Abstract
There are at least four wooden intertidal platforms, also known as marine crannogs, in the Firth of Clyde, on the west coast of Scotland. The interpretation of these sites partly depends on their dating and, if coeval, they could point to the presence of a native maritime hub. Furthermore, the spatial coincidence with the terminus of the Antonine Wall has led to speculation about the role they may have played in Roman-native interaction during the occupation of southern Scotland in the early first millennium calad. Hence, a better absolute chronology is essential to evaluate whether the marine crannogs were contemporary with one another and whether they related to any known historic events. This article presents results of a wiggle-match dating project aimed at resolving these uncertainties at two of the sites in question, Dumbuck and Erskine Bridge crannogs. The results show that the construction of these sites pre-date direct Roman influence in Scotland. Furthermore, the results indicate that the two sites were built at least 300 years apart, forcing us to consider the possibility that they may have functioned in very different historical contexts. Other findings include technical observations on the fine shape of the radiocarbon calibration curve near the turn of the first millenniabc/adand potential evidence for persistent contamination in decayed and exposed sections of waterlogged alder.
Highlights
Since the late nineteenth century, wooden platforms that are often referred to as ‘marine crannogs’ have been known in the Firth of Clyde (Bruce, 1900, 1908). While their presence is well recognized and some ideas regarding their possible function have been put forward (Hale, 2004), their relationships to one another, as well as their broader regional context, remain elusive on account of imprecise chronology. Unless these sites can be placed into specific centuries, the question remains as to whether they may have been contemporary and formed a kind of early maritime hub linked to somehistoric event, or whether they may have been part of a more extensive tradition spanning several centuries
The results of the wiggle-match dating provide solid evidence that the two crannogs were built several generations apart. This alone has some basic implications for interpreting the two sites. It casts considerable doubt on the notion that the four marine crannogs in the Firth of Clyde are the remains of a single flurry of activity at the terrestrial/maritime interface, making it difficult to postulate that the group of sites is a sign of some socio-political event
This article discussed the radiocarbon wiggle-match dating of two intertidal platforms in the Firth of Clyde: the Dumbuck and Erskine Bridge crannogs
Summary
Since the late nineteenth century, wooden platforms that are often referred to as ‘marine crannogs’ have been known in the Firth of Clyde (the estuary of the river Clyde) (Bruce, 1900, 1908) While their presence is well recognized and some ideas regarding their possible function have been put forward (Hale, 2004), their relationships to one another, as well as their broader regional context, remain elusive on account of imprecise chronology. Building chronologies to resolve these alternatives faces two main challenges: 1) they require precision of less than a century; 2) they need to be robust to account for the Manuscript received 11 November 2016, accepted 26 September 2017, revised 2 June 2017. This article discusses how, through the use of radiocarbon wiggle-match dating and a feature-oriented approach to sampling, these challenges were overcome at two of the Clyde marine crannogs, Dumbuck (https:// canmore.org.uk/site/43402/dumbuck) and Erskine Bridge (https://canmore.org.uk/site/ 43313/erskine-bridge) (Figure 1)
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