 Farm Fields , a site near Kinloch , provides some of the earliest known evidence of human occupation in Scotland . Carbonized hazelnut shells found there have been dated to the Mesolithic period at 7700 @-@ 7500 BC . At this time the landscape was dominated by alder , hazel and willow scrub . A beach site above Loch Scresort has been dated to between 6500 and 5500 BC . The presence of this hunter @-@ gatherer community may have been to take advantage of the local supplies of bloodstone , a workable material for the making of tools and weapons . There is a shell @-@ midden at Papadil in the south and evidence of tidal fish traps at both Kinloch and Kilmory . 
