The Isle of Skye is the largest and northernmost of the major islands in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland. And here, archaeologists have found signs of a journey that defies expectation. Thousands of years ago, long before the invention of farming or even before Stonehenge rose from the Salisbury plain, a band of hunter-gatherers arrived at what was then the edge of the known world.
According to scientists writing in a new study, these people from the Old Stone Age, or Late Upper Paleolithic period, not only ventured to northwestern Scotland but may have stayed and thrived there. Over eight years, archaeologists discovered tools and stone structures on a windswept shoreline and beneath the tides, hinting at a dramatic human push into a landscape once thought too cold and too remote to support life.
“The journey made by these pioneering people who left their lowland territories in mainland Europe to travel northwards into the unknown is the ultimate adventure story,” said archaeologist Karen Hardy, who led the study from the University of Glasgow.
The story of early human presence at Skye begins with a series of unexpected finds.
Hardy and her team uncovered dozens of finely crafted stone tools along a beach at South Cuidrach, on Skye’s rugged north coast. The tools, shaped from locally available baked mudstone, include flint-like blades, burins, and scraper fragments. Some resemble the distinctive style of the Ahrensburgian culture. This was a group of Late Upper Paleolithic hunter-gatherers from what is now northern Germany and Denmark.
While a handful of similar tools have been found across Scotland, this is the first time so many have appeared this far north — and in such density.
“The number of artifacts made from local materials on Skye indicate either a reasonably sized population or long-term occupation,” Hardy and her colleagues argue in their paper.
Equally compelling are the circular stone alignments discovered at a tidal flat near Sconser, on the island’s eastern side. Each circle is between 3 and 5 meters in diameter. And they only become visible for a few hours each year, when the sea retreats during the lowest spring tides. Sometimes, snorkeling rounds were required.
Divers and drone surveys have identified up to 20 of these submerged structures. Archaeologists believe they were likely built more than 10,000 years ago. At that time, sea levels were lower and the area was dry land.
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“The similarity between these circular alignments and those at Sconser is remarkable and supports the interpretation of a Late Pleistocene/Early Holocene age,” the study states, noting a resemblance to similar features in Norway dated to around 11,000 years ago.
How Did They Get There?
This new evidence challenges long-held assumptions.
Until recently, researchers believed that human settlement in Scotland began only after the glaciers retreated at the end of the last Ice Age, around 11,700 years ago. Harsh climate and rugged geography made sustained habitation seem unlikely.
But the new artifacts suggest that people may have arrived earlier — and stayed.
How they reached Skye remains an open question. During the last glacial period, vast ice sheets covered much of western Scotland. But as these glaciers began to melt, the sea remained lower than today, exposing land bridges and narrow crossings. There may even have been a walkable route to Skye at the narrow Kylerhea Strait.
“These people may have followed animal herds northward as the glaciers receded,” said Hardy. “They eventually reached Scotland, where the western landscape was dramatically changing as glaciers melted and the land rebounded from the weight of the ice.”
The tools at South Cuidrach were likely shaped from mudstone found on the island’s northeast coast, suggesting the inhabitants had traveled across Skye’s mountainous terrain. The decision to settle on the west coast likely had ecological reasons. There was good access to uplands for hunting, freshwater from nearby rivers, and marine life along the coast.
A Culture on the Edge
If confirmed, these artifacts represent the northernmost known reach of the Ahrensburgian culture.
That culture, defined largely by its lithic (stone tool) technology, flourished in mainland Europe between about 12,200 and 10,500 years ago. It followed earlier cultures like the Hamburgian and Federmesser, whose people also pushed northward as ice retreated. But the Ahrensburgian is among the last of Europe’s Old Stone Age societies before the Holocene epoch gave rise to new ways of life.
In Skye, these ancient settlers would have encountered tundra-like conditions, scattered birch and willow, and a volatile coastline. But they were not helpless wanderers. Evidence from other Ahrensburgian sites shows they were skilled in hunting, fishing, and adapting to changing environments. They likely used boats to cross waterways, and ochre found near South Cuidrach hints at symbolic or practical use, perhaps in hide processing or decoration.
“Living in and around Skye required a combination of marine transport and the ability to adapt to a rapidly changing climate and environment,” the authors write.
Rethinking the Human Past in Scotland
Scotland’s earliest confirmed human presence had previously been dated to the Early Mesolithic, just over 10,000 years ago. Sites like Cramond near Edinburgh offered radiocarbon-dated evidence of habitation. But the new findings imply that humans may have been present at least hundreds of years earlier — even as glaciers still clung to the Scottish Highlands.
The evidence remains circumstantial. No human bones or campsites have been found. And. because of the lack of organic materials at the site, researchers haven’t been able to confirm dates through radiocarbon analysis. They rely instead on geomorphology, comparisons with other dated sites, the typology of the tools — and educated guesses.
Still, the clues keep piling up.
With more excavations planned — and new technologies like underwater LiDAR and sediment DNA on the horizon — Hardy believes this is just the beginning.
“This is a hugely significant discovery which offers a new perspective on the earliest human occupation yet known, of north-west Scotland,” she said. “We now know they didn’t just pass through. They were here, living at the far end of everything.”
The findings appeared in The Journal of Quaternary Science.
