Mesolithic Encounters: Tarradale Shell Midden Excavation, Autumn 2023

by Eric Grant

2023 excavations in Trench 2B

In 2017 the Tarradale Through Time project excavated a shell midden (known as site 2B) located on a raised beach terrace at the foot of a palaeo-cliff about 150 m south-east of Tarradale House, see previous blog post.  In September to October 2023 the site was revisited by the Tarradale Archaeological Team in order to continue the earlier investigation. The original 2017 excavation trench was approximately 8 m x 6 m and revealed a complex sequence of marine shell midden deposits comprising mussel, cockle, periwinkle, oyster, whelk along with animal and fish bones. A number of possible struck quartz flakes and worked flint was also found within the midden but compared with shell midden excavations in other parts of Scotland, site 2B was lithic poor. Several significant worked bone and antler artefacts were recovered from the shell midden including the remains of two antler T-axes and a fragment of a biserial antler harpoon.

2023 excavations in Trench 2B

A series of radiocarbon dates from the 2017 excavations gave results between 4832 and 3643 cal BC. This range of more than 1000 years suggests that the site had been occupied, if not continuously, at least regularly, from the Mesolithic into the early Neolithic period. A number of stone settings was found within the excavated area and on the east side of the trench an underllying spread of cobbles and sandy gravel was interpreted as the original raised beach surface. Owing to lack of time in 2017, the western side of the trench was not excavated to the same depth, so the excavations in 2023 had the primary objective of removing the remaining shell midden deposits and evaluating the underlying deposits and any potential structures. It is apparent that the shell midden site had been disturbed through the ages by agricultural activity forming rig and furrow and the only reason that site has survived to the present is that it is bounded on one side by a fence and on the north by the palaeo-cliff, making it impossible for larger agricultural machines to plough the area. If this had not been the case the site would have been totally destroyed. Indeed, a considerable area to the south of the surviving site has been severely truncated by ploughing.

Trench extension to the NW shown in the foreground

Crannogs: The Search Continues

by Richard Guest

Investigating a possible crannog at Loch Morie, June 2023

Almost three years has passed since the inception of the NOSAS Crannogs project, one sunny post-lockdown afternoon sitting around my patio maintaining a 2-metre separation, unable to meet inside but mightily pleased to be chatting face to face instead of by zoom.  Who had even heard of zoom before lockdown?  We hatched a cunning plan – to search satellite images for islands which might prove to be unrecorded crannogs.  Surely there must be lots of them, secreted away in remote glens where archaeologists rarely tread?  Well, no, actually.

Movement was still restricted so there was no shortage of volunteers, happy to have something different to do at home, and we soon had plenty of islands to look at in the field.  Some were explored in 2022 but by the start of 2023 we had a shortlist of very promising looking targets which certainly looked like crannogs from the shore.  They would need snorkelling or diving around to check out their underwater credentials to be sure whether they really were artificial constructions.  There was also the Loch Achilty crannog, which had been dived and surveyed in 2022 and where timbers had been found which could potentially be radiocarbon dated (see previous blog posts here and here).

Aside from crannogs, but continuing the underwater theme, I had spent two weeks in 2022 diving HMS Natal in the Cromarty Firth as part of a Nautical Archaeology Society project.  So it was that Claire Hallybone from NAS came up to present the findings of the Natal project at a NOSAS “MAD” evening (that’s Monthly Archaeological Discussion for the uninitiated) and also to dive some real and potential crannogs with me.

It was early March and whilst the weather was conducive to a jolly evening chatting in Strathpeffer Hall, for diving – not so much.  Nevertheless, we braved a chilly Loch Achilty and were successful in obtaining a timber sample from the shallower of two embedded timbers.  It was surprisingly hard work.  I made two parallel sawcuts in the edge of the wood and then tried to chisel out the bit in between with my knife but the wood was so hard I broke the tip off my knife. Eventually the sample was obtained but it took about 40 minutes, by which time we were shivering with cold and both agreed one dive was enough for the day and the second, deeper timber would have to wait for another time.

Loch Achilty crannog: This timber was radio carbon dated to c. 1359 AD, and another to c. 1060 AD (Duncan Ross)

Iron Age Hut Circles in the Middle of Nowhere: Submerged Prehistory in Upper Glen Cannich

by Roland Spencer-Jones

Does every excavation and discovery have a story behind it? Maybe. This one certainly does. When did the story start? With shepherds moving into empty land in the early 19^th century? With the gradual depopulation of Highland glens in the early half of the 20th century? With the construction of the largest dam in Scotland completed in 1952?

Maybe it’s best to start this story in early July 2021 with a walker and cyclist, Glenn Wilks, venturing into the remote west end of Loch Mullardoch. This large reservoir loch was created from two previous lochs, Lungard and Mullardoch, when a dam was built in upper Glen Cannich flooding the upper glen for a distance of 15km. The dry summer of 2021 produced unusually low water level in the loch, exposing kilometres of bare sand and gravel at its western end. The walker, Glenn, noticed that the now exposed reservoir bed contained several circular stone structures. Although he wasn’t an archaeologist, he recognised that these were special and so took photographs and videos as a record of what might soon be covered up by the water again.

One of hut circles exposed by the low waters of the loch (Glenn Wilks)

Once he was out of the glen, he contacted Historic Environment Scotland with the information and photos. A serendipitous encounter between one of the HES officers and the author in Beauly soon after this, ended with the officer sharing the knowledge of this new find. Fortunately, the author had himself been to this area before, on a walking trip in 2014 when the water level in the reservoir was much higher. So, he knew the area and the difficulty of access, and yet was enthused at the prospect of investigating these features.

Modern OS Map showing length of Glen Cannich and Strath Glass (OS)

Map of Lochs Lungard & Mullardoch before the Mullardoch Dam (OS)

The NOSAS Crannogs Project

by Richard Guest

I have long been fascinated by crannogs. These are articial island dwellings such as the one in Loch Achilty, pictured above (see Canmore).  I remember back in the 80’s tiptoeing across a partly submerged causeway to visit one in a Shetland lochan.  Then, later, visiting the reconstruction in Loch Tay and seeing a TV programme about it.  Later still, whilst on a Nautical Archaeology Society training course I met one of the divers who had been on the Loch Tay project and heard first hand what it was like to make such amazing discoveries.

About 10 years ago, my late wife Jonie and I decided to try and walk out to the Redcastle crannog in the Beauly Firth (see Canmore).  About twenty squelchy steps was enough to convince us that this was a BAD IDEA and we retreated to solid land.  And oh! The smell!  So the next expedition was by boat at high tide and we passed over Phopachy crannog (see Canmore), which we could see on the sounder but could make nothing out through the water.  Another trip at a lower state of tide, we could see the crannog but the water around it was too shallow to approach in the boat.  We didn’t try again.

What we did do was to dive around another crannog, the one in Loch Brora (see Canmore).  The water was so peaty we saw literally nothing.  We knew we had reached the bottom when we felt it beneath us.  I put my hand in front of my mask but couldn’t see it, even with a powerful torch.  I think I could feel some square timber but it might have been a modern fence post caught in weed.

More recently I became aware, through both diving and archaeology sources, of discoveries of Neolithic pottery found underwater around crannogs in the western isles (see Current Archaeology article).  This exploded the received wisdom that crannogs were of iron age to post medieval date.  Then in 2021 NOSAS were lucky enough to have a “Zoom” lecture about crannogs, by Michael Stratigos from the University of York, which is available on You Tube (below). This is when the idea for a NOSAS crannogs project was born.

TARRADALE THROUGH TIME: community engagement with archaeology in the Highlands

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.

Clachtoll Broch Excavations 2017: Part Two

by Dave McBain (Historic Assynt)

Image: AOC Archaeology.

Three months ago, I was asked to write a piece on the Clachtoll excavation (see the post here), and when I was asked to do a follow up, I thought it would be best to have a look back and see where to start from. That was a revelation. When I penned the last piece,  we were a month in, enjoying every minute and let’s be brutally honest – not finding too many artefacts.

As time went on, we dug deeper, the finds became more frequent – much more frequent and in amongst it all, a mini dig on top of the Split Rock and the creation of a corbelled cell (soon, we hope,  to be otter holt) made for a fantastic summer.

So much to share, so few words – so let’s not waste any more.

View of 3d model of the broch towards the end of excavation, Sep 2017.

I suggested that the occupants may have had sheep or goats in my last blog report – we can confirm those sheep, from some of the bones found. Curiously, if a good few years later, Ptolemy’s map of Scotland listed the people of the North West as Caereni – or “sheep people”. I can only wonder if it was those same Caereni who built the Broch?

There were also cattle, pig, deer, whale, seal and possibly boar bones recovered on the site. I am pleased however, to report that to the best of my knowledge, no human bones came from the site, so we can hope our Caereni survived the collapse.

Clachtoll has turned out to be something amazing. Although several hundred brochs were built around Scotland, most it seems, fell gradually out of use before being abandoned. Finding another that collapsed dramatically in the iron age is a bit like searching for hens’ teeth. What we uncovered this summer was a two thousand year old time capsule. One has to wonder if one of the thousand plus visitors to the site was H.G. Wells time traveller looking for an update?

Clachtoll Broch Excavations 2017: The First Month

by Dave McBain (Historic Assynt)

Exterior view of the broch

The excavation at Clachtoll broch has been running for just over a month and with each passing day, the excitement seems to be growing. Clachtoll ticks so many boxes in this aging student’s checklist, it’s hard not to ramble on about it.

Carbon dating tells us that two thousand years ago, someone piled stones forty odd foot high – current estimates from the amount of rubble put the broch at 12-14 metres.  I’m far from a pro and not a great judge of distance, so like to describe that as a little higher than a three-storey house. What were they thinking? Was Clachtoll a key location on the West coast in the iron age? Why put what is surely the largest broch on the West coast there?

Image of 3D Model, created from photos taken 29th July (James McComas). Full model at the foot of the post.

The excavation is a community run project. After some frankly amazing fundraising, Historic Assynt have raised enough to get in a team of professionals for not just the dig, but a series of workshops, site tours, a little bit of experimental archaeology – next week, a corbelled cell will be built and potentially some local otters may get a new home as an outcome and most importantly it will result in a legacy attraction (complete with new path created from the spoil heap) for future visitors.

Then there’s the manner of the collapse. Most broch’s fell out of use gradually. For one reason or another, their occupants abandoned them, died out or may even have been removed. Many have suffered a gradual collapse over the years – in some cases tens of centuries after their initial construction.

The belief is, that Clachtoll is different. Like many others it collapsed, but in Clachtoll it might have been catastrophic, contemporary, and conclusive enough to prevent re-entry or re-use.

Introducing Rosemarkie Man: A Pictish Period Cave Burial on the Black Isle

by James McComas (NOSAS & RCP)

The Pictish period skeletal remains, c . 430 – 630 AD, of a robust young man with severe cranial and facial injuries was found by archaeologists in a cave on the Black Isle in 2016. As has been widely reported, a facial reconstruction of the man was later produced by Dame Sue Black and her team at the University of Dundee. This is an account of the story from a digger’s perspective.

The Rosemarkie Caves Project (RCP), founded and led by Simon Gunn as a part of NOSAS, has since 2006 investigated the archaeological potential of a range of 19 caves on a 2.5 mile stretch of coast north of Rosemarkie. Activities have included comprehensive surveys, test pitting and fuller excavations (see our earlier blog post for an introduction).

In September 2016 it was decided that a full two week excavation would be carried out at “Cave 2B” where previous test pitting results had been revealing some interesting results. Here animal bone and charcoal excavated from depth of over one metre had yielded calibrated radio carbon dates of 600 – 770 AD, which is generally regarded as the Pictish period in Scotland. In addition this particular cave also had an unusual built wall structure spanning its entrance. It was felt by the RCP Committee that these factors made it a prime site for more detailed excavation.

View of the cave towards of end of the 2016 excavation. The excavation area had now been divided into quadrants. Note the substantial wall in the entrance.

The Rosemarkie Caves Project was extremely fortunate to have experienced professional archaeologist Steve Birch volunteer to direct the excavation full time. In addition Mary Peteranna was also in attendance on a number of days when her duties as Operations Manager at AOC Archaeology would allow. I had signed up as a volunteer for almost the full term along with the rest of a small but enthusiastic team.

What was meant to be the final day of the dig started like any other. We had already had a successful two weeks, having identified a potentially important iron working site. That morning I was hoping to be able take out a section in the wall entrance in pursuit of a possible slot feature there. However I was somewhat disappointed to be deployed in the NW quadrant at the back of the cave, where a cobbled surface had previously been removed and a depth of midden material still remained to be worked back.

Rhynie Excavations Season 4 (2016)

By Cathy MacIver (on behalf of the REAP Project Team)

A fourth season of excavation took place at the Craw Stane, Rhynie over August – September 2016. The project was led by REAP Project Directors Dr Gordon Noble, University of Aberdeen and Dr Meggen Gondek, University of Chester.

Aerial photographs and geophysical surveys had identified curvilinear enclosures around the Craw Stane, one of the few symbol stones remaining in situ in Scotland (Plate 1).

Plate 1: Craw Stane with Tap O ‘Noth hillfort (©Cathy MacIver)

Previous seasons of work at the Craw Stane (one of seven Class I Pictish symbol stones from the area) in 2011, 2012 and 2015 had demonstrated that these enclosures took the form of an inner and outer ditch and a later palisade structure with associated postholes.

Excavations in past seasons had revealed a number of high status objects including fragments of Late Roman Amphora, glass beads, metal pins, glass vessel fragments and evidence of metal working in the form of metal working tongs, slag (metal working waste) and clay moulds for metal objects. The features date the site to the early medieval period and radiocarbon dates from the ditches and other internal features confirmed a relatively short 5^th-6^th C construction, occupation and abandonment of the site.

Plate 2: Rough draft of the excavations from 2011, 2012 and 2015. A work in progress!

The 2016 excavations aimed to investigate areas of the site that hadn’t been looked at before, continuing to use the successful strip and map approach employed in previous years. This involved 4 large areas or trenches (Plate 3) where the topsoil was removed by machine and watched by archaeologists. The areas were then cleaned by hand by a team of archaeologists, students and volunteers, using hoes, krafses and eventually trowels. This made archaeological features more visible and easier to record. Plans of the site were created using DGPS (accurate to the nearest cm) and aerial photography using a drone. Areas with more complexity were drawn by hand.

Plate 3: Aerial view of the 2016 trenches

Craig Phadrig Vitrified Hillfort, Inverness

The following is based on a transcript of notes by Mary Peteranna (AOC) for her presentation at the Highland Archaeology Festival Conference 2015. It describes fieldwork at Craig Phadrig hillfort carried out by AOC Archaeology in early 2015 on behalf of Forestry Commission Scotland, see Data Structure Report.

Craig Phadrig (Canmore ID 13486, HER MHG 3809) is located on the west side of lnverness, a prominent position overlooking River Ness and entrance to the Beauly/Moray Firth. The Beauly Firth marked a southern boundary of an area defined in the north by the Dornoch Firth landscape, supposedly held by the Decantae tribe in the lron Age as shown in Ptolemy’s map. Knock Farrell and Ord Hill hillforts are in line of sight, and a third possible fort is at Torvean In Inverness (Canmore ID 13549, HER MHG 3749).

Aerial view of Craig Phadrig, Inverness, the Kessock Bridge and Ord Hill (Forestry Commission Scotland).

A visualisation of the same scene as it might have appeared in prehistory (Forestry Commission Scotland).

Craig Phadrig is a prominent landscape feature, referred to at the time of James Vl in 1592. It is an oblong fort, a type which clusters around the Moray Firth region. Similar forts in East Scotland such as Finavon, Dunnideer and Tap o’ Noth also feature lack of entrance and massive walls suggesting an exclusive use. Many show evidence for lron Age construction, abandonment and secondary re-use.

Previous survey and excavation. Numerous previous surveys have been conducted on Craig Phadrig, probably sparked by Penant’s 1769 Tour of Scotland where he mentions vitrified stone. Plan shows the 2013 RCAHMS survey with the estimated area of these excavations.

Craig Phadrig. Plan of fort incorporating results of RCAHMS survey (Sept 2013) and earlier surveys (Canmore).

Finally, in 1971/72 Alan Small and Barry Cottam dug for two seasons, from which only an interim report after the first season was produced. lmage of the inner rampart from 1971; Small found that the inner rampart had been built sometime in the 4th Century BC and that the wall core was significantly vitrified. He also noted significant disturbance by other earlier excavations.