could not help feeling that many of the papers were very ‘safe’. Perhaps because this was the first online conference for most of us, it seemed that people tended to stick to overview presentations of existing research rather than cutting-edge coverage of future plans or new techniques. That is not to say that there were not some contentious papers and discussions, but there was, perhaps, a little less heightened opinion than one is used to.

Nevertheless, I learnt much, and thought even more. I am so glad that the conference went ahead, and we all owe a big thanks to the organisers who took on the unenviable task of altering plans and making sure that everything worked. It cannot have been easy. Overall, the experience was great, though I have to say that I prefer to attend my conferences in person. I have high hopes for the next – to be held in Italy in due course. Fingers crossed!

Meanwhile, there is another advantage to these themed conferences. The publications are fantastic, and most have appeared at regular intervals. They provide brilliant statements of the development of research over the years.  I am much looking forward to the appearance of this one. Hold on – I need to write my own contribution first!

It is always good to see a piece of research come to publication. In this case it brings back memories of a wonderful trip into the Cairngorms around the time of my 50th birthday to have a look at the location of some Mesolithic finds that had recently come to light during maintenance work on the National Trust for Scotland footpath at Chest of Dee on the Mar Lodge estate.

It was a wonderful location and the lithics were interesting. Evidence for the early communities who used this landscape is hard to find so we were all quite excited. Since then, with the enthusiasm of members of the National Trust for Scotland, Aberdeenshire Archaeology Service, and the Universities of Aberdeen and University College Dublin, we have mounted a programme of archaeological investigation.

Of course, the fieldwork was fun! But as many know, the out-of-doors bit is only a tiny part of any archaeological project. Over the years we have been slowly analysing the finds and drawing in other information in order to try and tease out a picture of the landscape and those who lived there, or passed through it some 9000 years ago.

It is a slow process but we can finally share our thoughts in published form. I hope you find them as interesting as we do.

The project, meanwhile, continues – albeit in a piecemeal fashion. What is interesting is that with the help of Mesolithic Deeside we have been able to extend our thinking to look at the length of the River Dee right down to the sea. These big (for Scotland) rivers were important for all sorts of reasons to the early communities who lived in Scotland and we have a rare chance to build a pretty full picture of the traces they have left along the banks.

So – the work goes on, but it is nice to see this publication out.

New Publication! Dare I say it is an exciting one. Not that I have done anything beyond churn out text. It owes everything to the talented Matt Ritchie, and his imagination and that of the team of artists and writers he put together. I don’t often work on publications for school so it has been fun. It is a free book, so I encourage anyone who is interested to download a copy whether or not you work with kids. It is a good read and the illustrations are fantastic. It looks great as a pdf!