Archaeology Of Scotland Research Articles

Archaeology in Scotland after the Second World War: The Glasgow Archaeological Society and John M Davidson

The organisation and co-ordination of local and national archaeological societies in the United Kingdom has been a matter of discussion since the late 19th Century. These efforts resulted in an initially purely English and Welsh grouping – the Congress of Archaeological Societies – formed in July 1889. Glasgow Archaeological Society was the first, and perhaps the only, Scottish Society to join in 1922. In the middle of the Second World War discussion around how archaeological work could best be structured after the War was started and this time the coverage was UK wide involving both Glasgow Archaeological Society and the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. It led to the end of the Congress and the formation of the Council for British Archaeology and its various sections. This article reports on the nature of Scottish involvement in this work, rediscovering the key role of Glasgow Archaeological Society and its then President, John M Davidson, OBE, FCIS, FSA Scot.

Re-wilding Ritual: An Archaeological Study of Plants in Ritual Contexts in the Traprain Law Environs, Scotland

ABSTRACT The study of European prehistory has often associated natural objects as menacing presences rooted in fears concerning, at a basic level, continued subsistence and combative conciliatory ritual practice. Nevertheless, in this time, ritual is imprinted upon entire landscapes with natural objects manipulated to construct ritual spaces. This article considers the nature and purpose of natural objects, specifically plant species, within prehistoric ritual practice in Scotland through consideration of the Traprain Law environs, East Lothian. Within prehistoric contexts, the Traprain Law environs are formed partly through the physical manifestations of ideology in a network of ritual sites. In this context, plants as natural objects are a community integral to ritual networks, whether through ritualized clearance, symbolic usage in cremation, votive offering, or deposition prior to site abandonment. There are many ways in which plant remains occupied space within ritual taskscapes in prehistoric Scotland.

Tracing the lines

This article presents the results of the recent Historic Environment Scotland-funded project Tracing the Lines: Uncovering Grooved Ware Trajectories in Neolithic Scotland addressing the timing and nature of the adoption, development and ultimate demise of Grooved Ware in Scotland beyond Orkney. Following analysis within a Bayesian framework of over a hundred Grooved Ware-associated radiocarbon dates from Scotland beyond Orkney, evidence is presented that Grooved Ware pottery very closely related to Orcadian prototypes began spreading rapidly between key locales across Scotland towards the end of the 4th millennium BC. This was followed by a process of stylistic drift with regional variations. The so-called Durrington Walls sub-style was introduced some 200 years after the earliest Grooved Ware and is an exception to this pattern of gradual change. Our modelling suggests that the latest Scottish Grooved Ware has a currency that overlaps with the earliest Beakers by between 1 and 145 years and probably between 1 and 60 years.
 View supplementary material here: Supplementary material | References | Table S1 | Illus S40 Extracted Element

The Ludovic technique: the painting of the Cochno Stone, West Dunbartonshire

The painting of the Cochno Stone rock-art panel, West Dunbartonshire, in 1937 by Ludovic McLellan Mann is one of the most eccentric acts in the history of archaeology in Scotland. Despite publishing widely and being a compulsive user of newspapers to publicise and report on his activities, Mann left very few direct clues to explain what the grid and symbols he painted onto the Cochno Stone meant. This paper describes the different elements of Mann's paintjob based on historic photography and observations made during the brief uncovering of the Cochno Stone in 2016. The logic underpinning the multiple elements of this painted scheme, including two different grids, is explored with reference to other works published by Mann and his broader body of research. It is argued that Mann saw the arrangement of rock-art symbols carved into the Cochno Stone as a microcosm of a Neolithic cosmological scheme and associated with the documentation of and prediction of eclipses. The paper concludes with reflection on the legacy of this act.

An Archaeology of Affect: Art, Ontology and the Carved Stone Balls of Neolithic Britain

This paper aims to shift debate in the study of archaeological art away from epistemological questions of definition towards ontological approaches. To this aim, the paper proposes a non-representational study of archaeological art based on the twin concepts of affect and agential intra-action. As an example of this approach, the paper examines the carved stone balls of Neolithic Scotland. The analysis of carved stone balls focuses on their making and on their inter-regional circulation and exchange as a way of approaching the affective character of these artefacts. The paper finishes with a detailed consideration of the concepts of affect and intra-action and advocates their use in the archaeology of art.

Marguerite Wood and Margaret Simpson, two pioneering Scottish women

In the 1920s and 1930s Marguerite Wood and Margaret Simpson collaborated with James Richardson, Inspector of Ancient Monuments for Scotland, in writing guide-books to several medieval monuments in state care. The involvement of women in such activities was unusual for the time. The family histories and careers of these two pioneering Scottish women are investigated in order to explain their participation, and their activities are placed in the wider context of the emerging professionalism of women in history and archaeology in Scotland at this time.

Social Relations and the Local: Revisiting Our Approaches to Finding Gender and Age in Prehistory. A Case Study from Bronze Age Scotland

In many periods, our efforts to understand social relations from the burial record are frustrated by the small size of cemeteries and the relative poverty of grave good assemblages. This usually leads researchers to create large databases which can be used to identify broad trends in practice that serve as departure points for theorising about societies. This paper argues that such an approach fails to account for nuances in the archaeological record, and moves the discussion to a scale beyond the local, at which identities, such as gender or age, were experienced and contested. An approach that is firmly rooted in the local data is advocated and applied to the Earlier Bronze Age cemetery site at Dunure Road, South Ayrshire, Scotland, to demonstrate the types of insights into gender and age generated and how they articulate with wider European narratives.

“And in Every Hamlet a Poet”: Gaelic Oral Tradition and Postmedieval Archaeology in Scotland

The archaeological study of the postmedieval Scottish Highlands has engaged little with Gaelic oral tradition. The period from 1700 saw the gradual decline of the Gaelic language and the society and culture that supported it. Events and processes such as the Jacobite rebellions (1715 and 1745), 18th-century agricultural improvement, and the 19th-century Highland Clearances made the postmedieval era a turbulent one for both individuals and ways of life. Oral tradition played a key part in Gaelic society throughout this period and is invaluable as a form of evidence for postmedieval society and culture. Previous archaeological approaches are discussed, and the range of available evidence is outlined in order to demonstrate that archaeological engagement with oral sources can greatly enrich the understanding of Scotland’s past.

A Recreation of Visual Engagement and the Revelation of World Views in Bronze Age Scotland

Focussing on the earliest periods of intensive monument building in prehistoric Scotland (3000–1000 bc), this study identifies how humans chose and made places that were important to them. It examines how monuments and the natural environment were used to create landscapes embedded with cultural meaning and remembrance. This project addresses a gap in knowledge about prehistoric Scotland, namely the lack of understanding of the place that many hundreds of free-standing stones (F-SS) in circles, rows, pairs or on their own, had for their creators, especially the smaller monuments. This work with its special focus on the islands of Coll and Tiree goes some way to rediscover the perceptions and decisions made by people in the past about their monumental landscape.

Moments of crisis: climate change in Scottish prehistory

There is strong evidence for many key turning points in Scottish and north-west European prehistory – what we call moments of 'crisis' – to be associated with evidence for widespread and abrupt natural changes in climate. Association or coincidence are not cause, though, and the testing of specific hypotheses to establish this relation is needed. The timing of these moments of abrupt climatic change in Scottish prehistory is proposed in a review of the many new data-sets of prehistoric climate change affecting the North Atlantic region. The case is made that Scotland in prehistory, because of its location in the North Atlantic region, should become a testing-ground of the relation between prehistoric society and climate change, to move debate beyond merely coincidence matching.

Early medieval Scotland: individuals, communities and ideas

The elaborately carved Hilton of Cadboll stone, the house-shaped Monymusk Reliquary and the sumptuously decorated Hunterston brooch (all on view in the National Museum of Scotland) are evidence of the sophistication of Scottish craftsmen in the time AD 300-900, formerly known as the 'Dark Ages'. A pioneering partnership between National Museums Scotland and The Glenmorangie Company has supported a major programme of research into the archaeology of Scotland during the Early Medieval period. The findings are revealed in this heavily illustrated landmark book which uses objects to explore the lives of individuals and communities during this period, as well as their ideas and ideologies. The book presents a re-evaluation of this key period of Scotland's past, a time that saw the creation of some of the most treasured and enigmatic objects from within the National Museum of Scotland's collections.

Selected with care? – the technology of crucibles in late prehistoric Scotland. A petrographic and chemical assessment

Prehistoric crucibles and other metalworking ceramics are often described as highly specialised tools made from refractory materials, but little is known about regional trajectories and individual material developments. Hence, further analyses of materials from less studied regions are needed. The current study investigates the technological development of crucibles from late prehistoric Scotland and its relation to technological choices and specialisation. The examination, using ceramic petrography and Energy Dispersive X-Ray Spectroscopy, focuses on the selection of clays and additives for the manufacture of crucibles in contrast to moulds and pottery. It is demonstrated that the production of crucibles in the late prehistoric period predominantly used local resources. Late Bronze Age crucibles have a close relationship with other types of technical and domestic ceramics, while materials in the Iron Age indicate an increased material specialisation for the preparation of particular fabrics. This development is seen across Scotland and echoes trends seen in other areas of Europe, emphasising the role and importance of metallurgical and technological networks.

Some deposits are more structured than others

I congratulate Duncan Garrow on his very engaging history of the concept of structured deposition, although I find it slightly terrifying that this history now extends over nearly 30 years. I find much to agree with in his account, notably the distressing point that what was originally intended as a heuristic has sometimes become an end in itself: the identification of a class of deposits that are ‘structured’. Thus, for instance, Bishop, Church and Rowley-Conwy argue (2009, 82) that pits in Neolithic Scotland may have represented ‘places of structured deposition rather than domestic settlements’, and that therefore the plant remains contained within them should be regarded as unrepresentative. Here, structured deposits take on the abject character that used to be afforded to ‘ritual’ phenomena in archaeology: having been identified as irrational and abnormal, their interpretation is considered beyond archaeological competence, and they are not subjected to further analysis.

Grave-goods, contexts and interpretation: towards regional narratives of Early Bronze Age Scotland

This paper proposes that a contextual approach is required to make the most of the rich and diverse evidence for Early Bronze Age funerary practices in Scotland. It reviews the spatial patterning of the principal funerary traditions and identifies significant regional differences in their popularity by region. The chronological relationship between Beaker and Food Vessel burials is then reviewed in the light of new radiocarbon dates. Both distributional and chronological factors then contribute to a refined, regional and contextual approach to Beaker typology. The paper concludes by bringing these various strands together within the geographical and historical context of North-East and East-Central Scotland, in order to provide two regional ‘narratives’ of social organisation and identity.

Aeolian archaeology

Landscapes characterised by a substantial presence of aeolian (wind-blown) sand are predominantly coastal, and range from active dunefields with high and unstable relief, to smoother and more stable grassed surfaces which may be subject to some degree of agricultural use. Some are remote and inaccessible, but others exist in closer proximity to conurbations and tourist areas, and the impact of visitors is therefore comparatively great. In addition to the ever-present scouring and redistributing forces of sea and wind, other pressures on the stability of these landscapes include aggregates quarrying, development and the ubiquitous presence of wild burrowing fauna, most obviously the rabbit. Sand creates dynamic 'soft' landforms which are subject to continuing change, to the extent that photographs or maps of just 100 years ago often present very different topographies from those visible today. This report is a collection of five papers presented on the archaeology of Scotland's coast line.

Cereals, fruits and nuts in the Scottish Neolithic

The importance of wild and domestic plants in the British Neolithic economies has been much disputed, but the contribution of Scottish archaeobotanical evidence has previously been understated. This paper assesses the use of plants in the Scottish Neolithic economy using the archaeobotanical evidence from 75 sites. It is argued that plant exploitation was geographically and socially diverse in Neolithic Scotland; while domesticated plants became the mainstay of the economy for some social groups, wild plant exploitation remained an important part of the subsistence strategies for other groups. In this context, geographic, social and temporal differences in the importance of wheat and barley are also discussed.

Late Neolithic and Late Bronze Age lithic assemblages associated with a cairn and other prehistoric features at Stoneyhill Farm, Longhaven, Peterhead, Aberdeenshire, 2002–03

Prehistoric remains were recorded by CFA Archaeology Ltd (CFA) in 2002–03 during a programme of fieldwork at the landfill site within the boundaries of Stoneyhill Farm, which lies 7km to the southwest of Peterhead in Aberdeenshire (NGR: NK 078 409). These included a clearance cairn with a Late Bronze Age lithic assemblage and a burial cairn, with Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age lithics and Beaker ceramics. Other lithic scatters of similar date had no certain associations, although pits containing near-contemporary Impressed Wares were nearby. Additional lithic assemblages included material dated to the Mesolithic and Early Neolithic. What may be proto-Unstan Wares in an isolated pit were associated with radiocarbon dates (barley) of the first half of the 4th millennium BC. These findings represent a substantial addition to the local area's archaeological record and form an important contribution to the understanding of lithic technology and ceramics in earlier prehistoric Scotland.
 This paper is dedicated to the memory of Ian Shepherd, whose site visits enlightened this and other projects undertaken by Ian Suddaby.

A Coal Mine in the Sea: Culross and the Moat Pit

The article reconsiders the archaeology of the sixteenth-century Moat Pit mining complex at Culross and offers new interpretations of that archaeology. It places the coal mine in a wider context, suggesting a pivotal role in the development of the burgh. The study emphasises the innovative nature of Sir George Bruce's coal mining. The archaeologies of salt and iron working in Culross are considered along with their symbiotic relationships with coal. These industries gave impetus to the development of commerce in Culross, with its much altered, and now sadly neglected, pier at its heart. A comparison between the houses of George Bruce and his brother Edward highlights changing attitudes in Scottish society after the Union of the Crowns in 1603. The Moat Pit is also used as a case study to consider issues arising between industrial and urban archaeology in Scotland. It explores the impact of this debate upon the site's current unprotected and arguably undervalued status.

Deep time travel

When I read Trewin’s introduction I was intrigued by the story line of time travelling in a bus to study prehistory. It brought to mind the book I used to read to my daughter: The Magic School Bus in the Time of the Dinosaurs by Joanna Cole (1995). After the first few pages it was evident that Trewin has written a book that will very much appeal to the adult reader. He has taken his favourite Scottish fossil localities, built a picture of each landscape and environment at the time the fossils were alive, and brought us on a fact-filled adventure to prehistoric Scotland. We discover the delights of collecting at these classic fossil localities, and are entertained by the sounds, smells and feel of the living fossils from the Devonian to the Jurassic. This book will appeal to the same audience that enjoy Hugh Miller, the famous nineteenth century natural history writer and populariser of palaeontology who wrote The Old Red Sandstone; or,New Walks in an Old Field (1841). Sir Roderick Impey Murchison – the director general of the British Geological Survey in the mid nineteenth century - wrote that Miller’s book “to a beginner, is worth a thousand didactic treatises”. I believe that the same is true of Trewin’s book. Trewin bases his knowledge on facts extracted from publications dating back over 150 years as well as his own researches into the Rhynie Chert, Devonian fishes, as well as Carboniferous, Permian, and Jurassic fossils and palaeoenvironments. It is also apt that Miller and Trewin were both inspired by the fishes of the Devonian Period of the north of Scotland in their pursuit of palaeontological understanding.

Quartz technology in Scottish prehistory

The project Quartz Technology in Scottish Prehistory was initiated in the year 2000, and over the following five years a large number of quartz assemblages were examined from all parts of Scotland, and from all prehistoric periods. The general aim of the project was to shed light on quartz variability, that is, to define how quartz assemblages in different periods and areas of the Scottish quartz province (the north, north-west and Highland regions of Scotland) differ. Subsequently it was attempted to explain the observed variability, focusing on factors such as chronology, territoriality, access to lithic resources, technology and activity patterns. In the larger framework, the present paper forms part of international efforts to increase awareness of archaeological quartz as an important resource. It is hoped that the research put forward in this paper may prove useful to quartz researchers in other parts of the world.