Scottish Archaeological Journal

Summaries of four lectures given between 17 and 20 January 2005, exploring the nature of the relationship between archaeological theory and excavated evidence; the impact of fieldworkers' individual experience and observation skills; the meaning of the term `preservation by record', and the nature and accessibility of the records in question; and the changing relationship of field archaeology to theory, the academic world and the public.

The chance discovery of burials at the traditional site of St Trolla's Chapel, Kintradwell, near Brora, led to their rescue excavation and subsequent analysis. The results confirm that this was the site of a chapel in the medieval period, with radiocarbon dates indicating the use of the burial ground from the earlier-eleventh to the sixteenth or seventeenth centuries. The skeletal remains reveal something of the personal histories of the occupants, with evidence of warfare, hard labour, injury through accident and a possible case of congenital syphilis. The site's association with St Triduana and the concentration of Late Iron Age remains and Pictish sculpture in the vicinity together suggest an earlier, Pictish origin for the chapel. Specialist reports include

An archaeological excavation was carried out at Graham Street, Leith, Edinburgh following the discovery of human remains during machine excavation of a foundation trench for a new housing development. Excavation demonstrated that the burial was that of a young adult male who had been interred in a supine position with his head orientated towards the north. Radiocarbon dates obtained from the right tibia suggest the individual died between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries AD. Little contextual information exists in documentary or cartographic sources to supplement this physical evidence, although a possible link with a historically attested siege or a plague cannot be discounted. Includes

The paper presents a cursus monument at Reedieleys, in the Howe of Fife, discovered during aerial survey in 2003, exploring aspects of its local landscape context. Attention is drawn to the rig-and-furrow that overlies the cursus, and the cumulative nature of the cropmark based archaeological record is also discussed.