Quartz, a precious link to our ancestors
DIGGING INTO THE PAST with Dr Murray Cook
Quartz
For the thousands of years before metal was invented our prehistoric ancestors used very hard stone like flint to create tools. Across Scotland when people dig in fields or gardens they tend to find these small tools, in the medieval period people linked them to fairies.
When I first started digging in Stirling I expected to find some but it never really came and in 10 years I’ve only found a handful of bits of flint.
So what did our local ancient Sons and Daughters of the Rock use? The surprising answer is quartz, which is very common across Stirling and turns up all the time on my digs and it’s always very tricky to spot as there is so much of it naturally.
Generally, you can tell if a bit of quartz has been worked if it’s bigger than a thumbnail, shiny and sharp. Anything with rounded edges has probably been rolling about since the glaciers, while a worked piece of quartz has to be sharp enough to scratch you.
The piece of quartz pictured was worked around 3-4000 years ago when Stirling was surrounded by a shallow sea and Cornton was under water! It is at least three times older than Stirling Castle and it is still sharp enough to cut.
We found it with my Night Class last Sunday in the hills above Doune. It was probably picked up from a nearby stream bed and carried about till it was needed and probably struck on the spot to produce a little knife, probably for cutting meat from a newly-captured animal, their tea for the night and then dropped.
We don’t know their name, or age or sex but it is small precious link to our ancestors and how just how hard their life was.