Mesolithic Survival in Highland Scotland

Copyright © Sheila McGregor 2010. The right of Sheila McGregor to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner.

"An intriguing introduction to the Mesolithic which actually makes sense for a change."

This initial volume in the series Decoding the Past looks at the survival of Mesolithic or even Palaeolithic traits in the extinct deer-hunting culture of the Scottish Highlanders. The ideas presented in this book are novel but they rest on ascertainable facts. This initial volume summarizes the evidence for the archaic survival in the life of the Scottish Gaels before c.1750, when tribal life came to an end.

Extrapolated meanings are shown in brackets, thus ‘soldier, brave man (hunter)’, ‘fight, battle (hunt)’, ‘narrow passage (trap, ambush)’. In almost every case the obsolete or archaic meaning refers back to archaic hunting terminology and derives from the Gaelic native to Scotland.

CONTENTS

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