Is there anything scarier than tiny creepy worm-like creatures growing inside your body unbeknownst to you? For this Hallowe’en we will be discussing parasites…

Parasite infection was common in the population of medieval Leith as was the case in other European medieval cities, as the largest archaeological study so far of its kind on medieval populations in Scotland reveals.

Remains of parasite eggs were found within soil samples taken from around the belly area of skeletal remains during GUARD Archaeology’s excavation of graves beneath Constitution Street in this part of Edinburgh. This was once part of the medieval graveyard of South Leith Parish Church. Nearly half of the 185 analysed skeletons were affected by at least one of four different types of parasites – Ascaris, Trichuris, Enterobius and Taenia.

While these names may not be familiar, some of them have been living with (or in!) us for a long time. Traces of Trichuris (whipworm) were reported from Ötzi, the frozen mummy of a man found in the Alps and who had lived during the Copper Age sometime between 3350 and 3105 BC.

The presence of Taenia parasite eggs indicate that the medieval Leith population, including adults and children, were eating undercooked/raw pork or beef. The presence of Taenia (tapeworm) in children was unusual and indicates not only that they were eating the same food as the adults but also that the animal feed was contaminated by this parasite too. It is possible that human faecal material was used as fertiliser for food later fed to livestock.

The rest of the parasites, Ascaris (roundworm), Trichuris (whipworm) and Enterobius (tipworm) are all soil transmitting helminth (worms), which essentially means that infection was via a direct faecal-oral route. Lovely.

This evidence demonstrates the poor sanitation and hygiene of the time.

And the importance of cleaning your hands after going to the loo!!

GUARD Archaeologists’ excavation of a hilltop settlement near Perth revealed a lost settlement that thrived during the Iron Age only to mysteriously fade away before the coming of the Romans, new publications reveal.

The excavation was undertaken by GUARD Archaeology in 2022 as part of the £118m Cross Tay Link Road project that involved the construction of a new 3-span bridge over the River Tay and six kilometres of new road by BAM Nuttall Ltd. Since the excavation was completed, GUARD Archaeologists have led a team of specialists drawn from across Scotland including National Museums Scotland, the universities of Glasgow and Stirling, various independent specialists and GUARD Archaeology itself, to analyse the archaeological evidence and reveal new insights into Iron Age Scotland.

‘Perth and Kinross Council are delighted that these archaeological discoveries, as a result of our construction of the Cross Tay Link Road, have led to a significant advancement in the understanding of an Iron Age community that once lived here,’ said Jillian Ferguson, Roads Infrastructure Manager at Perth and Kinross Council. ‘Many drivers and passengers travelling the new road may not imagine that they cross the site of a prehistoric fort. The construction of the Cross Tay Link Road at this site has provided an inadvertent but invaluable opportunity to learn more about how people near Perth lived more than two thousand years ago.’

‘The hillfort at Broxy Kennels was first identified in the 1960s on aerial photographs taken along the proposed route of the then-new A9 road,’ said GUARD Project Officer Kenny Green, who directed the excavation. ‘Without these aerial photographs no-one would have known there was a hillfort here as there was no trace of it on the ground. Centuries of ploughing had removed any surface trace.’

The excavation team discovered that it was during the Iron Age when people decided to settle permanently on the hill here. Many Iron Age hillforts can be found across Britain, with almost 1500 in Scotland alone. But these were not all occupied at the same time and these were not military forts. Instead, these were fortified hilltop settlements. The location of Broxy Kennels may have been chosen as a prominent feature in the landscape at a major bend in the River Tay, visible to anyone travelling from the north or south.

‘The first phase of building the Iron Age settlement at Broxy Kennels consisted of digging two massive ditches and constructing earthen ramparts from the upcast soil,’ said Kenny Green. ‘Radiocarbon dates reveal that this happened around 550 to 400 BC. Our team discovered the charred remains of wattle panels and pieces of daub from the roundhouses that belonged to this time. These had been thrown into the ditches when the settlement had been cleared of old buildings at some point.’

Some evidence of Iron Age metal working was also recovered during the excavation. Bog ore was found on the site along with slag – the waste material left behind after smelting iron ore. A fragment of vitrified clay was also found, part of a tuyère, part of the bellows for furnaces used in smelting and metalworking. At least two layers of vitrification were noticed on the tuyère which means smelting was carried out more than once.

‘Later on, about 400 BC, the people here filled in part of one of the ditches to the north of the entranceway and constructed a souterrain into the back-filled ditch,’ added Kenny. ‘A third ditch and rampart were newly dug, which surrounded the new souterrain and a fourth, outer rampart and ditch were also created around the hillfort.’

A souterrain is a semi-underground stone-built chamber and about 200 of them are known across Scotland, mostly dating to between the last few centuries BC and the first two centuries AD. These form part of the distinctive Iron Age culture of Scotland as communities across the country were open to building and using souterrains but communities to the south of the border were not, at least until Cornwall!

The souterrain found at Broxy Kennels Fort was 9 metres long and up to 4 metres wide and was over 1 metre deep. It was constructed from boulders probably brought up from the River Tay. The excavation revealed that it had a paved floor.

The function of the souterrain remains a mystery however despite the best efforts of the archaeologists who sampled the souterrain to a minute degree; some cereal grains were recovered from the floor deposits of the structure, but not in enough quantity to suggest it was used for grain storage. Chemical analysis of the floor deposits was also inconclusive.

By around 300 BC, the ditches and souterrain had become silted up with the loose soil of the decaying ramparts. But the hilltop settlement had not been abandoned; radiocarbon dates from pits and postholes in the interior of the fort showed that people continued to live here until the late first century AD, just before the Roman army arrived in this part of Scotland. For most of its duration then, this was not actually fortified but rather an unenclosed hilltop settlement.

‘Some of the archaeological features found in the fort’s interior may be the remains of roundhouses,’ said Kenny. ‘Centuries of ploughing, however, had eroded the top of the hill away, leaving only a few of the very deepest parts of postholes making it difficult to determine the full size and shape of any structures that may have once stood there.’

It is not clear why this Iron Age settlement was abandoned. Possibly the structure of society changed and the people moved away from this kind of settlement. Or the coming of the Roman army in the late first century AD drove the people away.

Whatever the reason, over the following two millennia, the site here was lost to the plough.

The publication of this information ensures that the Iron Age community who once inhabited Broxy Kennels Fort are not forgotten. Even though the site has been all but entirely dug away, the picture of life in Perthshire more than two thousand years ago is now better understood.

During the dig, GUARD Archaeology hosted 3 school visits, 2 university visits and several Open Days attended by over 400 visitors, and trained 10 students from the University of the Highland and Islands.

The archaeological work was funded by Perth and Kinross Council and managed by BAM Nuttall Ltd. It was required as a condition of planning consent by Perth and Kinross Council who are advised on archaeological matters by the Perth and Kinross Heritage Trust.

ARO63: Broxy Kennels Fort, Souterrain and Surrounding Landscape, Perth by Kenneth Green, John-James Atkinson, Christina Mollie Dogherty, Charlotte Hunter, Maureen Kilpatrick and Alun Woodward is freely available to download from Archaeology Reports Online.

And look out for a short booklet, Broxy Kennels HillFort by Kenny Green.

A lecture about Broxy Kennels Fort will be given at the Tayside and Fife Archaeology Conference 2025 in Glenrothes on Saturday 1 November.

Some of the most interesting finds from GUARD Archaeology’s 2020 excavations at Constitution Street in Leith (which were undertaken in advance of the Edinburgh Tram construction) are the coins. Not only do they provide a rough date but also shed light on individual histories and economic life.

For instance, this silver two-pence coin, a billon lion or hardhead of Mary Queen of Scots and Francis II of France from 1559. In 1575 counter marking was done to combat the high number of forgeries in circulation, this coin has been marked with a heart and star. Can you spot the dolphins either side of the FM monogram?

Did you know that Mary Queen of Scots was betrothed to Francis in 1548 when she was 6 years old and he was 4 years old? And that Mary Queen of Scots on her return from France as a young widow first landed in the port of Leith on 19 August 1561?

Most of the coins found during our excavations in Leith were of low value billon and copper coins and were used as small change alongside the Scottish copper issues.

Other coins found on site include this hammered copper-alloy ‘ecclesiastical’ farthing from the reign of James III, dating to the 1470s to early 1480s. These copper coins were extremely unpopular in Scotland with numerous complaints recorded in burgh records and parliamentary petitions. However, large numbers of these coins were exported to the Low Countries where they circulated widely.

A Dutch duit from the province of Overijssel was also found during excavation. This hammered copper-alloy coin dates to 1628 and has been commonly found in urban assemblages across Scotland, showing the strong trade links between Scotland and the Dutch province.

Archaeological remains of Glasgow’s earliest suburbs have been discovered by GUARD Archaeology. Several lines of well-preserved wooden posts with woven fencing, as well as pottery at a site in the Gallowgate area.

The discovery was made 4.5 metres below the current street level at the Spoutmouth area, which is being developed into social housing.

This is a remarkable survival of organic archaeology in an area of the city that has witnessed substantial development over the many years since Glasgow was first established. A small sliver of medieval Glasgow that has somehow survived centuries of building and rebuilding.

The site lay dormant as a car park until Wheatley Group developed plans to build 34 homes for social rent and two commercial units. The £9.295 million development is supported by a Scottish Government Grant of £5.57 million. As part of the planning conditions, a comprehensive archaeological investigation was required due to the site’s location on the edge of medieval Glasgow.

Aside from the foundations of 18^th and 19^th century buildings, nothing of great significance was apparent during the initial investigations, until the tops of wooden posts were spotted piercing through clays 4.5m down. 

The Spoutmouth site lies on the south side of the former line of the Molendinar Burn which was once one of the most well-known water courses in Glasgow that drains into the River Clyde; it now flows underground having been culverted in the 1800s.

But going back in time, it has associations with St Mungo who founded his church on its banks in the late 6^th century AD. By the 12^th century the newly established bishopric and its cathedral were built not far from here at the top of the High Street. In AD 1175, King William the Lion conveyed Glasgow with burgh status. Burghs had been introduced by William’s grandfather David I and allowed Glasgow economic and legal privileges in return for significant tax contributions to the Royal Exchequers of Scotland.

The GUARD Archaeology team unearthed 63 upright posts arranged in three lines defining three broad linear areas. As these are so deep, the site is constant flooding from water but this is also why these wooden remains have survived for so long. Caught up in the wattle fencing, are numerous sherds of medieval pottery, animal bone and other organic material.

The bulk of the pottery is a mix of medieval fragments which date to around the 13^th-14^th centuries AD. The wattle fencing therefore appears to part of a very early eastward expansion of the medieval burgh.

This rare discovery of preserved wooden structures opens a window into Glasgow’s past when it underwent its first wave of major expansion. It is remarkable that in the same year that Glasgow will celebrate its 850^th anniversary of receiving burgh status, some archaeological evidence of those beginnings have been discovered.

Further analysis of the wood and other material will be carried out in due course, following the excavation works.

Construction works will commence after the completion of the archaeological excavation. The archaeological team is expected to complete their excavation by November. Once the site is cleared, construction will commence, with completion anticipated by summer 2027.

The archaeological work was funded by Wheatley Group and was required as a condition of planning consent by Glasgow City Council who are advised on archaeological matters by the West of Scotland Archaeology Service.

Recently published analyses led by GUARD Archaeology have revealed why a hoard of precious bronze ornaments was buried on the Black Isle almost three thousand years ago.

The archaeological finds were discovered during an excavation in 2020-21 ahead of the construction of new homes in Greenside Rosemarkie by Pat Munro (Alness) Ltd). GUARD Archaeology were then commissioned in 2024 to lead the post-excavation analyses. The analyses were undertaken by experts drawn from across Britain including National Museums Scotland, University of Glasgow, various independent specialists and GUARD Archaeology itself.

The post-excavation analyses of finds recovered from Rosemarkie revealed much more, not only about the community who buried this hoard almost three thousand years ago but about the people who inhabited the site before them.

The first evidence of human activity at Rosemarkie was traces of Mesolithic and early Neolithic activity, thought it was only from c. 3300 to 3000 BC that the first demonstrable evidence for permanent inhabitation took place, likely a small farmstead.

A hiatus followed, punctuated sometime between 3000 BC and 2000 BC by one of the most interesting cremation burials from the region, containing the phalange bone of a brown bear buried along with a fragment of a polished flint axehead. The bear bone and axehead fragment most likely had the same significance and meaning as the bear as a whole and the intact axehead. The bear bone may have had a protective function in the deceased’s travel to the afterlife.

Inhabitation of the site returned during the Bronze Age when a sequence of seven roundhouses was inhabited. This phase of settlement was a long lived one, lasting more than six centuries to the turn of the eighth century BC. Detailed examination of the radiocarbon dates suggests that the different roundhouses were not all occupied at the same time but represent a small community, perhaps a family lineage, building successive roundhouses, occupying different spaces in different periods across the site.

One of these roundhouses produced metalworking debris, including identifiable mould fragments for manufacturing a sword, spearhead and sickle along with bracelets. And it was around this same period, towards the tail end of this settlement that a rare and well-preserved late Bronze Age metalwork hoard was buried. Comprising a complete penannular ringed ornament lying on top, a fragment of penannular ringed ornament placed within the complete ornament’s circumference, a cup-ended ornament at the very base and six bracelets.

Through careful minute analysis of every strand of evidence, an enormous amount of information was discovered about the people who buried this hoard at the tail end of the Bronze Age.

The intact penannular ringed ornament, adorned with 37 rings, is the most complete and complicated example of its type yet found in Scotland. Its fragmentary counterpart had 13 surviving rings, and both ornaments were probably made by the same craftworker using the lost wax casting method. This was a very rare process only used in the creation of highly prized objects, and workshops to produce such pieces were few and far between in Bronze Age Scotland. The purpose of these ornaments is unclear as the complete one from Rosemarkie was too small to fit over an average human head, and it showed no signs of being distorted in order to be worn around the neck.

X-ray imaging of the cup-ended ornament revealed that it was cast as an entire object with no visible seams or joins. There are several comparable finds known, mostly Irish and made of gold, but its closest parallel is a bronze version from the Poolewe Hoard in the West Highlands. The Rosemarkie example is much sturdier and thicker than any of these, however.

The bracelets were also unusual as no two were alike – perhaps they had been contributed by different individuals or households. Three of the six show signs of distortion, suggesting they had been repeatedly worn, and one stood out as the heaviest known penannular bar bracelet yet found in Scotland. While none of the mould fragments found at Rosemarkie matched the objects in the hoard, the objects themselves speak of the local community’s access to a large supply of bronze for the ostentatious display of wealth and status. In terms of where this metal came from, isotope and metallurgical analysis revealed that the metals came from Wales and England, indeed exact and close matches with the bronze from the Carnoustie Hoard, clearly signalling the direction from which Bronze Age smiths in Scotland were sourcing their metals.

What makes the Rosemarkie hoard so significant is not just the metalwork. It’s the organic remains found clinging to it. Bracken stems and fronds were used as packing when the artefacts were buried. Tree bast, the inner bark of a tree, was concentrated around the ornaments, following the curves of each. It also formed a large clump at the base of the pit, entangled with the lowest artefacts. Despite being buried for thousands of years, this mass was strong enough to hold the artefacts in place and would not release its quarry easily.

But when they were eventually teased apart, this mass was revealed to be something very rare indeed: a simple overhand knot that had been tied around the cup-ended ornament when the tree bast was still in pristine condition, binding it to three of the bracelets. A sample taken from the bast provided a secure radiocarbon date for the burial of the Rosemarkie hoard: 894-794 BC, at the very end of the Bronze Age.

There are several possible motivations for the burial of an ancient hoard of bronze. There are founders’ hoards or metalworkers’ stashes – often a range of damaged objects and fragments that could be recycled, as was common practice during the Bronze Age. There are votive hoards, often composed of deliberately broken objects that were thrown into watery places with no chance (or apparent desire) of recovery. And then there are hoards like Rosemarkie – and Carnoustie too. This third category shows another side to the story, representing precious items that were carefully packed, tied together, stacked on top of one another and neatly buried for safekeeping close to a settlement where they could be guarded and easily retrieved when the time came.

The mystery then is not so much why this hoard was buried. But why the time never came for the Rosemarkie Bronze Age community to retrieve their valuable belongings.

The archaeological work was funded by Pat Munro Homes (a division of Pat Munro (Alness) Ltd) and was required as a condition of planning consent by Highland Council who are advised on archaeological matters by the Highland Council Historic Environment Team.

ARO62: ‘A Hoard, Spear Moulds and a Bear, Oh my!’  a Late Bronze Age Settlement at Greenside farm, Rosemarkie by Iraia Arabaolaza, Rachel Buckley, Sam Williamson and Alun Woodward is freely available to download from Archaeology Reports Online.

Many people who live in new houses may not be aware that they inhabit the same space that prehistoric peoples once inhabited. Two new publications reveal that archaeology that spanned over 10,000 years, from traces of Late Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic hunter gatherers, to Neolithic farmers, Bronze Age metalworkers, Iron Age Fort dwellers and medieval kiln burners, once lay where new houses now stand.

The discovery was made by GUARD Archaeology during archaeological excavations between 2017 and 2021 commissioned by Persimmon Homes North Scotland prior to construction of new houses at Guardbridge.

Before the excavation began, the ditches of a fort in the north-east corner of the site had already been identified on aerial photographs.

While most of this fort was left intact, the excavation revealed that it likely originated during the Late Bronze Age and continued through much of the Iron Age until the early centuries AD. Spindle whorls and loom weights attest to the weaving of woollen cloth by the fort’s inhabitants while fragments of shale bracelets demonstrate personal adornment.

But what was really surprising about this site was all the other archaeology found outwith the fort, not just Iron Age but much earlier too.

From earlier in the Bronze Age, the remains of substantial roundhouses were discovered, from which an assemblage of pottery sherds and animal bones were recovered. Metalworking was also carried out here during the late Bronze Age as rare casting moulds for a sword blade and a socketed gouge – a tool used in carpentry – were found. From the porch of one of the roundhouses was found evidence that one of its occupants had once sat there knapping flint for tools.

The site was also used before this, during the Neolithic by some of the first farmers of Fife who left many pits across this site, containing burnt cereal grains, saddle querns and pottery sherds but no trace of their houses.

And before even this, were traces of a temporary Mesolithic campsite. A fire-pit, radiocarbon dated to around 4320-4051 BC, was associated with a cluster of burnt lithics arranged in a distinctive star-shaped pattern, indicative of a tent or shelter, where a small group of hunter gatherers once camped to hunt and fish in the nearby estuary.

And below this was a scatter of flints from around 10,000 BC during the Late Upper Palaeolithic period where some of the very earliest inhabitants of Fife once sat knapping flint tools.

While settlement at this site seems to have drawn to a close around the end of the Iron Age, several medieval corn-drying kilns were also found, dating to between AD 900 and 1300. These kilns were presumably worked by labourers of ‘Segy’ farm. The different construction techniques apparent shows how these kilns changed over time, improving in design and size to meet the growing demand from the growing medieval population of Fife.

These were the last traces of archaeology with origins stretching back in some form or another to some of the earliest occupation of Scotland.

The archaeological work was funded by Persimmon Homes North Scotland and was required as a condition of planning consent by Fife Council who are advised on archaeological matters by the Fife Council Archaeology Service, who considered there to be a potential for hitherto unknown archaeology to be buried at the site due to the proximity of known prehistoric archaeology.

The excavation report, ARO61: Guardbridge, Fife: A multi-period settlement with a multi-vallate fort by Maureen Kilpatrick, Jordan Barbour, Thomas Muir and, Charlotte Hunter is freely available to download from Archaeology Reports Online.

And look out for a short booklet, Guardbridge, Fife: An Eden for Settlement through the Ages by Rachel Buckley and Maureen Kilpatrick.

A new publication reveals the remains of a significant early Neolithic settlement that GUARD Archaeologists discovered, a focal point for where Scotland’s first farming communities gathered for large scale festivities.

The discovery was made during archaeological excavations undertaken by GUARD Archaeology prior to the building of new football pitches near Carnoustie High School.

The Carnoustie excavation produced exceptional results, the traces of the largest early Neolithic timber hall ever discovered in Scotland dating from near 4000 BC. This was a permanent structure 35m long and 9m wide, built of oak with opposed doorways near one end of the building. Its large roof was supported by paired massive timber posts. Its walls were wattle and daub panels supported by posts that were partly protected by its over-hanging roof. And its internal space was sub-divided by more postholes and narrow channels marking partitions.

This monumental timber hall, completely alien to the culture and landscape of the preceding Mesolithic era, was erected by one of the very first groups of farmers to colonise Scotland, in a clearing within the remains of natural woodland. It was fully formed, architecturally sophisticated, large, complex, and required skills of design, planning, execution and carpentry.

But what makes this exceptional is that unlike other Neolithic halls in Scotland, which were all discrete solitary structures within the virgin farmland of early Neolithic Scotland, a smaller companion timber hall existed alongside the large Carnoustie Hall. This was still a substantial structure almost 20m long and over 8m wide.

While GUARD’s excavation of the smaller hall revealed a large hearth with charred cereal grains and hazel nutshells consistent with a domestic function, in contrast the excavation of the larger hall yielded evidence for the deliberate deposition of stone artefacts, tantalising traces of the beliefs and rituals of the community that built and used it.

The Carnoustie halls, elevated and prominent in the landscape, were probably close to routeways where people may have congregated naturally at various seasons of the year. The availability of hazel nuts in autumn is a strong indicator that that season was an important one for meeting, feasting and celebrating. The Carnoustie timber halls may have been a focal point, their significance great enough to attract interest from people from a much wider area. We know from the materials found in the Carnoustie buildings that some artefacts came from distant places and represent deliberate deposition, such as fragments of Arran pitchstone, an axe of garnet-albite-schist and a piece of smoky quartz from the Highlands, while other materials were found more locally such as agate, quartz and chalcedony.

After about 200 years, the halls were dismantled and a smaller hall built within the footprint of the larger hall around 3800-3700 BC, but this too continued to receive deliberate deposits of stone tools until about 3600 BC. The site continued to be revisited with evidence of people camping and gathering outside where the buildings once stood, carrying on the seasonal round of activities until around 2500 BC.

This was not the only prehistoric secret that the Carnoustie excavations unearthed.

A rare and well-preserved metalwork hoard of a sword within its wooden scabbard, a spearhead with a gold decorative band around its socket and a bronze sunflower-headed swan’s neck pin were found wrapped in the remains of woollen cloth and sheep-skin. This small hoard had been deliberately buried in a pit within the midst of a late Bronze Age settlement sometime between 1118 – 924 BC.

For around 1400 BC, during the Bronze Age, people had returned to this same site at Carnoustie, probably oblivious to its significance to earlier Neolithic communities. A settlement was established here, comprising a single roundhouse, much smaller than the previous Neolithic halls, and replaced three or more times over the following centuries until around 800 BC.

The best preserved of these Bronze Age roundhouses was positioned over part of the foundations of the large Neolithic timber hall. Like the other buildings it had an entrance facing south-east and during the course of its life it was used as a domestic dwelling, a workshop and also a byre. The overwintering and stalling of domestic livestock within buildings of this period seem to have been a common occurrence. Near this building, the hoard of precious weapons and jewellery was deliberately buried.

The metallurgical and lead isotope studies suggest that all the bronze objects were probably made in Scotland, but from metal imported from further south, eastern England for the bronze and, perhaps the Irish Sea area for the gold. If any object was a direct import, it would be the sunflower pin. The sword was a viable weapon that from the pattern of notches and rebound marks along its blades had probably seen some use in combat, but there was weakness in the core of the spearhead that would have made it vulnerable in use.

And while the metalwork in the Carnoustie Hoard was impressive enough, the associated organic remains are exceptional. The remarkable preservation of the wooden scabbard, woollen cloth and sheepskin was down to the anti-microbial properties of copper, which all of these items were in contact with.

This rich hoard of metalwork, together with a shale bangle found in the roundhouse indicate that while the settlement was otherwise very modest and unassuming, its occupants were wealthy and had some status in the wider community. Hoards such as this are rare, but a similar hoard of bronze swords and another gold decorated spearhead found in the 1960s just north of Dundee indicates a shared cultural practice amongst late Bronze Age households for burying wealth such as this for safekeeping. The reason as to why they never came back to recover these prized belongings, however, has been lost to the passage of time.

The last occupant of the Carnoustie site was a small field mouse – investigation of the contents of the spearhead’s socket revealed a considerable amount of fresh-looking grass stems stained by the copper, suggesting that a very small rodent (such as a field mouse) had set up house during the fairly recent past in the socket itself.

The archaeological work was funded by Angus Council and was required as a condition of planning consent by Angus Council who are advised on archaeological matters by the Aberdeenshire Council Archaeology Service, who considered there to be a potential for hitherto unknown archaeology to be buried at the site due to the proximity of known prehistoric archaeology.

ARO60: Neolithic timber halls and a Bronze Age settlement with hoard at Carnoustie, Angus by Beverley Ballin Smith, Alan Hunter Blair and Warren Bailie is freely available to download from Archaeology Reports Online.

Newly published research by GUARD Archaeology reveals how a rare enamelled Roman brooch provides insight into how the local Britons of south-west Scotland interacted with the Roman army during the late second century AD.

Excavations undertaken at William Grant & Sons Girvan Distillery at the Curragh in South Ayrshire in 2020 uncovered an Iron Age settlement dating to a period when southern Scotland had slipped from the grasp of the Roman Empire. The team of GUARD Archaeologists discovered the remains of what had once been a substantial timber roundhouse surrounded by a stout wooden palisade, with a large gated entranceway, likely the dwelling of a wealthy farming household.

During the excavation, the GUARD Archaeologists recovered an enamelled bronze brooch from the bottom of the foundation trench that held the timber palisade in place. What made this find unusual was that it was not local but was of a distinctly Roman origin.

‘This exotic brooch and others like it typically date to the late second century AD, and are most commonly found along the borders of the Roman Empire, in eastern Gaul, Switzerland and the Rhineland,’ said Jordan Barbour, who co-authored the report. ‘Their distribution pattern suggests that these brooches were particularly popular among members of the Roman military forces, so it’s likely that it came north of Hadrian’s Wall on the cloak of a Roman soldier tasked with garrisoning the Empire’s northernmost frontier.’

What makes this artefact all the more interesting is how it was used by the Iron Age inhabitants of this settlement. There was no evidence that it had been worn by a local Briton. Instead, they had buried it as a foundation deposit, a votive sacrifice of sorts, when constructing the timber palisade around their roundhouse.

‘It’s difficult to say exactly why the brooch was deposited within the palisade trench, but we know that ritualised foundation offerings are observed across many cultures, typically enacted to grant protection to a household, and this is certainly a possibility here,’ said Jordan Barbour. ‘As to how it ended up here, there are a few plausible scenarios. It’s the only Roman artefact recovered from the site. If the inhabitants had established regular trade with Roman Britain, we might expect to find a greater variety of Roman objects, but this is a solidly native context. Rather, the brooch is more likely to have been obtained through ad hoc exchange with Roman troops operating north of Hadrian’s Wall, perhaps even taken in battle as a trophy.’

The Curragh Iron Age dwelling was situated atop a rocky plateau with a steep escarpment acting to deny access from the immediate north, and it may well be the case that the dwelling was sited here and enclosed with a strong timber palisade, due to defensive concerns. Although there were no contemporary Roman forts nearby after the abandonment of the Antonine Wall earlier in the second century AD, an earlier first century AD Roman marching camp some two kilometres to the south-west attests to previous military presence in the area, and conflict between the local Britons and Roman soldiers is likely to have been a recurring element of Rome’s intermittent occupation of south-west Scotland.

This palisaded roundhouse was not the only archaeological feature the GUARD Archaeologists found at the Curragh. The enduring appeal of the plateau was proven by an earlier unenclosed roundhouse that was radiocarbon dated to around the seventh century BC, many centuries before the Romans arrived in Britain. And traces of even more ancient inhabitation were evidenced by the recovery of pottery dating to the early Neolithic period, when a large timber monument was constructed here, between 3,700 and 3,500 BC.

ARO59 A Neolithic Monument, Iron Age Homesteads and Early Medieval Kilns: excavations at the Curragh, Girvan by Jordan Barbour and Dave McNichol is freely available to download from Archaeology Reports Online.

The archaeological work was undertaken by GUARD Archaeology for McLaughlin & Harvey and funded by William Grant & Sons Distillers Ltd. The work was required as a condition of planning consent by South Ayrshire Council who are advised on archaeological matters by the West of Scotland Archaeology Service, who considered there to be a potential for hitherto unknown archaeology to be buried at the site due to the proximity of known prehistoric archaeology.

A community archaeology project enabled by GUARD Archaeology has been nominated for an Archaeological Research Project of the Year Award.

Working together with the Arthur Trail Association, local volunteers and heritage groups, and specialists from a variety of universities and institutes including the National Museums of Scotland and the Universities of Aberdeen, St Andrews and Stirling, the Drumelzier’s Hidden Heritage project investigated the archaeological roots of Drumelzier’s Merlin legend.

Until the fieldwork got underway in 2022, Drumelzier’s folklore was assumed to have simply originated from a wandering medieval minstrel, who had weaved random nearby landmarks into a local version of a tale that was widely known across medieval Europe.

The team of archaeologists and volunteers investigated Tinnis Castle, where according to the Drumelzier legend the protagonist was imprisoned by a Dark Age tyrant. The archaeological evidence they uncovered revealed that the hillfort underlying the castle was occupied around AD 600, precisely when the story was set and which has the hallmarks of a lordly stronghold of the time.

The team also undertook a geophysics survey of ground where according to the local legend the protagonist was buried on the banks of the Tweed and Powsail Burn. This survey revealed that while there is nothing at the spot marked on maps as the reputed location of Merlin’s Grave at Drumelzier, there is indeed an archaeological feature resembling a grave nearby to this.

The new archaeological evidence does not prove that the local tale was true, but it does demonstrate that the legend very likely originated in Drumelzier itself.

These awards are voted for entirely by the public – there are no panels of judges – so anyone is free to choose the projects, publications, and people they would like to win.

Voting closes on 10 February 2025, and the winners will be announced on 1 March as part of the Current Archaeology Live! 2025 Conference.

If you would like to vote, follow the link to the Research Project of the Year 2025: https://archaeology.co.uk/vote.

The excavation report, ARO56: Unearthing Ancient Tweeddale: Tinnis Castle, Thirlestane Barrows and Merlin’s Grave is freely available to download from www.archaeologyreportsonline.com.

The Drumelzier’s Hidden Heritage project was a collaboration between the Arthur Trail Association, local heritage groups, volunteers, specialists, Magnitude Surveys and GUARD Archaeology Ltd, funded by SSE Renewables Clyde Borders Community Fund, Fallago Environment Fund, Society of Antiquaries of Scotland Dr Euan MacKie Legacy Fund, Glenkerie Community Fund, the National Lottery Heritage Fund, the Hunter Archaeological and Historical Trust, and the Strathmartine Trust.