WORLD

Research shows that red deer were brought to Scottish islands by early explorers, but the question remains: where did the Neolithic colonists come from? (Guardian)

Use today’s MapMaker Interactive map to better understand these maritime migrations across the North Sea.

Teachers, scroll down for a quick list of key resources in our Teachers’ Toolkit, including today’s MapMaker Interactive map.

Discussion Ideas

• Exciting new research shows that the ancestors of some Scottish deer were transported to their isolated island homes by Stone Age people from far away. How do scientists know the deer are not indigenous to the islands of the Outer Hebrides and Orkneys?
  • According to the Guardian, the Orkney and Hebridean invasions could only have happened after the last glacial maximum, 10,000 years ago. (The Ice Age forced all of Great Britain’s big animals to “southern refugia.”)
    • “All terrestrial fauna must have been deliberately introduced by seafaring people,” says one bioarchaeologist. “These people were sophisticated, skilled farmers, with large settlements. The islands were popular places to settle, with sufficient resources to allow people to thrive. The coastal environments offered a wide range of marine, coastal, terrestrial and aerial resources and these people utilized them all.”

 

• How do scientists know Hebridean deer didn’t just swim (or get accidentally swept) to the shores of the islands?
  • Deer can swim, but they can’t swim that well. “The Scottish islands are separated from the mainland by deep waters, at distances beyond any deer’s swimming capability.”

 

• So if the deer aren’t indigenous and didn’t get there by themselves, they must have had “human-mediated translocations”—been purposely transported by ship from elsewhere else. Why would Stone Age explorers take red deer with them as they moved to new islands?
  • Red deer were one of the most familiar types of livestock among ancient Europeans. Although never quite domesticated, deer provided “food; skins used for clothing, shelter, blankets, and storage; sinews used for cordage; and bones and antler used for tools.”

 

• Why might scientists have thought the red deer found on the Outer Hebrides or Orkneys may have brought from Scotland, Ireland, or Scandinavia? Take a look at today’s MapMaker Interactive for some help.
  • They’re relatively close by.
    • The Outer Hebrides and the Orkneys are a part of Scotland. Many people assumed deer from the Outer Hebrides were the same genetic stock as those from the Inner Hebrides, islands closer to Scotland’s west coast, or mainland Scotland itself. Here’s a Scottish deer.
    • Ireland, the second-largest of the British Isles, is just south of the Outer Hebrides. Here’s an Irish deer.
    • Norway is just across the North Sea from the Orkneys. Here are some Norwegian deer.

 

• How do we know red deer from the Outer Hebrides and Orkneys did not come from these nearby sites? Take a look at the map above, or today’s MapMaker Interactive map for some help. (Hint: Look at the information in the markers.)
  • DNA.
    • First, scientists took samples from red deer bones unearthed from insular (island) and mainland archaeological sites that represent the spatial and chronological distribution of red deer over the last 7,500 years. They took samples from the Outer Hebrides, Orkneys, Inner Hebrides, mainland Scotland, Ireland, and Norway.
    • Then, they determined the haplotypes of these DNA samples, marked as HAxxx on our map markers. (A haplotype is a group of genes within an organism that was inherited together from a single parent.)
      • Comparing haplotypes showed that deer from the Outer Hebrides and Orkneys are unlikely to have originated from mainland Scotland. Results are also inconsistent with an origin from Ireland or Norway.

 

• So, where did the ancient explorers who brought deer to Scotland’s outlying islands come from? Take another look at today’s MapMaker Interactive map for some help.
  • Still a mystery! Some theories point to the Low Countries.
    • “Archaeological lithic, ceramic, and monumental evidence points towards contact with France and the Low Countries, indicating movement both across the [English] channel and up the west coast.”
    • Look to the voles! Further hints of a Low Country origin for the Orkneys’ red deer populations come from a study tracing the genetics of a vole. A subspecies of vole found only on the Orkney islands was found to have its roots in what is now Belgium. Some archaeologists and anthropologists think the voles may have stowed away on vessels carrying larger animals like livestock to the islands.

 

TEACHERS’ TOOLKIT

Guardian: Riddle of the red deer: Orkney deer arrived by Neolithic ship, study reveals

Nat Geo: Where did the red deer of Scotland’s Outer Hebrides and Orkneys come from? map

(extra credit!) Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Colonization of the Scottish islands via long-distance Neolithic transport of red deer (Cervus elaphus)