New house owners at Erskine in Renfrewshire may not be aware that they inhabit the same space where a hitherto lost prehistoric settlement once was. Mysteriously abandoned over three thousand years ago, the archaeological remains, long buried and forgotten, have been brought to light in a new publication.

The discovery was made by GUARD Archaeology during archaeological excavations between 2018 and 2019, commissioned by CALA Homes (West) prior to construction of new houses at Northbar on the south-east outskirts of Erskine.

The archaeological evidence gathered at Northbar demonstrates that the site was occupied between 1500 and 1100 BC. Our team encountered the remains of 12 roundhouses strung out across the site, a settlement that had developed over several centuries. While only post-holes and trenches survived where roof-bearing posts and wattle-and-daub walls once stood, the scale of these demonstrate that some of these roundhouses were extremely large timber structures, likely the homes of large households of people.

The evidence gathered during GUARD Archaeology’s excavation has provided a rare insight into daily life during this middle Bronze Age period, from evidence of crop production and processing, animal husbandry, weaving, pottery-making, to the construction techniques for the large timber roundhouses these communities built.

Within the roundhouses burnt animal bones and charred barley and wheat grains attest to the farming of the surrounding open wooded landscape. Traces of animal dung were also found within two of the roundhouses, reflecting seasonal cohabitation of both humans and animals living together under the one roof. But a substantial quantity of hazelnut shells within one of these roundhouses also attests to the autumnal gathering and storage of wild food resources, possibly to sustain the household over the coming winter in the event of a bad grain harvest. GUARD Archaeologists have found evidence for famine and catastrophes amongst other Bronze Age communities in south-west Scotland, so winter starvation was no idle threat at this time.

But the occupants were not just farmers. Several kiln pits, rare evidence from this period, were found within one of the roundhouses, demonstrating the manufacturing of pottery vessels within the Bronze Age settlement. Numerous clay loom weights attest to the weaving of woollen cloth too. This evidence demonstrates that the Bronze Age folk here crafted pottery vessels for the cooking and storage of food, and processed woollen yarn into clothes. While communities were well-connected with each other during this time, this evidence shows that they were also self-sufficient for the basic necessities of life.

This was not the earliest activity at Northbar however. The GUARD Archaeologists discovered that a few centuries before the first roundhouses were built here, a small cemetery had been created in one corner of the site during the early Bronze Age. These graves contained the cremated bones of at least 9 people together with sherds of ceramic Beakers and Urns, that were buried alongside the dead to accompany them in the afterlife. It may even be that it was these graves and the reputation of the people buried here that first attracted a small Bronze Age community to settle on this site.

The Bronze Age settlement at Northbar seems to have drawn to a close around 1100 BC, but why this happened remains a mystery. There was no evidence of burning or destruction, and many similar settlements from this period such as discovered at Rosemarkie on the Black Isle and at Carnoustie in Angus similarly ended around the end of the Bronze Age. Communities moved on to other places in the landscape, and other than some ephemeral remains of Iron Age activity over one thousand years later and a fragment of a burnt cereal grain from the fifteenth century, there was no other trace of people on this site until the construction of CALA Homes’ new houses.

The archaeological work was funded by CALA Homes (West) and was required as a condition of planning consent by Renfrewshire Council who are advised on archaeological matters by the West of Scotland Archaeology Service. Now that the work has been completed, the project archive will be submitted to the National Record of the Historic Environment held by Historic Environment Scotland. The artefacts will be submitted through the Scottish Treasure Trove system whereby they will be allocated to an appropriate museum.

The excavation report, ARO70: Bronze Age Graves and Roundhouses at Northbar, Erskine by John-James Atkinson, Beverley Ballin Smith and Dave McNicol is freely available to download from Archaeology Reports Online.

A fragment of Spanish olive jar found during our excavations in advance of Edinburgh’s Trams extension reveals that this mediterranean luxury item was imported into Leith during the sixteenth-seventeenth centuries.

But not for cooking!

Rather it was used by apothecaries for medicinal treatments and for soap-making.

Spanish vessels and olive jars in particular have been recovered from other sites in Leith and Edinburgh and generally date to the sixteenth or seventeenth century.  Olive jars are quite distinctive in shape and colour – they have a red/pink sandy fabric with an off-white to buff coloured slip on the exterior. A near complete vessel was found in 1984 at Newark Castle in Port Glasgow.

Trading during this period was heavily influenced by politics (as it is nowadays) and attempts were made by the Scottish Kirk to prohibit trading with Habsburg Spain and its dominions at the end of the sixteenth century. However, trade was restored a few years later and a regular trade was in place by the second half of the seventeenth century with Glasgow as the main port.

This trade carried on well into the following centuries, as evidenced by the collection of nineteenth century olive jars in Edinburgh Museum.

Other imported ceramics, evidencing trade with other parts of mainland Europe, include Rhenish stonewares (from the Rhineland of Germany) and cooking vessels from the Low Countries (Netherlands). Large ports like Rotterdam were used by Scottish merchants to buy these wares, and probably buying goods from Spain too when regular trade was prohibited.

Newly published research by GUARD Archaeology has revealed how a hitherto unknown Antonine Wall Roman fortlet was discovered beneath the back gardens of Bearsden.

Archaeological investigations within the gardens of three adjacent residential properties in Bearsden in 2017 revealed the stone foundations of a turf rampart. The archaeological work was funded by individual landowners in advance of development and was required as conditions of planning consents by East Dunbartonshire Council.

Historic Environment Scotland identified the investigations as a rare but important opportunity to discover more information about this particular area to the south of the World Heritage Site of the Antonine wall. Historic Environment Scotland subsequently commissioned further excavation which revealed a parallel ditch containing peat deposits, wood and vegetation, and also a geophysical survey which revealed stone structures, likely surviving fragments of the Antonine Wall itself.

What made these discoveries significant was that both the kerbed stone base and its parallel ditch lay perpendicular to the line of the Antonine Wall that crosses this part of Bearsden.

Wood from the bottom of the ditch was radiocarbon dated to AD 127–247 and therefore within the period of use and immediate aftermath of the Antonine Wall. Two sherds of Roman pottery were also subsequently found beneath the stone base.

The Antonine Wall was built in the years following AD 142 by the Roman Army on the orders of their emperor Antoninus Pius (hence its name). Cutting Scotland in two, it separated the conquered Britons of the south from the free Britons to the north. Unlike Hadrian’s Wall, which was built of stone, the Antonine Wall was constructed of turf set onto a stone base. But little more than 20 years after it was built, sometime in the AD 160s, the Romans retreated back to Hadrian’s Wall.

This fortlet lay on an area of high ground right next to the Antonine Wall. It had commanding views over the landscape, particularly to the north, which was beyond Roman control, and was also intervisible with the larger Roman fort at Bearsden which lay close-by to the west on lower lying ground. This suggests that the fortlet was an integral part of the Roman Wall defences which included forts along its length along with smaller fortlets like this, where small detachments from the larger forts were posted to keep an eye out.

Specialist analysis of the botanical and fossil beetle evidence from the bottom of the ditch revealed that when the fort was built, the surrounding landscape was open pasture with areas of partially cleared woodland, mainly alder, hazel and willow, with lesser amounts of oak and birch. Grasses were present within the cleared areas.

The work within the three gardens in Bearsden has revealed how important the planning process is to archaeological investigation and the discovery of new sites. Given their location and date, the archaeological remains discovered in the back gardens of Boclair Road are related to the Antonine Wall and it would therefore seem that the stone base supported a turf wall and the ditch was a section of the perimeter ditch around a hitherto unknown Roman fortlet.

ARO65: Discovery of an Antonine Wall Roman Fortlet at Boclair Road, Bearsden by Maureen Kilpatrick, with contributions by Michael Bamforth, Nysa Noelle Loudon, Coralie Mills, Susan Ramsay, Katharine Warden and Nicki Whitehouse is freely available to download from Archaeology Reports Online.

GUARD Archaeology’s work in bringing two Scottish Bronze Age Hoards to light has been nominated for Current Archaeology’s Research Project of the Year Award 2026.

GUARD Archaeology led the post-excavation analyses of the Carnoustie and Rosemarkie hoards undertaken by experts drawn from across Britain including National Museums Scotland, the universities of Glasgow, Stirling, Bradford and Exeter, various independent specialists and GUARD Archaeology itself.

Through careful minute analysis of every strand of evidence, the organic remains as well as the metals, an enormous amount was revealed about the people who buried these hoards at the end of the Bronze Age.

The post-excavation analyses of finds recovered from Carnoustie and Rosemarkie revealed exceptional archaeology.

The organic remains such as the Carnoustie sword scabbard enabled radiocarbon dating of the Carnoustie hoard to 1118-924 BC, earlier than when traditional typologies would place it. While tree bast used to tie many of the Rosemarkie bangles together provided a secure radiocarbon date for the burial of the Rosemarkie hoard: 894-794 BC, at the very end of the Bronze Age.

The metallurgical analyses of both hoards revealed the extensive exchange networks with southern Britain, Ireland and the continent, from which Late Bronze Age metalworkers in Scotland ultimately sourced the materials they shaped into precious objects.

Intriguingly both hoards were buried close to contemporary Bronze Age settlements, leading the GUARD Archaeologists to examine the reasons why these hoards were buried in the first place. Unlike founders’ hoards or metalworkers’ stashes of damaged objects and fragments that could be recycled, or votive hoards of deliberately broken objects thrown into watery places with no chance (or apparent desire) of recovery, the Rosemarkie and Carnoustie hoards contained treasured items that were collected together, wrapped, and neatly buried for safekeeping close to a settlement where they could be guarded and easily retrieved when the time came.

The question, then, is not so much why they were buried, but why the time never came for these Bronze Age communities to retrieve their valuable belongings.

Voting closes on 9 February 2026. To vote, go to https://archaeology.co.uk/vote

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