Burnt hazelnut shell sheds new light on Stewartry residents of 10,000 years ago
The artefact was found at Threave Garden and Estate by volunteers taking part in the Galloway Glens’ Can You Dig It scheme
Updated
Can You Dig It volunteers enjoying their work at Threave.
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Signs of life dating back to the Mesolithic period have been found on a country estate in Dumfries and Galloway.
A tiny burnt hazelnut shell found by volunteers on an archaeological dig at the National Trust for Scotland’s Threave Garden and Estate has been dated to between 8,547 and 8,312 BC.
The Galloway Glens community archaeology project Can You Dig It found the shell during a dig in 2019 at Little Wood Hill, which dates back to the Iron Age.
Since then, some of the carbonised material recovered has been sent away for radiocarbon dating at the Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre (SUERC).