Tayside Fife Archaeol J 7

Draws attention to a previously unpublished eighteenth-century account of the discovery of a bronze sword and part of a human skull in the River Forth and proposes that a Ewart Park sword in Perth Museum, thought to have been found at Crieff, Perthshire, should be identified as this weapon from Forth. This find is a significant addition to the inventory of Late Bronze Age metalwork from the Forth Valley in particular and Scottish riverine contexts in general.

An irregular cropmark enclosure was partly excavated. This enclosure was formed by a complex ditch, backed or replaced by timber fences. The interior seems to have been divided by palisades, perhaps forming the entrance to an inner citadel. Smelting slag and a tinned iron buckle were recovered. Radiocarbon dates place activity around AD 885--1024 and 1040--1259. Features separately authored contributions, including:

A well-stratified sequence of medieval structures and deposits relating to the early development of St Andrews, Fife, was excavated. A stone building containing the base of a large relieving arch was identified in a property fronting onto Abbey Street; this building predated the planned layout of South Street, which was indicated by a series of parallel property boundaries. Fills of rubbish pits provided evidence for economic development during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries AD. Imported pottery and glazed tiles were recovered. Animal bones and macroplant remains shed light on diet. A corn-drying kiln was identified and the first example of a Scottish medieval bow retrieved. Includes specialist reports on:

Recent work in Crail has identified areas of well-preserved archaeology whose distribution is considered against the background of previously known sites and other archaeological work. The morphology of the burgh and its medieval expansion is reconsidered and a revised model proposed, with expansion to the north-east dated principally to the late-fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and related to revival of fisheries. Includes:

Data from a watching brief and limited excavation at the King's Mills, Crail, Fife, suggest that most of the remains relate to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; three phases cover the transition from waterpower to steam. Historical evidence indicates a twelfth-century origin for the mill and records important events until the surviving building was demolished in 1920.

A cursory survey of irrigation as an agricultural technique in eighteenth-century Tayside, examining the introduction of English-style water meadows in the early-nineteenth century and their appearance in published literature, maps and aerial photographs.