La mobilité à longue distance au Mesolithique sur la côte ouest de l’Ecosse?

HARDY K.; PEREZ M.; PIQUÉ R.; BLAKE M.; MANSUR M . E.; ESTÉVEZ J.; VILA A.

Vannes

Simposio; I Colloque International HOMER; 2011

Universités de Rennes 1, 2, CNRS, Ministère de la Culture

The west coast of Scotland offers a perfect geography for long distance water-based transport. The scales of movement of Mesolithic people here are likely to have been very different to those we, in Europe, experience today. When compared with modern populations from larger countries in Australia or the Americas, for example, our perceptions of distance are reduced (Harrison-Hill 2001).  We argue this is reflected in the way we perceive of people’s ability to move around in the Mesolithic.   Perceptions of Mesolithic mobility may be reflected better in the many ethnographic examples of long-distance movement and social networks from the Canadian north west coast and the recent populations of Tierra del Fuego. Water-based travel, on both the sea and rivers, is likely to have afforded a particularly convenient way to move long distance along coasts, between coastal and inland area, and of course to and from and between, islands.  Though the sea in all these areas can be perilous, weather forecasting using natural phenomena is likely to have afforded a very good understanding of when to and when not to travel.