As the ice retreated across Europe Mesolithic peoples pushed into formerly uninhabited lands. It can only be guessed at when Orkney saw the first arrivals but it was probably in the seventh millennium BC. It is conventionally perceived that these would have been primitive hunter gather peoples, living some form of subsistence life in a harsh environment. This perception is almost certainly wrong.

Anthropologically these humans were genetically identical to you and I. The only difference between us is our technology. Our modern self-satisfied outlook demands that this technology is superior; for the life these people were living this superior view is simply not true. These people would have been completely in tune with their environment. Ancient knowledge described as Bush Craft, a deep native resourcefulness allied to a fundamental understanding of the natural world around them would have provided the basis of far more sophisticated lifestyles than we might expect.

Homo Sapiens Sapiens had been travelling the world for 100,000 years before he arrived in Orkney following the retreat of the Ice. A huge bedrock of experience was available through the original data storage technique of the aural tradition, memory and voice.

Today the nearest equivalents would be the uncorrupted cultures of 17th century Aborigines’ in Australia and the USA. Destroyed by the relentless brutal march of our modern capitalist World before our modern social morality gained a voice, these peoples lived often what is now considered idyllic lives with highly sophisticated belief systems and an entirely harmonious relationship with the environment.

And what an environment it must have been ! No EC fishing quotas or Spanish Factory Ships hoovering the Oceans. 30lb Cod would have been thick in the Seas, and only yards offshore. Vast fields of shellfish would have been close at hand. Giant Lobsters and Crab would be littering the ocean floors. 

Before agrarian advances formalised land management these people would have sensibly husbanded what suited them in both flora and fauna; rather than using the high maintenance domesticated set of farming animals they would have used wild Deer and Boar as a resource and provided the conditions, often simply by maintaining the status quo, for them to thrive. Beneficial plants would be given the best chance to propagate. A nomadic way of life would pulse with the seasons and intelligently manage what nature offered.

more to come...