In one of Mike Parker Pearson's talks there was a throwaway line about some flakes being found in the excavations. So could there be Mesolithic traces in the sediments? I wouldn't have a problem with that -- and I imagine that Palaeolithic and Mesolithic hunters passing by these rocky crags might well have been attracted by them and by the fine and almost glassy quality of some of the foliated rhyolites exposed. I don't know enough about the requirements of microlith making -- for points and blades -- to say anything sensible here -- but from what we can see of the "raw material" in the photo above, what do others think? Would this be suitable for a good Mesolithic tool-maker to manufacture the essential tools of his trade?
Maybe something on this topic might appear in MPP's coming talk at Castell Henllys........
It may interest you to know that in the 2013 season when I was excavating at Rhosyfelin, I found a Mesolithic bladelet within the Bronze Age hillwash.
ReplyDeleteThanks George -- interesting. How do you convincingly demonstrate that this is a Mesolithic artifact rather than a shattered rock flake or fragment which has come from a rockfall collision or from frost shattering? And Bronze Age hillwash? What is the evidence for that attribution?
ReplyDeleteGeorge -- I'm keen to hear more about this "Bronze Age hillwash" and to know what evidence was assembled in order to give it that designation. Can you enlighten us? I hope the designation is not based on the assumption that something beneath it must by definition be Neolithic, because that is the "surface" on which the "proto-orthostat" sits -- leading in turn to the conclusion that anything above that must by definition be of Bronze Age date.......
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