Archaeology Research

A team of archaeologists and scientists led by Karen Hardy, Professor of Prehistoric Archaeology at the University of Glasgow, has discovered evidence for one of the earliest human populations yet known in Scotland. 

Stone tools found on the Isle of Skye are from a period known as the Late Upper Palaeolithic (LUP) and date to around 11,500 – 11,000 years ago. Together with a group of stone circular structures also on the Isle of Skye, found below modern sea level from a time when sea level was lower than today, and also recently discovered by Professor Hardy together with local archaeologist, Martin Wildgoose, as well as other local sites, this now represents the largest concentration of evidence for these pioneer human populations anywhere in Scotland and reveals how early humans ventured much further north than previously believed. 

The discoveries have been announced in a paper – At the far end of everything: A likely Ahrensburgian presence in the far north of the Isle of Skye, Scotland – published in the Journal of Quaternary Science.  

Karen Hardy says: “This is a hugely significant discovery which offers a new perspective on the earliest human occupation yet known, of north-west Scotland.”   

The team, from the Universities of Leeds, Sheffield, Leeds Beckett and Flinders in Australia worked together to reconstruct the local landscape and changing sea levels. During this period, which is immediately after the Younger Dryas (also known as the Loch Lomond Stadial), when much of west Scotland was buried under ice, groups of nomadic hunter-gatherers most likely of the Ahrensburgian culture from northern Europe, crossed Doggerland, an area that is now covered by the North Sea, and established themselves on Skye.

Back then, the landscape of Scotland would have looked very different to today. Professor Hardy adds

“The journey made by these pioneering people who left their lowland territories in mainland Europe to travel northwards into the unknown, is the ultimate adventure story.  As they journeyed northwards, most likely following animal herds, they eventually reached Scotland, where the western landscape was dramatically changing as glaciers melted and the land rebounded as it recovered from the weight of the ice.  A good example of the volatility they would have encountered can be found in Glen Roy, where the world-famous Parallel Roads provide physical testament to the huge landscape changes and cataclysmic floods that they would have encountered, as they travelled across Scotland.”

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First published: 28 April 2025