Worked Quartz fragment

This object from the Mesolithic period shows a piece of quartz, a material found widespread throught the area, which has been worked using hand tools.     In 1957 more than 200 flint and chert microliths, cores and core scrapers were found at two chipping floors on the Eskdalemuir hillsides. Sometimes forestry work provides archaeologists with opportunities they do not have when land is under rough pasture. These worked stones were recovered from forestry drains. The find also included two fragments of pitchstone, which has very good flaking properties and was much sought after for the manufacture of stone tools. There are two possible sources of this pitchstone, Corriegill near Annan or the island of Arran. If it was the latter hunter gatherer peoples were either highly mobile or trading over considerable distances.