by Dr Eric Grant (NOSAS)
Trench 2B at Tarradale during excavations in October 2017.
Background to Tarradale through time
This blog sets out some of the recent developments in the TARRADALE THROUGH TIME project (see website), a NOSAS led project that commenced in 2017 and is supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund and Historic Environment Scotland and private donors. TARRADALE THROUGH TIME grew out of the earlier Tarradale Archaeological Project which is still ongoing as a mainly field walking and data gathering exercise – see Tarradale Archaeological Project blog . Field walking over the last few years has produced a great deal of data which has been recorded and mapped and the patterns emerging from mapping and analysis suggest that there were several important archaeological sites within the Tarradale study area that merited further investigation. A detailed research project was drawn up as a multiperiod investigation and given the name of TARRADALE THROUGH TIME. The sub title of the project is community engagement with archaeology in the Highlands, as one of the aims of TARRADALE THROUGH TIME is to engage with the local community in order to widen access to heritage through research and understanding and to underline the premise that archaeology belongs to the community and not just to the archaeologists who explore it. The Tarradale Through Time website can be found at www.tarradalethroughtime.co.uk.
Community volunteers at the Tarradale castle site excavations, September 2017.
The Heritage Lottery Fund awarded the project a grant in 2017 and additional funding for specific aspects of the project was sought from Historic Environment Scotland. TARRADALE THROUGH TIME is focusing on five specific subproject areas for excavation and one subproject for detailed surface survey. These were chosen to give as wide a chronological range as possible in order to investigate the relationship between the inhabitants of the Tarradale area with their environment and landscape through time. The currently formulated subprojects are
- investigating through test pitting and larger scale excavation Mesolithic (and potentially later) shell middens
- a large barrow cemetery potentially dating from Bronze Age to Pictish
- a large ditched enclosure with internal structures also likely to date from Bronze Age to Pictish
- a small Inland promontory fort of unknown age
- a ditch defended enclosed settlement of possible medieval date
- the site of the historically recorded Tarradale Castle but whose exact location is unknown
- surface survey and investigation of deserted postmediaeval agricultural townships or settlement clusters.
NOSAS Archaeology Blog 