11,500 Year Old Evidence Earliest Humans In Scotland.

My name is Kayleigh and in this video I'm going to tell you all about the latest discovery from the Isle of Skye in Scotland, as researchers came across evidence suggesting the earliest human inhabitants were living on the island some 11,500 years ago. During the time of the existence of Doggerland, you know, a landmass in northwestern Europe that disappeared some 8,000 years ago, that I've covered extensively on the channel in 2 separate videos. It seems that humans were making their way northward, to the far end of everything, all the way up to the northwestern most stretches of what is modern day Scotland. The journey made by these pioneering people who left their lowland territories in mainland Europe to travel northwards into the unknown is the ultimate adventure story. Up until recently, there had never been clear evidence of a human population settling in Scotland before in the late Upper Paleolithic. But due to this discovery, we have clear evidence of human occupation in the northwest of Scotland around 11,500 years ago. This is particularly intriguing because of the fact that during the late Upper Paleolithic, when these people occupied the Isle of Skye, this area of northwestern Scotland was believed to be completely buried under ice. Although due to some glaciers melting already, this area may have become habitable for ancient humans. Karen Hardy, Professor of Prehistoric Archaeology at the University of Glasgow, led the team of archaeologists and scientists who made this discovery. And she said that this is a hugely significant discovery which offers a new perspective on the earliest human occupation yet known of northwest Scotland. She said that groups of nomadic people, most likely of the Arendtsburgian culture from northern Europe, would have crossed the Doggerland area, you know, which is now mostly covered by the North Sea. And these people eventually established themselves on what is now known as the Isle of Skye in the inner Hebrides of Scotland. So once these pioneering people reached the area that is the modern day Isle of Skye, they started crafting tools from the stone they found locally. Unfortunately, no radiant carbon datable material has been recovered, so it is unknown exactly when these pioneering people actually arrived in the area. But thankfully there are some important clues left behind by these people, like for instance the ancient baked mudstone tools found on Skye, that have complex features that resemble artefacts from continental Europe in the late upper Paleolithic, specifically the Arendtsburg culture. The stone tools that were discovered were Arendtsburg-like as well. There have been other Arendtsburg-like tools discovered in Scotland, but never this far north, and never in such abundance. The number of artefacts made from local materials on Skye indicate either a reasonably sized population or long-term occupation. So the discovery was made at an undisclosed location on the Isle of Skye, which is an island in the inner Hebrides of Scotland. But the team didn't just come across stone tools, they found more. They uncovered several stone circles that are between 3 and 5 meters in diameter, which equates roughly to 10 by 16 feet in diameter. These stone circles were found in a large tidal flat in the center of the isle, although long ago when Scotland was covered in ice, this tidal flat would have existed above sea level. So today in times, these stone circles are only visible for about 2 or 3 hours per year, when the extreme spring tides arrive. Other times of the year, the archaeologists had to have used a snorkel to conduct their research at the site. And honestly, even during the lowest tide, digging in the waterlocked sandy bottom made it very difficult for the researchers to measure sediment layers definitively for dating. But based on some climate modelling, it seems that this tidal flat was above sea level around 11,000 years ago, and for the last 10,000 years, this area in which these stone circles are located has been covered by water, which highly suggests that these stone circles were created before the water level had risen, thus they must have been created before 10,000 years ago. Similar stone circles were found across the North Sea in Norway, and these circles were radiocarbon dated to roughly between 10,400 and 11,000 years ago, which coincides with this discovery. So according to Hardy, the similarity between these circular alignments and those at Skonser, which is a location on the Isle of Skye near where they made this discovery, is remarkable and supports the interpretation of a late Pleistocene, early Holocene age. So in modern times, the Isle of Skye is connected by mainland by a human-made bridge. However, during the Upper Paleolithic, there may have been a land bridge or a very narrow crossing no more than 300 meters wide, which could have been walkable by old stone age humans during the spring tides. Although during this time, the western regions of Scotland would have been very cold and inhospitable, so the researchers suspect that the earliest humans came to Skye after the ice sheets had already began to recede. So as these pioneering people journeyed northwards, most likely following animal herds, they eventually reached Scotland, where the western landscape was dramatically changing as glaciers melted and the land rebounded as it recovered from the weight of the ice. A good example of the volatility they would have encountered can be found in Glen Roy, where the world-famous parallel roads provide physical testament to the huge landscape changes and cataclysmic floods that they would have encountered as they traveled across Scotland. So without reliable radiocarbon dating, it's hard to say much about when these cultures arrived. Hardy and her colleagues admit that this is a limitation, but based on what we know about old stone age humans in continental Europe and in southern England, there's reason to suspect an early push northwards. So this study has been published in the Journal of Quaternary Science, which I will link in the description down below for those who would like to read it. But that leaves me with this question. What do you think of this latest news from Scotland, the first inhabitants most likely already being there around 11,500 years ago? Let me know in the comments down below. If you enjoyed watching, then don't forget to give this video a thumbs up, subscribe if you'd like to see more of these kind of videos, and click that bell icon if you want to be notified whenever I upload. If you haven't seen my previous videos yet, then click the card in the upper right corner, or click one of the links in the description down below, or click a video in the end card. I would also like to say a massive thank you to my patrons and my channel members. Thank you so much for supporting me. And yeah, for the next couple weeks I will be a little bit more jittery than normal because I'm a little bit stressed out because of this health scare. So yeah, to clarify, I found a lump in one of my breasts and we're just gonna have to wait and see what it is. And we're not assuming the worst, but we have to, you know, be prepared for all options. So yeah, with that said, I'll see you in the next one. Bye!