The role of shell middens in the Mesolithic settlement of Western Scotland and the transition to the Neolithic: A technological study of chipped stone

The first people to live in Scotland arrived around 9000 years ago and lived by hunting and gathering within woodlands that had colonised the landscape after the end of the ice age and on the coasts where many resources including shellfish, fish, sea mammals and seaweed could be exploited. The principal type of Mesolithic evidence for archaeologists is the stone tools and the waste from their manufacture. This project will compare Oronsay and Risga to those from other, non-shell midden sites on other islands and the mainland of western Scotland by producing a catalogue of 20,000 stone artefacts, describing many in detail within a computerised database.