Lithics 31 A VIEW FROM THE OUTSIDE: SOME THOUGHTS ON THE RESEARCH PRIORITIES FOR MESOLITHIC AND NEOLITHIC LITHIC STUDIES IN BRITAIN AND IRELAND Vicki Cummings1 ABSTRACT This paper considers some possible avenues for new research into the study of lithics for British and Irish assemblages dating from the Mesolithic and Neolithic. While scholars have been successful in extracting detail on technological aspects of stone tools, it is argued that we now need to integrate other approaches into our consideration of stone tools. Firstly, the significance of colour in relation to stone tools is considered. Secondly, this paper discusses how specific research questions can help frame the methodologies used for both the collection, and subsequent analysis, of chipped stone assemblages. The research questions for the Southern Kintyre Project are briefly discussed, and new scientific techniques are outlined which could potentially answer these questions. This paper also argues that by making our methods more accessible to the wider archaeological community via the World Wide Web we can potentially enable other people to run their own projects. Ultimately this could mean we could compare results across broad areas. This paper is thus offered as a starting point for thinking about new research priorities which can potentially revitalise our study of lithics. Full reference: Cummings, V. 2010. A view from the outside: some thoughts on the research priorities for Mesolithic and Neolithic studies in Britain and Ireland. Lithics: the Journal of the Lithic Studies Society 31: 68– 77. Keywords: Mesolithic, Neolithic, colour, flint sourcing, fieldwalking, web resources, accessibility. stone axes (Cooney 2002) has also been noted. INTRODUCTION All of these different studies have considered As someone who has spent most of their career the potential symbolic importance of colour in studying megalithic architecture, I have only these contexts, and how colour can create recently started looking at stone tool connections with other parts of the cosmos, assemblages. Drawing on experiences of such as the moon and sun. However, while the working with ―big stones‖, this paper offers colour of stone tools is usually recorded by some fresh perspectives on ―small stones‖, most lithics specialists, the potential specifically chipped stone assemblages from significance and meaning of the colour of the Mesolithic and Neolithic. Drawing from a stone has not been considered in detail. The range of methodological and theoretical issues colour of flint, for example, can clearly assist surrounding the study of megaliths, this paper lithics specialists in provenancing the source of highlights a series of research priorities which the material. But did people in the past choose should enable lithic studies to move forward particular colours of flint to make specific and become more accessible and integrated objects? Were arrowheads, for example, made with other archaeological investigations. from different coloured stone than scrapers? Were people deliberately choosing specific A CONSIDERATION OF COLOUR colours of stone to make specific objects, and In recent years there has been considerable if so, why was that? debate surrounding the significance of colour Before looking at the colour of stone tool in the past (Jones & McGregor 2002). Many assemblages, it was important to establish a Neolithic and Bronze Age monuments were solid and repeatable methodology. It is constructed using a variety of different documented that colour is highly subjective: it coloured stones (Lynch 1998; Jones 1999; can vary considerably depending on light Bradley 2000; McGregor 2002). The conditions and many people, especially men, significance of colour in relation to other are colour blind (Bornstein 1975). stones such as quartz pebbles deposited at Consultation with a colour specialist suggested monumental sites (Darvill 2002) and polished that the most reliable way to record colour 1School of Forensic and Investigative Science, University of Central Lancashire, Preston, PR1 2HE. Email: [email protected]. 68 Vicki Cummings would be using a consistent light source so that relatively small numbers of diagnostic artefacts the ambient lighting conditions were the same such as arrowheads, and it was therefore regardless of context, and recording the colour logical to look at all of the material including of objects using the Natural Colour System, a the debitage. The most informative of the tool similar to the Munsell chart which analysis done on these assemblages involved includes hues covering all colours of the comparing the colour of the flint debitage with rainbow (John Hutchings pers. comm.). This the colour of individual tool types. To avoid method was therefore trialled on a small repetition, only the assemblage from assemblage. While it was found that it is a Tomnaverie will be discussed here, although consistent and repeatable way of recording the similar patterns were noted in the Black Isle colour of lithics, there are a number of and Clava assemblages (Bradley 2000 & problems. Firstly, it is very time-consuming. It 2004). would not be realistic to use this method for a The Tomnaverie assemblage comprised a total large assemblage. Secondly, this method of 317 flints, of which 278 were unretouched provides a colour code, as with the Munsell debitage, with 20 utilised pieces and 19 system, that is combination of letters and arrowheads and scrapers. There were some numbers. The problem with generating a code interesting patterns in this material, although for each individual object is that it does not the limitations of using such a small dataset give a sense of the colour of an object: people should be noted here (and see below). The do not think about colour in this way. Instead, colour of all of the retouched flints was people universally create colour categories compared to the colour of the debitage (Figure (Berlin & Kay 1999) such as red, black, white 1): the absence of retouched grey objects and and so on. However, using the Natural Colour the larger percentage of red, retouched objects System does enable grouping of ranges of hues is of interest here; however a chi-squared test into colour groups (reds, oranges, and so on) on these figures did not support the suggestion and of course also enables comparability that this distribution was significant. It also between different assemblages, recorded at seems that more ―toffee‖ (browny-orange) different times. For the bulk of my pilot study, coloured pieces were utilised (Figure 2). then, colour groupings were used which were informed by the Natural Colour System, as There were a total of nine scrapers in the well as a consistent light source, but lithics assemblage, primarily brown or toffee in were only recorded by colour category (red, colour. The arrowheads are clearly primarily orange, white, black and so on). This is a red in colour; however since there were only methodological issue that may need revisiting four arrowheads in total, this is not a sufficient in the future. sample to be statistically significant. It is interesting that the arrowheads were all barbed Initially, three fieldwalking assemblages were and tanged; this could perhaps imply examined. These assemblages comprised Figure 1. The total percentages (divided into colour groups) of retouched flints at Tomnaverie compared to the debitage (278 pieces of debitage compared to 19 artefacts). 69 Lithics 31 Figure 2. The total percentages (divided into colour groups) of utilised pieces at Tomnaverie, compared to the colour of the debitage (278 pieces of debitage compared to 20 utilised pieces). chronological patterning in the use of specific The sheer number of pieces from Culbin colours. Sands, around 13,000 artefacts (Alison Sheridan pers. comm.), meant it was only The relatively small size of this assemblage feasible to look at retouched flint artefacts (a means that the relationships noted are at best total of 4729 for this study) rather than all the tentative. There does seem to be evidence, debitage. As such, this study differed from the however, that from a broad repertoire of previous studies on fieldwalked assemblages colours, people preferred certain artefacts to be as no debitage was examined. specific colours (e.g. barbed and tanged arrowheads tend to be red, and toffee-coloured Results were interesting, and suggested the pieces tend to be retouched or utilised). So, careful selection of coloured material to make although these data sets provided useful different object types. A high percentage of insights into the use of colour in prehistory, it leaf-shaped arrowheads, for example, were is clear that they are also limited in a number made from red or orangey-red flint as of ways. Firstly, there is simply not enough compared to barbed and tanged arrowheads material for them to be considered a and scrapers (Figure 3). The majority of representative sample. Secondly, the barbed and tanged arrowheads, in contrast, fieldwalked assemblages clearly contain flints were made from orange-brown coloured flint. from the Mesolithic through to the Bronze The material from Culbin Sands is sorted by Age. This means that changes in the use of size in the museum, making it easy to consider different coloured flints through time cannot this aspect of the assemblage. There are two be identified. The next stage was therefore to broad sizes of barbed and tanged arrowheads. locate a flint assemblage which had a large The larger barbed and tanged arrowheads were number of diagnostic artefact pieces. Culbin more likely to be made from grey flint than the Sands, located to the north-east of Inverness on smaller barbed and tanged arrowheads (Figure the Moray Firth, has produced masses of 4); most small arrowheads are orange-brown. prehistoric material culture (Society of It is possible that different sizes of arrowheads Antiquaries of Scotland 1892; Walker 1966) may have been manufactured by different and was therefore chosen for colour analysis communities, and perhaps certain colours of work. material were therefore associated with group The large lithic assemblage from Culbin Sands identity.