Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland 146

This paper explores the story of Scotland’s national survey body, the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland, between 1935 and 1946, with reference to Angus Graham, their Secretary, and Vere Gordon Childe, perhaps the best-known archaeologist of the 20th century. Much of the narrative describes the Commission’s survey of Orkney and Shetland, an eight year project which brought close contact with Childe, and special attention is given to debate over the Neolithic sites at Skara Brae and Rinyo. The outbreak of war in 1939 delayed their report for some seven years, but the government supported a major programme of rescue recording to mitigate damage caused by enemy bombing and the training of allied troops. In 1938 Childe was passed over for membership of the Commission, who felt that they had sufficient archaeological expertise. His extreme anger at this snub was to be reflected in a negative review of their forthcoming report, but was allayed by neat footwork on the part of the chairman. In 1942, when the Commissioners did indeed put Childe forward as a member it was the Secretary of State for Scotland that stood in their way. Dedicated efforts by the Commission finally persuaded him that Childe was not in fact a Communist threat, and he and Graham went on to record some 636 ancient monuments, while Graham alone took 2,200 images of historic buildings. The archive material (and Graham’s diaries in particular) shine a light on what was a pioneering project in testing times. The circumstances of the war, and the short duration of Childe’s membership, meant that his influence was in fact felt through fieldwork and not, as one may have expected, in the development of the Commission’s over-arching syntheses.

Title:	Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland 146
Series:	Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland
Volume:	146
Publication Type:	Journal
Abstract:	All or some articles from this volume are currently only available to Fellows of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland using a secure login.
Publisher:	Society of Antiquaries of Scotland
Year of Publication:	2016
Source:	ADS Archive (ADS Archive)
Created Date:	23 Nov 2017

Article Title	Author / Editor	Page Start/End
Obituary: Klavs Randsborg	Richard Hodges	1 - 6
Archaeological excavations at Nethermills Farm, Deeside, 1978–81	Caroline R Wickham-Jones James Kenworthy Aoife Gould Gavin MacGregor Gordon Noble	7 - 55
The end of the world, or just ‘goodbye to all that’? Contextualising the red deer heap from Links of Noltland, Westray, within late 3rd-millennium cal bc Orkney	David V Clarke Alison Sheridan Alexandra N Shepherd Niall M Sharples Miranda Jane Armour-Chelu Laura Hamlet Christopher Bronk-Ramsey E Dunbar Paula J Reimer Peter D Marshall Alasdair W R Whittle	57 - 89
A cremation pit at Howford, Strichen, Aberdeenshire	Moira K Greig	91 - 102
Cist behind the Binns: the excavation of an Iron Age cist burial at the House of the Binns, West Lothian*	Daniel Rhodes Elizabeth Jones	103 - 112
A whetstone from south-east England at Newstead, Melrose (Trimontium): the reach of a major Roman stone industry	John R L Allen	113 - 119
Early medieval shellfish gathering at the Sands of Forvie, Aberdeenshire: feast or famine?	Gordon Noble Joe R Turner Derek Hamilton Lee Hastie Rick Knecht Oskar Sveinbjarnarson B R Upex Karen B Milek Lindsey Stirling	121 - 152
A house-shaped shrine in a Carolingian setting, as depicted in the oldest portrait of St Columba in Cod Sang 555	Peter A Yeoman	153 - 165
Musical tuning peg from Edinburgh Castle and the stringing of medieval harps	Graeme Lawson	167 - 180
Kisimul, Isle of Barra. Part 1: The Castle and the MacNeills	Timothy G Holden	181 - 213
Woodland management in medieval Scotland	John M Gilbert	215 - 252
The ‘Roman Heads’ at the Netherbow in Edinburgh: a case of antiquarian wishful thinking in the 18th and 19th centuries	Iain Gordon Brown Alan Montgomery	253 - 274
The Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland, Angus Graham and Gordon Childe (1935–46)	George Geddes	275 - 309

Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland 146

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