Monument record MHG7639 - Flint working site, Redpoint

NG76NW 1 727 685.

The remains of a prehistoric stone industry lie scattered in two of three broad gravel bottomed hollows in sand dunes about 20-25 ft. above high water mark on N side of Red Point - NG 726 685-6. Two chipping floors (one concentrated within a very small area, in a hollow about 5 ft below the other two, and with Marram grass, as its only vegetation) on the surface or no more than 3 or 4 inches below it, have largely yielded simple utilised flakes and cores and a few retouched implements of indefinable date. But early finds, some of microlithic aspect, by Dr J S Richardson, the late Maj-Gen. D T Richardson and Mr. J MacIntyre, now in the NMAS - AB 2631, AC 608, 617-632- include a 1 1/4-inch retouched point of mudstone (AC 628), a 'birch-leaf' flint arrowhead (AD 2256) and a small diamond-shaped quartz arrowhead (AD 2257), all appropriate to the Neolithic. The collection of artifacts from this site, and a typescript account of it, donated by A F Gray in 1959-60 to the NMAS has been lost.
A F Gray 1962; Info from R B K Stevenson (NMAS) to OS 29 July 1964. <1><2>

Investigation of this site proved negative. Mr W Bannerman FSA, district road surveyor, Gairloch, present when several of the finds were made, could offer no further informtion.
Visited by OS (E G C) 13 October 1964.

The Scotland's First Settlers project collected over 2,000 lithics from this eroding dune site. Identified stone material is mainly quartz, but also includes baked mudstone, bloodstone, chalcedonic silica and chert. (Hardy and Wickham-Jones 2009). Gairloch Museum has a small selection of quartz lithics from the site, and the National Museum of Scotland currently (2011) a large proportion of known material in store. The site was in use over a long period of time, from Mesolithic through to Bronze Age.

Information from ARCH Community Timeline project

Add to bibliography:
Hardy, Karen & Wickham-Jones, Caroline (eds) 2009. Mesolithic and later sites around the Inner Sound, Scotland: the work of the Scotland's First Settlers project 1998-2004. Published on-line as Scottish Archaeological Internet Reports (SAIR) 31: http://www.sair.org.uk/sair31/ See in particular 2.2.52.

Site name corrected to "Repoint". It is noted that the area of eroding dunes is quite large. <3>