ARCHEOLOGISTS have found an ancient festival site near Carlisle, which the believe may shed new light on the origins of British identity.
More than 600 red ochre fragments have been recovered at the 6,500-year-old probable ceremonial prehistoric, located near Carlisle – along with the grinding stones used to reduce lumps of red ochre to powder, which experts believe is probably for the production of pigment.
The find located on what had been a small (1.2 acre) island in the River Eden, in prehistoric times (now Stainton West, near Carlisle) is the largest collection of pieces of red ochre ever found in Britain, with archaeologists believing the site has been used for ‘major ritually and economically significant communal gatherings’ in days gone by.
Over 300,000 fragments of flint work debris have been found at just the 12% of the island which has been excavated, suggesting that hundreds of arrows and artifacts were being created at every gathering during the late Mesolithic times, suggesting the number of people at the gatherings could likely have exceeded 100, attracting members of up to half a dozen different small hunter-gatherer bands and extended families.
The artifacts found at the site have revealed that the people who gathered there either came from a very wide geographical area, with volcanic glass being found from as far as the Isle of Arran.
Speaking to the Independent, leader of the archaeological investigation, Fraser Brown of the UK consultancy, Oxford Archaeology said: “The Carlisle site is important because it demonstrates the social complexity of Mesolithic hunter-gatherer society - and the remarkable extent to which widely dispersed communities interacted across much of Britain.”
Some believe that the red ochre discovery at the Carlisle site, may well have been an early part of a continuous British body-painting tradition which ultimately generated the name of the island, with the origin of the word Britain thought to have been ‘the land of the painted people’.
For more information on this ancient site you can click here.
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel