ABSTRACT
Single flint tanged points have been found on the islands of Tiree (fig. 9.1 no. 1) and Jura (fig. 9.1 no. 2). These are thought to be of a late Upper Palaeolithic type, but one which was still current on the Continent after 10,000 BP. A barbed bone point from Glen Avon, Banffshire (fig. 9.1 no. 3) is another possible late Upper Palaeolithic artefact, although again the date range of this type extends to well after 10,000 BP. The fourth isolated find is a single worked flint recovered from the bed of the North Sea by an oil drilling platform between Shetland and Norway. The sea is 140 m deep
at this point and can only have been dry land when sea levels were low at the time of the glacial maximum. However, the flint is quite undiagnostic and could have arrived on the sea bed at any time, either through being lost overboard or during the course of a shipwreck. Potentially more convincing than any of these undated finds is the radiocarbon date of c. 10,000 BP for a portion of unmodified reindeer antler found in a cave at Inchnadamph (fig. 9.1 no. 5). The interest of this site lies in the fact that the dated specimen is part of a substantial assemblage of antlers that may be the residue of a cache accumulated by a band of hunters operating in the area. This interpretation is yet to be established beyond doubt and the remoteness of Inchnadamph from other areas of Lateglacial settlement urges caution until the date and status of the assemblage have been confirmed.
