Site Report

WoSAS Pin 57693
NT 0820 4360

NT 082 436 As part of the Prehistory north of Biggar project an assemblage of flint tools was retrieved from fieldwalking and excavation and has been identified as of Early Mesolithic date. The collection, which has been compared to Star Carr type Early Mesolithic assemblages, consists of broad blades and microliths. The site is unique in being so far inland, coastal sites being the norm in Scotland for such finds. Charcoal from pits will be C14 dated. A report has been prepared by Alan Saville and Torben Ballin on this important discovery.
Tam Ward, Biggar Archaeology Group, DES 2007
Entered WoSAS (MO'H) 08/08/2008

Flint artefacts collected between 2003-2006 by the Biggar Museum Archaeology Group in a field at Howburn Farm have been identified as dating to 14,000 years old. They constitute the oldest certain evidence for human occupation in Scotland, and the most northern evidence for the earliest people in Britain. Over the winter of 2005-2006, the Biggar Group excavated a concentration of flints, believing the site to be Neolithic and to date to around 3000BC. Charocal from a shallow pit was radiocarbon dated to the Iron Age. However, subsequent analysis of the artefactual assemblage, conducted by Torben Ballin, a lithics specialist, and Alan Saville of the National Museums of Scotland, indicated that some of the artefacts were substantially older, perhaps dating to the early mesolithic. Further study identified a number of pieces such as a tanged point, en eperon blades, a Zinken-like piercer, end-of-blade scrapers and burins, that were characteristic of the late upper paleolithic of 12,000BC. According to Saville, the material that represents the best comparison with that from Howburn comes from the later Hamburgian in the Netherlands, northern Germany and southern Denmark.
British Archaeology No. 106, May / June 2009
Entered WoSAS (MO'H) 09/04/2009