A Lateglacial Archaeological Site in the Far North-West Of
JOURNAL OF QUATERNARY SCIENCE (2015) 30(5) 396–416 ISSN 0267-8179. DOI: 10.1002/jqs.2781 A Lateglacial archaeological site in the far north-west of Europe at Rubha Port an t-Seilich, Isle of Islay, western Scotland: Ahrensburgian-style artefacts, absolute dating and geoarchaeology STEVEN MITHEN,1 KAREN WICKS,1* ANNE PIRIE,2 FELIX RIEDE,3 CHRISTINE LANE,4 ROWENA BANERJEA,5 VICTORIA CULLEN,6 MATTHEW GITTINS2 and NICHOLAS PANKHURST2 1Vice Chancellor’s Office, University of Reading, Whiteknights House, Reading RG6 6AH, UK 2Department of Archaeology, School of Archaeology, Geography and Environmental Sciences, Whiteknights, Reading, UK 3Department of Culture and Society – Section for Prehistoric Archaeology, Aarhus University, Moesgård Alle 20, 8270 Højbjerg, Denmark 4School of Environment, Education and Development, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK 5Quaternary Scientific (QUEST), School of Archaeology, Geography and Environmental Sciences, Whiteknights, Reading, UK 6Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK Received 5 November 2014; Revised 12 March 2015; Accepted 25 March 2015 ABSTRACT: The exact pattern, process and timing of the human re-colonization of northern Europe after the end of the last Ice Age remain controversial. Recent research has provided increasingly early dates for at least pioneer explorations of latitudes above 54˚N in many regions, yet the far north-west of the European landmass, Scotland, has remained an unexplained exception to this pattern. Although the recently described Hamburgian artefacts from Howburn and an assemblage belonging to the arch-backed point complex from Kilmelfort Cave have established at least a sporadic human presence during earlier stages of the Lateglacial Interstadial, we currently lack evidence for Younger Dryas/Greenland Stadial 1 (GS-1) activity other than rare stray finds that have been claimed to be of Ahrensburgian affiliation but are difficult to interpret in isolation.
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