Blantyre Project reader, Martin Weir is a keen metal detectorist and has discovered many old objects in the local East Kilbride and Blantyre areas, some of them ancient. Over the years, he’s attained a huge knowledge of various finds, which has certainly helped when it comes to his amazing finds and takes great pride in documents his finds.
His latest find however, is potentially one of the oldest man made objects in the wider area of Lanarkshire.
Martin told me, “In late February I was preparing to go detecting beside the old rolls Royce test beds in Cairnmuirhill road, East Kilbride. I hadn’t set my machine up yet but decided to go for a cigarette to see what eyes only finds I could decipher, when only 2 mins in I stumbled across a potential Mesolithic rock core, which I believe is between 10,000 – 15,000 years old.”
“As I understand it, most to all of the finds from around antiquity in East Kilbride have been beaker culture/bronze age, but with this being Mesolithic, it has potential to push back the history of East Kilbride and the surrounding area many thousands of years earlier.”
“I dropped the item off at the National Museum of Scotland in July for more analysis, along with the arrowhead I had notified you about. Hopefully the museum can shed more light on its history. I’ll let you know more about them when the archaeologists at the museum study, investigate and record this find.”
I’ve attached photos for reference. The rock core would have been used to make blades to
skin animals for their Hyde and slice the meat for eating, back in the middle stone age, amazing stuff!
