An undisturbed Early Mesolithic retooling station at Donich Park, Lochgoilhead, Argyll, Scotland – right-handed and left-handed knappers

Abstract

This paper presents an Early Mesolithic (EM) lithic assemblage from Donich Park in Argyll, Scotland. At the present time, only a small number of Scottish EM assemblages are known, and they are all chronologically mixed to varying degrees. The Donich Park assemblage derives from a scatter measuring only 2.5 m across, and it is believed to represent a single visit to the site by a small hunting party, possibly including one right-handed and one left-handed knapper. The assemblage therefore represents a snapshot in time, and following detailed characterisation of the finds, particularly the microliths, the date and character of the site, as well as the possibility of further subdivision of the Scottish EM and the earliest part of the Late Mesolithic (LM) are discussed. The existence well into the Mesolithic period of the Doggerland land-bridge between Continental NW Europe and Scotland is essential to the discussion of the site’s chronological issues, as well as to the general discussion of the chronology of the Scottish Mesolithic around the transition between the EM and LM periods. As no Scottish EM sites and assemblages have been radiocarbon-dated, the discussion of the period’s chronology is based largely on typo-technological attributes and the comparison with contemporary Continental European material, first and foremost the sequence of well-dated and unmixed/only slightly mixed assemblages excavated in the Duvensee Moor in Schleswig-Holstein (northern Germany).