This reading of past human behaviour more or less straight off the ethnographic record represents one of the main difficulties with such models, as they are based on an assumption that hunter-gatherer behaviour is to some degree predictable. However, in studying ethnographic data and literature there appears to be one central rule; variability. That is, we should not expect hunter-gatherers to behave in the way we would like or expect them to. There does not appear to be a clear correlation between the environmental setting and hunter-gatherer mobility and even different ethnographic studies of the same group can result in strikingly different figures for numbers of trips and distances moved annually (cf. Binford 2002, 118 - 129 and Kelly 1995, 112 - 115). This makes it very difficult to employ ethnographic data from hunting-gathering-fishing groups from anywhere in the world to meaningfully model or predict mesolithic movement patterns. Therefore any application of ethnography to the archaeological record beyond the mere purpose of making us consider alternative interpretations must be treated with extreme caution. Yet given this huge amount of variability between but also within relatively small hunter-gatherer communities, one only needs to search for long enough to find an example that fits or supports ones model. This, however, cannot be taken, as sometimes happens, as confirmation that the model must be true. Consequently if we want to understand movement in mesolithic Europe it seems we have no alternative but to get back to directly engaging with the archaeological evidence. Our challenge is thus twofold. On one hand, we need to put in place frameworks more suitable to utilise the available archaeological evidence from mesolithic Britain and Ireland to discuss people's movements and mobility. On the other hand, we also need to invest much more thought into interpreting and understanding the social significance people's ways of moving held in the past. Both of these dimensions appear very much under represented in northwest European early prehistoric research.
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Last updated: Tues Oct 2 2007