Search

An assemblage of flint and quartz artefacts recovered during the destruction of Kilmefort Cave, Argyll, in 1956, was initially attributed to the Mesolithic period. In this paper the assemblage is reanalysed and the conclusion that it represents the residue of human occupation at the site during the Late Glacial lnterstadial is reached. Typological considerations indicate the assemblage is of Curve-Backed Point Group (Federmessergruppen) affiliation and likely to date to the 12th millennium 14C yr Bp. Significantly, the evidence from Kilmelfort provides the first substantive indication of the presence of Late Upper Palaeolithic hunters in Scotland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Excavations in the 1920s at the Creag nan Uamh bone caves, near Inchnadamph, aroused considerable interest in the possibility of evidence for a Palaeolithic presence in north-west Scotland. Four objects found during those excavations, including the one on which the principal claim for a Palaeolithic date was based, are published here for the first time. Two are probable Viking Age/early medieval artefacts of unusual type, one is undated but is possibly also of the same period, and the fourth, while almost certainly of Pleistocene age, is regarded as an unmodified natural object, Collectively these items serve to discount previous claims for Palaeolithic human presence. Radiocarbon dating of the human skeletal remains found, however, suggests the caves were a burial place in the Neolithic period. This paper makes extensive use of archive documentation to put the 1920s discoveries at Creag nan Uamh and their aftermath into historical context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]