Fire provides warmth, light, and creates the emotional and physiological states that are especially receptive to new ideas and information

This is illustrated by Wiessner’s (Reference Wiessner2014) study of firelight talk among the Ju/’hoansi Bushmen, from which she generalises to all hunter-gatherers. Following meticulous recording and analysis of conversations, Wiessner identified day-time talk to be about economic matters and social relations. When seated around the fire at night, however, the Ju/’hoansi told enthralling stories and tales about people in the recent and distant past, and engaged in singing, dancing, and talk of the supernatural. Wiessner explained why there is such difference:

Not restricting herself to the Ju/’hoansi Bushmen, Wiessner reviewed evidence from hunter-gatherers around the world. She found striking commonalities with regard to night-time activities, to conclude that:

Experimental studies provide a physiological basis to these ethnographic observations. These have demonstrated that sitting by fires ‘induces relaxation as part of a multisensory, absorptive and social experience’ (Lynn Reference Lynn2014, 983). As such, the warmth, light, and aromas of the fire would have created emotional and physiological states that were especially receptive to new ideas and information.

Fire provides a means to engage with the spirit world

The hunters and herders of northern taiga landscapes intuitively appear to provide better analogies for the British Mesolithic than the Ju/’hoansi Bushmen. The fireplace has a central role in the process by which the Evenki of Siberia turn tracts of forest into cultural landscapes imbued with ancestral and spiritual meanings. Lavrillier (Reference Lavrillier2010, 221), writes that:

Between spring and autumn a second fire is kept burning outside the tent, which serves the same purpose.

The Selk’nam of Tierra del Fuego have also been proposed as an effective analogy for Mesolithic Britain (Manzi & Spikins Reference Manzi and Spikins2008; Spikins et al. Reference Spikins, Kelly and Manzi2010). For these hunter-gatherers fire was connected to the spirit world, and was especially important in male initiation ceremonies. Spirits such as Ksohort emerged from the fire and rituals took place with the light of a huge bonfire. Fire enabled people to move between the living and the spirit worlds (Manzi & Spikins Reference Manzi and Spikins2008).

Amongst the !Kung of Nyae Nyae, special fireplaces are constructed for ritual activities, such as within the centre of a dance circle. Marshall (Reference Marshall1976, 91) describes the following rites as requiring special fires: the Menarcheal Rite, the Rite of the First Kill (performed when a boy kills his first large game animal), another hunting rite, a rite for a novice medicine man, n/um/k’’xau (‘owner of medicine), and the rite of a child’s first haircut.

Fire and smoke have transformative properties

It is the nature of fire to transform material, by cooking foodstuffs to make then edible, by heating flint to change its knapping properties, to melt wax when making resins. Fire and smoke can also transform the non-material properties of objects and living things. The Siberian Iukagir hunters consider the fire contained in small metal stoves to be most important part of the interiors of their cabins, cabins having replaced tents in the 1960s (Willerslev Reference Willerslev2010). The fire transforms animal flesh from the game they hunt into a foodstuff by de-subjectifying what had, up until then, been a person. Their story-telling around the stove is particular interesting because of its minimalist character: ‘the stories are short, uneven and often incomplete … one has to guess the meaning according to the general context of the story or according to previous sentences, or by deciphering the bodily gestures of the speaker’ (Willersley 2010, 63). Amongst the Chukchis reindeer herders, the hearth, its charcoal, and smoke, protect family members, perpetuate the reindeer herd, and enable the temporary appropriation of the piece of landscape in which the people were currently dwelling (Vaté Reference Vaté2010). The smoke maintains the virility of the reindeer. This can only be guaranteed, however, by smoke from particular types of wood and so the hearths are regular cleaned out to avoid burning material that might have the opposite effect.

The fireplace is a means to reproduce and reaffirm social relationships and values

For the Selk’nam, the making of a fireplace took precedence over the construction of a shelter when at a new camping place (Spikins et al. Reference Spikins, Kelly and Manzi2010, 186). The practical tasks that made use of fire, such as keeping warm, cooking food, and preparing tools, merged seamlessly with the social and symbolic uses for fire and the fireplace. Although Selk’nam fireplaces were often no more than a slightly shallow pit or even flat on the ground, they symbolised social cooperation, the fire providing a constant social, metaphorical, and ideological presence in Selk’nam life (Spikins et al. Reference Spikins, Kelly and Manzi2010, 186).

The Kung of Nyae Nyae also prioritised making fire over building shelters at a new encampment (Marshall Reference Marshall1976, 79). For them:

The !Kung construct and reproduce their social relationships via the spatial arrangement of their fireplaces and of people around them. The fires of nuclear families that compose an extended family are always positioned near to each other rather than being dispersed amongst those of other families in the encampment. From the age of 8 or 9, boys and girls sleep at fires apart from those of their parents. Several boys sleep together at a boys’ fire; the girls will sleep either with a widowed grandmother or some other widow. At the family fire, men will sit on one side and women on the other (Marshall Reference Marshall1976).

Summary

Drawing on such ethnographic studies, it is apparent that the activities around fireplaces – story-telling, singing, dancing, ritual, engaging with the supernatural, some of which are embedded within the otherwise practical tasks of cooking and tool making – played a key role in the on-going enculturation of hunter-gatherer landscapes. It was primarily during night-time, fire-lit exchanges that memories about past events and the social significance of places within the landscapes were reinforced and shared with others, that origin myths were retold, cultural rules were strengthened, and news about the natural world was shared.

There may have been no intent and no restriction in scale. Landscape enculturation may have been an intended outcome of large social gatherings that involved ceremony, ritual and special fires as large as the Tlingit fires that blazed 6–7 ft (c. 2.1–2.4 m) high over 4 days on the Pacific North-west coast as the elders recounted their stories (Wiessner Reference Wiessner2014). Landscape enculturation would have also arisen from the informal chatter of a few people seated around glowing embers that might have been constructed to provide a little warmth and light.

Inconsistent terminology, descriptions, and limited ability to identify the size of the past from its residues

There is an absence of both shared terminology and methodology for describing such features. Terms such as fireplace, hearth, and fire-pit are ill-defined and appear inter-changeable, while the variation with which such features are described compromises effective comparisons. This is partly a consequence of our limited understanding concerning the formation of the archaeological evidence for fireplaces. When faced with a well-defined cluster of burnt material such as at Bexhill (Fig. 2), we have little idea of the scale of fire from which this might have derived. Does it reflect a transitory fire used by just one or two people, or might it derive from a more substantial fire used as the focal point for a social gathering? Similarly, one might ask about the nature of the fire – its duration and fuel – required to create a deposit such in the hearth-pit at Howick (Fig. 3). The need for systematic programmes of experimental archaeology, building on work undertaken by Score and Mithen (Reference Score and Mithen2000), Sergant et al. (Reference Sergant, Crombe and Perdaen2006), and Lejay et al. (Reference Lejay, Alexis, Quénéa, Sellami and Bon2016) is evident.

Fireplaces can become spatially distributed

Clusters of fire-cracked stones, such as at Goldcliff, might arise from hot stones having been removed from a fireplace for use elsewhere and then deposited away from the fireplace itself. Similarly, a concentration of burned bone might have arisen from the removal of cooked meat for consumption away from the fireplace. We can be more confident that discrete concentrations of burnt flint indicate the locations of fireplaces in light of experimental evidence indicating flint artefacts only become burnt when in direct contact with the fire itself (Sergant et al. Reference Sergant, Crombe and Perdaen2006) and the unlikelihood they would be moved. Mixed concentrations of burnt material, whether on the surface or in pits, might be hearth sweepings rather than the fireplace itself. The midden-related sites on Oronsay and at Morton have pits containing likely hearth sweepings, while both Mount Sandel and Cnoc Coig have small pits close to the fireplaces into which burnt stones were placed.

Constructed fireplaces are rare in the archaeological record

Despite the evidence for concentrations of burnt material, that for constructed fireplaces is surprisingly rare, by which I mean fires made within pits and/or with stone structures. Fireplaces within a stone surround are strikingly rare. Differentiating between stones used to construct a fireplace and those heated within a fireplace for use in cooking, and possibly taken away from the fire, is often difficult. Any one stone might have played both roles, and hence a stone built fireplace might become entirely dismantled by the end of a cooking event. Those present are primarily from northern Britain: in Scotland and the Pennines, with outliers at Hawcombe, Somerset, and Wawcott IV, Berkshire. The limited evidence for constructed fireplaces at Star Carr is notable in light of the interpretations for ritual at this location, presence of wood platforms, and the extensive area of excavation (Conneller Reference Conneller2004; Reference Conneller, Milner and Woodman2005; Chatterton Reference Chatterton, Conneller and Warren2006; Milner et al. Reference Milner, Conneller and Taylor2018). This matches the absence of substantial-sized dwelling structures at Star Carr when compared with other Mesolithic sites (Mithen & Wicks Reference Mithen and Wicks2018), further indicating the extent to which Star Carr is anomalous for the British Mesolithic.

The most substantial fireplaces are found within structures

The most substantial fireplaces are those within structures, notably at Mount Sandel and Howick, that have been referred to as ‘pit-houses’ (Waddington & Bonsall Reference Waddington and Bonsall2016, 216). As Waddington (Reference Waddington, Ashton and Harris2015) argued, Howick and Mount Sandel might relate to a period of secondary colonisation of northern Britain, and hence the structures and fireside activities might have been key to the initial stages of landscape enculturation, such as those described above for the Kesyehot’ine Chipewyan hunter-fishers. In light of the ethnographic record indicating the effectiveness of a flat surface or a shallow pit as a fireplace, and the prevalence for fireplaces to be outside of shelters, one is inclined to think these internal, structured fireplaces might have had a ritual rather than routine purposes. The pit-houses might have been dedicated to social and ceremonial activities, possibly a type of sweat lodge (Waddington et al. Reference Waddington, Bailey, Bayliss and Milner2007; Mithen & Wicks Reference Mithen and Wicks2018).

Features that may have been large fire-pits might be interpreted as fires used for special rituals, analogous to those described by Marshall (see above, Reference Marshall1976) for the !Kung. The concentrations of burnt flint in the centre of pits at Farnham were interpreted as hearths within dwelling structures (Clark & Rankine Reference Clark and Rankine1937–8). This site deserves revisiting because the absence of features such as post-holes and the high frequency of burnt flints throughout the deposits questions this interpretation. The Farnham pits appear similar to that at Staosnaig (Mithen et al. Reference Mithen, Finlay, Carruthers, Carter and Ashmore2001; compare Clark & Rankine Reference Clark and Rankine1937–8, pl. viii with Fig. 8 below), suggesting an alternative interpretation of their use as large fire-pits rather than as dwellings.

Fireplaces often show evidence for repeated use

The fireplaces at Howick, Mount Sandel, and Criet Dubh show a pattern of repeated usage. One suspects this might be the case from elsewhere were further examples of fireplaces with multiple radiocarbon dates available. The repeated use of the same fireplace, or a discrete location for fireplaces, is also evident from the midden-related sites on Oronsay and at Morton. These have fireplaces built directly on top of previous ones, in some cases following the deposition of wind-blown sediment, and dense clusters of small hearths. Whereas Mithen and Wicks (2018) suggested that the recurrent occupation at Howick, Mount Sandel, and Criet Dubh was for the re-use of the structures, a more likely scenario is the re-use of the fireplace – sitting and telling stories where recent relatives and distant ancestors had sat and done the same. The structures themselves would have likely deteriorated beyond use in the elapsed periods between occupations. As with the Selk’nam and the !Kung, the fireplace was likely to have been far more essential to a sense of place, social cohesion, and survival than temporary huts and windbreaks (Marshall Reference Marshall1976; Spikins et al. Reference Spikins, Kelly and Manzi2010).

The ubiquitous presence of on-site fire usage

Despite the challenging nature of this evidence, its key significance is simply the ubiquitous presence of fire – whether represented by fireplaces or by dispersed burnt material – on Mesolithic sites. Interpretations of specific fireplaces from the archaeological record will always be problematic because hunter-gatherers are prone to leave behind ‘such a variable number of piles of ash from fires that had such a variety of purposes’ (Marshall Reference Marshall1976, 91, writing about !Kung encampments). Nevertheless, recognising that fireplaces were not only used for cooking and practical activities, but also as loci for story-telling, singing, and ritual, activities that enculturated the surrounding landscape, provides us with a more holistic view of Mesolithic life – even if the specific activities and meanings attached to the landscape remain unknown. Further insights might arise by considering the fireplaces within the topography of the landscape and in the context of known subsistence activities and settlement patterns.

Current and historic meanings on the landscape

As is often the case, the present-day and recent history can provide a guide to the more distant past. The present-day land/seascapes of western Scotland are subject to many layers of meaning, these varying between different interest groups such as farmers, estate owners, whisky distillers, tourists, wildlife experts, seafarers, archaeologists, and so forth. My experience of working in this region is that every patch of land and sea has stories about it, often told differently by different people.

Place-names are principally in Gaelic and indicate a further layer of meanings, many of which are now lost. While the names and associated stories themselves are unlikely to be relevant to the Mesolithic, that being so distant in time, they nevertheless indicate topographic locations that are prone to being attributed with social and symbolic significance. On Islay, for instance, the prominent peak on the western Rhinns peninsula is Benin Tart a ‘Mhill (232 m), translated sometimes as ‘mountain of drought’ (Ferguson & Perrons Reference Ferguson and Perrons1988) and sometimes as ‘stag hill’ (Caldwell Reference Caldwell2008, 139). This peak illustrates on-going enculturation with the burial of a young man (Rod Dawson) on its summit in 1977 followed, in the 1980s, by the positioning of a communication mast for civil aircraft. Some place-names appear descriptive of the natural world: Ard Imersay is the ‘promontory of the emmer goose’, and Ballaiblaven the ‘Township of the buzzard’. Other place-names allude to historical events. Carnduncan, for instance, is the burial place of Duncan, the foster-son of Sir Lachland Mor MacLean, the 14th Chief of Duart. As recounted in the story of the 1598 Battle of Traigh Ghruineard, Duncan was killed by his own mother after he had laughed at the bobbing head of MacLean’s corpse when being taken from the battlefield for burial. She killed and buried Duncan below a heap of stones that became ‘Cairn of Duncan’. In ‘reality’, Carnduncan is a Bronze Age cairn (RCAHMS 1985, 52). The stories associated with other place-names are entirely lost: Loch Conilbhe means ‘Loch of the Goddess’ and Loch Drolsay means ‘Loch of the Trolls’. Other names hint at past social occasions: Aoradh means ‘place of sun worship’ and Sunderland probably means ‘assembly place by the loch’ (Ferguson & Perrons Reference Ferguson and Perrons1988).

The most striking peaks in the whole region are the Paps of Jura – three conical peaks 700–800 m in height. These not only dominate their immediate surroundings but also form part of the seascape for many miles around, being prominent landmarks from Kintyre, the islands of Colonsay, Mull, Tiree, and Coll, and even from the tower blocks of Glasgow (Youngson Reference Youngson2001). The origins of and stories associated with their Gaelic names are unknown: Beinn an Or (785 m), the ‘Peak of Gold’, Beinn Shiantaidh (755 m), the ‘Peak of Storms’, and ‘Beinn a’Chaolais (734 m), the ‘Peak of Narrows or Sound’. The highest peak of the region is Beinn Mhòr (966 m) on the Isle of Mull, meaning ‘Great Mountain’. Another prominent feature of the region is the Gulf of Corryvreckan, meaning ‘cauldron of the speckled seas’ or ‘cauldron of the plaid’, about which there are many stories (Youngson Reference Youngson2001, 172–5). Located in the narrow strait between the islands of Jura and Scarba, Corryvreckan has energetic whirlpools and tidal currents. In one account, the goddess of winter, Cailleach Bheur, uses the gulf to wash her great plaid, which ushers in the turn of the seasons from autumn to winter. As winter approaches, her cloth is washed pure white and becomes the blanket of snow that covers the land.

The Mesolithic economy and landscape enculturation

The Mesolithic economy involved hunting terrestrial and sea mammals, including red deer, wild boar, otters, and seal, as evident from the faunal remains from Oronsay middens, Storakaig, and the Rubha Port an t-Seilich (Mellars 1987; Wicks et al. Reference Wicks, Pirie and Mithen2014; Mithen et al. Reference Mithen, Wicks, Pirie, Riede, Lane, Banjerea, Cullen, Gittins and Pankhurst2015). The coastal location of numerous sites and evidence from Oronsay and Fiskary indicate in-shore fishing and collection of coastal resources, including shellfish and crabs (Mellars 1987; Wicks & Mithen Reference Wicks, Mithen, Persson, Reide, Skar, Breivik and Johnson2017). Charred hazelnuts are ubiquitous at Mesolithic sites and found in especially large numbers at Staosnaig, along with crab apple and lesser celandine (Mithen et al. 2001). There is compelling evidence from Islay and Mull for the use of fire for vegetation clearance and, potentially, other forms of landscape management (Edwards Reference Edwards and Mithen2000; McCullagh Reference McCullagh1989; Edwards et al.Reference Edwards, Langdon and Sugden2007)

The fireplaces found at several of these Mesolithic sites (Table 1), and inferred at others by the presence of burnt material, would have been essential for preparing food and other practical tasks. Their number and character suggest they had also played a role in social activities. One of these is likely to have been communicating whereabouts, because night-time fires would have been seen from long distances, certainly from one island to another as is the case with electric lights today. Night-time fires would have also played a role in the enculturation of the landscapes.

The enculturation of the Hebridean land-/seascape is likely to have begun in the Late Pleistocene (c. 12,000 cal bp) in light of a tanged point and Ahrensburgian-like technology from Rubha Port an t-Seilich on the east coast of Islay (Mithen et al. Reference Mithen, Wicks, Pirie, Riede, Lane, Banjerea, Cullen, Gittins and Pankhurst2015; Berg-Hansen et al. Reference Berg-Hansen, Wicks and Mithen2019). Such exploration likely originated from the northern margins of Doggerland and followed around the north and west coast of Scotland in light of the distribution of tanged points on Orkney, Shieldig, Tiree, and Islay. The first radiocarbon dated activity is at c. 10,230 cal bp at Criet Dubh, Isle of Mull (Mithen & Wicks Reference Mithen and Wicks2018). Landscape enculturation during such exploration and pioneering settlement may have followed similar stages to those of the Kesyehot’ine Chipewyan when moving from the sub-Arctic into boreal forest, as described above. It is reasonable to assume that prominent landmarks and seamarks such as the Paps of Jura and the Gulf of Corryvreckan were named during this period.

Land-/seascape enculturation would have continued as the intensity of Mesolithic activity increased to a maximum at c. 8200 cal bp, as measured by a peak in the summed calibrated probability distribution of radiocarbon dates (Wicks & Mithen Reference Wicks and Mithen2014). The abrupt climatic event at that date appears to have caused population collapse in light of the dramatic reduction in activity. This suggests the Mesolithic population had always been relatively low and sensitive to environmental change, as further indicated by the tempo of activity at Criet Dubh (Mithen & Wicks Reference Mithen and Wicks2018). To use Lovis’s (2016) term, the region is likely to have been a ‘big rough space with few people’. As such, landscape enculturation would have been a priority for maintaining social networks. Mesolithic activity gradually increased again after c. 8000 cal bp, before coming to an abrupt end by the arrival of the Neolithic at c. 5600 cal bp (Wicks & Mithen Reference Wicks and Mithen2014).

Fireplaces and their interpretation

Rubha Port an t-Seilich has one of the most substantial fireplaces from the British Mesolithic (Fig. 7). Constructed within the shelter of two outcrop boulders of rock, its earliest deposits correspond with the horizon of the Ahrensburgian-like artefacts. The fireplace consists of burnt stone, charcoal, charred hazelnut shell, and burnt artefacts that accumulated throughout a long succession of site visits, the last of which is currently centred on c. 7880 cal bp (Mithen et al. Reference Mithen, Wicks, Pirie, Riede, Lane, Banjerea, Cullen, Gittins and Pankhurst2015; Mithen et al. in press). Stone slabs were placed around the fireplace, between which discrete clusters of flint tools and debitage were found, along with coarse stone tools, fragments of calcined animal bone (primarily from red deer), charcoal, and charred hazelnut shell. Sergant et al. (Reference Sergant, Crombe and Perdaen2006) note that temperatures of 700°C are required to calcinate bone whereas cooking requires 250°C at a maximum. As such, the bone fragments at Rubha Port an t-Seilich seem unlikely to be the product of accidental burning during cooking. The use of bone as fuel also seems equally unlikely in light of the availability of wood, evident from the charcoal present, dominated by birch and hazel. One is drawn, therefore, to make comparisons with the use of fire to make ritual transformation of hunted animals into products suitable for consumption, as undertaken by the Siberian Iukagir hunters when they use fire to convert an animal from the social to the natural world (Willersley 2010).

Fig. 7. Mesolithic fireplace at Rubha Port an t-Seilich, Isle of Islay. The white outline indicates the location of a block removed for micromorphological analysis, as described in Mithen et al. Reference Mithen, Wicks, Pirie, Riede, Lane, Banjerea, Cullen, Gittins and Pankhurst2015 (images: Steven Mithen)

The ecological attraction of Rubha Port an t-Seilich is reasonably intuitive: rocky outcrops into the strait separating Islay from Jura provide landing places for small boats travelling either south or north. The straits themselves provide a routeway connecting Kintyre with the islands of Mull, Colonsay, Oronsay, Coll, and Tiree – it seems no coincidence that Rubha Port an t-Seilich is located just a kilometre from the modern ferry terminal of Port Askaig. The location provides access to marine and coastal resources, and terrestrial woodland for hunting and gathering on both Islay and, immediately across the narrow straits, the Isle of Jura. With regard to Rubha Port an t-Seilich as a location for story-telling and other types of enculturation activities, one must note that it faces north-east, across the straits to Jura and its three Paps (Fig. 8). We cannot know whether these were spiritually charged in the Mesolithic but it would be obtuse to think otherwise.

Fig. 8. Views from fireplaces at Rubha Port an t-Seilich towards the Paps of Jura, & from Criet Dubh towards the Isle of Rum (images: Steven Mithen)

Another impressive fireplace is located at the site of Criet Dubh on the Isle of Mull (Mithen & Wicks Reference Mithen and Wicks2018; Fig. 4). This contained unshaped blocks of burned stone within shallow pits, covered in heavily burned deposits. Stakes and posts had surrounded the fireplace, but their truncation by recent cultivation leave the type of structure they represent unclear – windbreaks, a hut, a smoke house, or even a mini-sweat lodge? Radiocarbon dating of the deposits that had accumulated around, over, and in-between the hearthstones and from the immediately adjacent features indicate that Criet Dubh had been visited and the fireplace used on multiple occasions between c. 10,230 cal bp and 8580 cal bp. A structure, probably less substantial than the later hut, had been built early in this sequence of visits, perhaps providing the type of artificial marking of the landscape undertaken by the Kesyehot’ine Chipewayan as an integral part of their enculturation of a newly colonised landscape. An attractive ethnographic analogy for the later hut is that provided by the Selk’nam for the male initiation ceremony. This involved a ‘Hain’ hut constructed away from the settlement exclusively for men. It contained a central fireplace from which spirits would rise from the spirit world into the hut (Spikins et al. Reference Spikins, Kelly and Manzi2010).

As at Rubha Port an t-Seilich, the ecological attraction of Criet Dubh is intuitive: the site is adjacent to an estuary that would have provided outstanding opportunities for fishing, fowling, and foraging, and at the shortest crossing point to the Isle of Coll. Another similarity with Rubha Port an t-Seilich is that the vista from Criet Dubh is towards some of the most notable peaks in the region – the distinctive and dramatic mountains of the Islands of Rum and Skye (Fig. 8).

Staosnaig, Isle of Colonsay, provides another impressive fireplace, albeit one that has remained unrecognised as such (Fig. 9). A 4.5 m diameter circular shallow pit contained more than 15 kg of charred hazelnut shell fragments, estimated to have come from 30–40,000 hazelnuts (Mithen et al. 2001), arising from at least six visits to the site between c. 9060 cal bp and 6230 cal bp. The smaller surrounding features may have been ovens for roasting hazelnuts and other plant foods, potentially reused as fireplaces. Experimental roasting charrs 12–25% of hazelnuts, which destroys the kernel (Score & Mithen Reference Score and Mithen2000). Had it just been such charred waste discarded into the large pit, then at least 300,000 hazelnuts would have been roasted at Staosnaig. It seems more likely that people had deliberately gathered the shells from all the roasted hazelnuts – charred or otherwise – for deposition and burning in the pit. Why do this? Why not simply leave them on the ground to be washed or trampled away? The answer may have been to create a mass of glowing embers and a cloud of aromatic wood smoke at a fireplace that also provides a south-easterly view towards the Paps of Jura. One cannot resist thinking about the use of wood-smoke by the Chukchis reindeer herders, to keep the male reindeer strong and virile during the rutting season (Vaté Reference Vaté2010). Equally, the large central fire-pit with smaller adjacent fireplaces invokes Marshall’s (Reference Marshall1976, 91) description of special fires for ritual activities amongst the !Kung around which dancing takes place, during which those who are not dancing sit at small fires near the dance circle.

Fig. 9. Feature F24, Staosnaig, Isle of Colonsay (image: Steven Mithen)

There are further significant fireplaces within this study region (Table 1). Those at the Oronsay middens and the extensive burnt deposits at Storakaig (Isle of Islay), with heavily calcined bone, have been noted above. A large pit not dissimilar to that at Staosnaig was excavated at Newton (Isle of Islay) and a structure consisting of three stone rings at Lussa Wood on Jura is likely to have been a fireplace (Mercer Reference Mercer1978).

Mobility and subsistence in an encultured landscape

We are unable to infer the specific meanings, cosmological and otherwise, that Mesolithic people attached to their land-/seascapes. It would be surprising if those prominent features conferred with meanings in historic times had not been considered likewise in the Mesolithic. The sea-travelling explorers and pioneers would surely have encountered the whirlpool now known as the Gulf of Coryvrecken and given it a name. The vistas from Rubha Port an t-Seilich, Criet Dubh, and Staosnaig have already been noted. More generally, Mesolithic sites were positioned to have a more wide-ranging view across the landscape than would have occurred by chance (Lake et al. 1998). While of value for watching for game, and observing the natural world in general, this might also reflect the cosmological and social meanings of the landscape.

There is a huge accumulation of Mesolithic stone artefacts on the lower slopes of Benin Tart a ‘Mhill at the site of Bolsay (Mithen et al. Reference Mithen2000a). This is a palimpsest from multiple visits to what was most likely a red deer hunting camp, with concentrations of burnt flint indicating many small fireplaces. It is difficult to resist analogies with the attraction of the Blackfoot Indians to the Sweetgrass Hills (now in Montana). This was also a prominent landmark, to which they regularly returned for hunting, in their case of buffalo. The Sweetgrass Hills were also integral to Blackfoot cosmology and their camping sites not only met subsistence needs but also provided a location for spiritual activities in preparation for religious ceremonies. The same might have been the case for the Mesolithic hunters who visited Bolsay. We should note the continued use of Bolsay into the Neolithic with the loss/deposition of a polished stone axe and the construction of a Neolithic chambered cairn in its close vicinity (the ‘Giant’s Grave’, RCAHMS 1985, 50), as well as the only stone circle on the island (Cultoon, RCAHMS 1985, 66–7). Both Tilley (1994) and Bradley (Reference Bradley2000) have cited the deposition of artefacts and construction of later monuments as possible indicators of the sacredness of a natural place in the Mesolithic.

It is tempting to think that the Gaelic place-names might reflect inherent properties of place and possibly the long-term continuation of activities. The hunting camp at Bolsay seems appropriately positioned at the base of a hill known as ‘Stag Hill’, while Rubha Port an t-Seilich has been translated as ‘point of the hunter’. A Mesolithic site, interpreted as an observatory for wildfowl and game, is known at Aoradh (Mithen et al. Reference Mithen, Woodman, Finlay and Finlayson2000b): the ‘place of sun worship’.

More generally, the notion that the journeys across and between the islands and mainland of this study area were fulfilling historical, social, and cosmological imperatives as well meeting subsistence and other needs is compelling. While visits to Coulererach on the west coast of Islay might have served to acquire flint pebbles (Mithen & Finlay Reference Mithen and Finlay2000), this coastline has a dramatic topography and was charged with value from at least the Neolithic onwards in light of monuments such as the Balinaby standing stone and a later Viking burial (RCAHMS 1985).

The meeting of social and/or cosmological obligations may have provided the motivation for the repeated visits to small islands such as Oronsay, Colonsay, Oronsay, and Coll that would have required treacherous and lengthy sea crossings. While resources on such islands may have been of value, it seems unlikely that the benefits gained would have offset the costs and risks of sea-travel when the same types of resources were also available on the larger islands and mainland. The sets of radiocarbon dates from these the small-island sites suggest such visits had been infrequent. At Fiskary on the Isle of Coll, for instance, the available radiocarbon dates (n=6) suggest three visits (or short sequences of visits) centred on 9070 cal bp, 8520 cal bp, and 8280 cal bp, which are several generations apart (Wicks & Mithen 2017). From an ecological perspective, this may have fulfilled the need for updating environmental knowledge as it fades from shared memory or in light of climate change. The motivation for such sea crossings, however, might have been to meet social and cosmological obligations implanted by the stories, singing and ritual performed at night around the fireplaces of Rubha Port an t-Seilich, Criet Dubh, and Storakaig. One can but wonder whether the much later prevalence of small isolated islands to be used as locations for spiritual devotion has its roots in the Mesolithic.