I HAVE always been fascinated by the image of life in the time before humankind transformed the natural landscape.
And so I read with great interest the Scottish Archaeological Report A Home by the Sea.
It was written by members of the AOC Archaeology Group, and it describes the excavation undertaken in 2001 at East Barns, just prior to proposed quarrying.
What was discovered was the archaeological remains of a house dating from the late ninth millennium BC. Let’s pause there for a moment and think about that.
That means the house was lived in about 10,000 years ago, the middle of what is now called the Mesolithic Age, meaning middle stone age.
This was a time not long after the last glaciers had melted, before people fully settled and became farmers.
A time of hunter-gathering
It was a time of hunter-gathering, of harvesting the riches of the natural world without dominating or controlling it.
Of course, it can be easy to romanticise this image: the reality of life must have been incredibly hard and short, with a constant struggle to survive, stay warm and stave off hunger; although, in truth, such struggles are not confined to pre-history.
The report, understandably, is heavily laden with technical and scientific language as it describes the finds and their significance.
I needed more than one dip into a dictionary while I read, but I’ve learnt some interesting new vocabulary. Yet, as the story of the dig’s discoveries unfolded, my imagination was set on fire by the image of what once was on this site.
The thing is, archaeological evidence from the Mesolithic period in Scotland is scant, and for obvious reasons. Not only was it a very long time ago, but Mesolithic people’s touch on the landscape was often light. They moved about and didn’t build large permanent settlements with solid foundations.
But this is what makes the house at East Barns so special. The report calls it a “robust Mesolithic house”.
The house became a home
It’s an interesting description: “robust” refers to the fact it was built to last, as it seems to have been a dwelling lived in regularly, possibly continuously, over generations.
This distinguishes it from many other Mesolithic sites, which indicate a temporary and occasional occupation.
So the report’s use of the term ‘home’ in the title is quite deliberate.
For us, the concept of having, or desiring, a home is obvious. But in Mesolithic times, because people tended to travel around, a single permanent home was usually not part of their culture.
So the Mesolithic house at East Barns was possibly one of the first places in Scotland where a family made a dwelling their permanent, or near-permanent, place of residence, and lived there over generations.
As the report puts it, the evidence suggests “residential stability or perhaps an increasing sedentism”.
In other words, the house became a home, not just a functional or temporary place to live during a certain season.
The first home in Scotland?
This is fascinating, I think. It places the site on the edge of societal change. It means we can say that the house may have been the first home in Scotland, as we would understand the concept these days.
The thing is, the family could have moved on, there was no negative equity trap in those days, no excessive mortgage payments. There was plenty of space and other places to go. Something kept them there. What was it?
Part of the answer must have been the abundance of nature’s gifts on their doorstep.
The area has changed out of recognition since Mesolithic times, but then it was a rich “ecotonal setting”; look that one up, I had to!
OK, it means a place where different ecological systems meet, creating a diverse plant life and rich natural setting.
In Mesolithic times, forest, river and sea ecosystems merged here to create a natural landscape full of foraging, fishing and hunting opportunities.
Something else that made the family stay
Bones of a seal and bird were found; countless numbers of worked stone, mainly flint, chert and quartz, revealed a hub of activity in making and repairing tools of all sorts, used for such things as dressing the hides and cutting the meat.
Other evidence points to a forest dominated with oak and hazel, used for construction and fire making. The remains of hazelnuts in large numbers, some burnt after possibly being roasted, were found.
So the site at East Barns seemed to provide the family with all their basic physiological needs. They are essential, of course, but they don’t in themselves make someone feel at home. After all, you get these needs met in prison.
There was something else that made the family stay.
The report suggests this included attachment: to the place, the landscape and also the vital resources it provided.
As inter-generational memories were woven into the landscape, this attachment will have grown stronger, so the locality became part of their identity; it became, an “enculturated Mesolithic landscape”.
This meant the house and its setting could have developed a “historical, visual and symbolic” role, “expressing ownership and exclusivity with regard to the exploitation of the resources in the vicinity”.
Home is a feeling
Home is a feeling, not just a place, of course. But often it is both. As the report states: “The house would appear to meet all the requirements for the definition of a home.”
This includes the permanence of the dwelling itself, both a cause and effect of it being a home.
It was “robust”, well-built, lasting and apparently little-changed except for repairs over the generations of use.
Leaning timber posts gave it a teepee-like shape, big enough for my family of seven.
It seems to have been subdivided into different areas, but the evidence suggests the heart of the house was the hearth, of which more than one was discovered. The entrance of the house faced west, towards the setting sun, which closed the day for the family.
Post holes around the hearth, and their angle, suggest a tripod for cooking.
In my mind’s eye, I see the family enjoying a shared meal, sitting round the fire, sharing their stories of the day: tales of adventures in the forest, sightings on the sea, or discoveries made on the beach.
And perhaps memories of passed loved ones, whose invisible footprints were all over the landscape they now trod – their landscape, their home.
After reading this report, I will never venture past East Barns again without seeing that image: of a family long gone, at home, in a world now sadly almost vanished.
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