The Mesolithic Footprints Retained in One Bed of the Former Saltmarshes at Formby Point, Sefton Coast, North West England

Abstract

In the early Holocene period, extensive tracts of coastal land were submerged as the climate warmed and meltwaters flooded into the oceans. As the Irish Sea expanded, coastlines altered and large intertidal zones were created as tracts of low-lying land at the tidal margins were gradually submerged. In these areas, reed swamp and saltmarsh formed which, too, were inundated for varying periods of time. However, in the calmer warmer weather of the late spring and summer, birds and mammals were drawn on to the mudflats where they could feed on molluscs, or new reed and sedge shoots, wallow in the cooling mud, drink the brackish water or, for some predators, hunt. The behavioural tendencies of some species are revealed by their footprints which show their engagement within this environment – some breeds moved on to the marshes while others moved away. The humans who shared this landscape understood the opportunities offered by these predictable behaviours. Their trails run along and across those left by many species, leaving a visible network of human and animal activity preserved in the hardened mud. These will be described through an examination of the footprints recorded in three contexts which formed the stratigraphy of a Mesolithic bed at Formby Point in North West England. The persistent return to the mudflats by generations of people reflects an embodied knowledge of this coastal landscape, learnt in childhood and practiced in adulthood. The ability to modify movements in the landscape, to respond to the daily tides, the changing seasons and a fluctuating environment, all suggest a spatial-temporal relationship which not only encompassed a dynamic environment but also the other life that dwelt within it.