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 (the red circle below) 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.