Ancient Argyll glen hailed as Britain's answer to Egypt's famous Valley of Kings by TV anthropologis
Ancient Argyll glen hailed as Britain’s answer to Egypt’s famous Valley of Kings by TV anthropologist
Author: The Sunday Post, 20 January 2019
Kilmartin Glen, south of Oban, was placed top of five “little known” UK landscapes by TV presenter and author Mary-Ann Ochota for leading travel guide Wanderlust.
More than 5,000 years of human history can be traced across the glen.
At least 350 ancient monuments, of which 150 are prehistoric, lie within six miles of Kilmartin village.
Of particular interest are the earlier prehistoric monuments – chambered cairns, round cairns, cists, standing stones and rock carvings.
Before the pyramids were built, the inhabitants of this area of Scotland had built the first of the burial cairns that make up the Linear Cemetery at Nether Largie South.
More:
https://www.sundaypost.com/fp/scots-glen-hailed-as-our-valley-of-kings/
Kilmartin Glen
Roland Flutet
An impressive site
Created over 5000 years ago, Nether Largie South Cairn is probably the most impressive thing to see in Kilmartin Valley on the west coast of the Scottish highlands: the Celtic burial site is more than 40 meters deep, a kind of menhir buried under stones, and several compartments. One of them contained ancient pottery, while another other was filled with burnt bones, which reflect the crematory practices at the time. This is certainly a massive site that can't fail to impress visitors who come to see it!
The glen is located between Oban and Lochgilphead,[2] surrounding the village of Kilmartin. In the village, Kilmartin Museum[3] explains the stories of this ancient landscape and the people who dwelt there.
There are more than 800 ancient monuments within a six-mile radius of the village, with 150 of them being prehistoric. Monuments include standing stones, a henge monument, numerous cists, and a "linear cemetery" comprising five burial cairns. Several of these, as well as many natural rocks, are decorated with cup and ring marks.
The remains of the fortress of the Scots at Dunadd, a royal centre of Dal Riata, are located to the south of the glen, on the edge of the Moine Mhòr or Great Moss. Kilmartin Museum is located within the village itself and inspires and educates people by interpreting, explaining and conserving the internationally important archaeological landscape, artefacts and natural heritage of Kilmartin Glen.[3]
The linear cemetery
View of Kilmartin Glen south from Kilmartin village churchyard
The most visible feature of the Kilmartin Glen is the linear arrangement of cairns, running over three miles south-by-south-west from the village. There are five remaining cairns in the alignment, although cropmarks and other traces suggest that there may originally have been more. The burial cairns are of Bronze Age origin, with the exception of Nether Largie South cairn, which is a Stone Age structure, rebuilt in the Bronze Age.
More:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilmartin_Glen
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Kilmartin Glen Rock Art
23
JUL
Kilmartin Glen is name familiar to many archaeologists; it is described as Scotland’s richest prehistoric landscape. But what is there to see? I spent two days walking and driving about the glen, exploring the prehistory. This will be the first of several posts exploring the different types of archaeology to be found there – let’s start with rock art.
More:
https://prehistorysue.wordpress.com/2011/07/23/kilmartin-glen-rock-art/
Many outstanding images of the area:
https://tinyurl.com/y7qkwh8j
Official Argyle socks, of course:
= new reply since forum marked as read
from the eastern Mediterranean as far as the Iberian peninsula and people were living like this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Millares
Should we expect to find something similar in the British Isles at the end of the neolithic?
The duration of the Neolithic varies from place to place, its end marked by the introduction of bronze implements: in southeast Europe it is approximately 4,000 years (i.e. 7000 BCE–3000 BCE) while in parts of Northwest Europe it is just under 3,000 years (c. 4500 BCE–1700 BCE)...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neolithic_Europe
The Neolithic Revolution involved far more than the adoption of a limited set of food-producing techniques. During the next millennia it would transform the small and mobile groups of hunter-gatherers that had hitherto dominated human pre-history into sedentary (non-nomadic) societies based in built-up villages and towns. These societies radically modified their natural environment by means of specialized food-crop cultivation, with activities such as irrigation and deforestation which allowed the production of surplus food. Other developments found very widely are the domestication of animals, pottery, polished stone tools, and rectangular houses.
These developments, sometimes called the Neolithic package, provided the basis for centralized administrations and political structures, hierarchical ideologies, depersonalized systems of knowledge (e.g. writing), densely populated settlements, specialization and division of labour, more trade, the development of non-portable art and architecture, and property ownership... The Levant saw the earliest developments of the Neolithic Revolution from around 10,000 BCE, followed by sites in the wider Fertile Crescent...
Living in one spot would have more easily permitted the accrual of personal possessions and an attachment to certain areas of land. From such a position, it is argued[by whom?], prehistoric people were able to stockpile food to survive lean times and trade unwanted surpluses with others. Once trade and a secure food supply were established, populations could grow, and society would have diversified into food producers and artisans, who could afford to develop their trade by virtue of the free time they enjoyed because of a surplus of food. The artisans, in turn, were able to develop technology such as metal weapons. Such relative complexity would have required some form of social organisation to work efficiently, so it is likely that populations that had such organisation, perhaps such as that provided by religion, were better prepared and more successful...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neolithic_Revolution
