This work provides new insights into human responses to and perceptions of sea-level rise at a time when the landscapes of northwest Europe radically changing. These issues are investigated through a case study focused on the Channel Islands. We report on the excavation of two sites, Canal du Squez in Jersey and Lihou (GU582) in Guernsey, and the study of museum collections across the Channel Islands. We argue that people were drawn to this area as a result of the dynamic environmental processes occurring and the opportunities these created. The evidence suggests that the area was a particular focus during the Middle Mesolithic, when Guernsey and Alderney were already islands and while Jersey was a peninsula of Northern France. Insularisation does not appear to have created a barrier to occupation during either the Middle or Final Mesolithic, indicating the appearance of lifeways increasingly focused on maritime voyaging and marine resources from the second half of the 9 th millennium BC onwards.
Acceptance of ritual as a valid interpretation of Mesolithic behaviour has slowly emerged over the past decade; the 'silly season' heralded by Mellars (Antiquity 83:502-517, 2009) has not materialised, though in Ireland and Britain difficulties persist in defining what might constitute 'ritual' away from the graveside. New discoveries from both the development-led and academic sectors enable Mesolithic archaeologists to better establish which elements of the archaeological record can be interpreted as ritual. This paper seeks to identify further strands of ritual behaviour, incorporating evidence from sites without organic remains. We consider the evidence for ritual at the site and feature scales, and in the special treatment of objects-an often overlooked body of data in understanding ritual. Thus the material signature of ritual will be questioned, and ways in which Mesolithic ritual can be rehabilitated and expanded will be explored.
The Upper Palaeolithic is characterised by the appearance of iconographic expressions most often depicting animals, including anthropomorphic forms, and geometric signs. The Late Upper Palaeolithic Magdalenian saw a flourishing of such depictions, encompassing cave art, engraving of stone, bone and antler blanks and decoration of tools and weapons. Though Magdalenian settlement exists as far northwest as Britain, there is a limited range of art known from this region, possibly associated with only fleeting occupation of Britain during this period. Stone plaquettes, flat fragments of stone engraved on at least one surface, have been found in large quantities at numerous sites spanning the temporal and geographical spread of the Magdalenian, but they have been absent so far from the archaeological record of the British Isles. Between 2015 and 2018, ten fragments of stone plaquettes extensively engraved with abstract designs were uncovered at the Magdalenian site of Les Varines, Jersey, Channel Islands. In this paper, we report detailed analyses of these finds, which provide new evidence for technologies of abstract mark-making, and their significance within the lives of people on the edge of the Magdalenian world. These engraved stone fragments represent important, rare evidence of artistic expression in what is the far northern and western range of the Magdalenian and add new insight to the wider significance of dynamic practices of artistic expression during the Upper Palaeolithic.
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