Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland 146

As part of a major international research project, The Times of Their Lives, a programme of radiocarbon dating and Bayesian modelling was undertaken to refine the chronology of activities in one small but important part of the extensive Late Neolithic and Bronze Age settlement on Links of Noltland on the island of Westray, Orkney. The selected area (Trench D) is well known for having produced, next to a wall, the remains of a heap of at least 15 red deer carcasses, on top of which had been placed a large cod, a gannet’s wing along with part of a greater black-backed gull, and a pair of large antlers. This remarkable deposit had been preceded by, and was followed by, periods of cultivation and the deposition of domestic refuse. Refined date estimates have been produced, based on 18 radiocarbon determinations obtained from 16 samples from Trench D (including nine newly obtained dates, three from individual deer in the heap). These clarify when, during this long sequence of activities, the deer were heaped up: probably in the 22nd century cal bc, around the same time as Beaker pottery was deposited elsewhere on the Links. This allows comparison between the dated activities in this part of the site with activity elsewhere on the Links and also with other episodes of deer deposition in 3rd-millennium cal bc Orkney. It encourages exploration of the possible reasons for what appears to be a remarkable act of structured deposition. The significance of an earlier, much larger scale deposit featuring cattle remains at Ness of Brodgar is discussed in exploring the nature of Orcadian society and practices during the second half of the 3rd millennium cal bc.

During a routine archaeological monitoring visit to the National Trust for Scotland (NTS) property at the House of the Binns in August 2013, human bone was discovered eroding from a small bedrock quarry face. Following investigation by the NTS Archaeology Team this was identified as the remains of two male skeletons from the first centuries bc/ad. Both were buried within a single stone cist, with the remains of one individual (30–50 years old) clearly disturbed during the placement of the second (a young adult). The second individual was placed in a crouched position on his left side and was wearing a penannular brooch on his left shoulder. A significant element of the site is the survival of some extremely rare Iron Age textile upon the brooch.

From 2010 to 2014, extensive shell middens were excavated at the Sands of Forvie, Aberdeenshire, and the wider landscape explored through a programme of soil and geophysical survey. The middens were dated to the 1st millennium ad and appear to represent intensive gathering and cooking of shellfish, particularly mussels. To date, few middens of the scale of the Forvie examples have been identified in Scotland, but the middens share some parallels with similar examples found in a broader North Sea context. This article reports on the findings of the excavations, provides an outline of the chronology of the middens, including Bayesian modelling of dates, and a brief review of the growing evidence for shellfish gathering in 1st-millennium ad Scotland and the wider north-west European context.

A stray bone tuning peg from late medieval levels within Edinburgh Castle, the first such find to be published from Scotland, probably belonged to a small, wooden, metal-strung harp. Although it is simply made, its dimensions indicate that the lost instrument had been built to standard units of measurement (inches and fractions of an inch), was probably the product of a craft workshop and was therefore a valuable item of equipment. With the exception of an early antiquarian find from a bog in Co Antrim, of which only a drawing now remains, no such instrument has yet been found in these islands, but numerous images survive, especially in Insular manuscript miniatures. Some feature pegs and strings in the process of being tuned. Under the microscope, the object reveals surface textures that are closely consistent with such use, specifically with its insertion into a wooden socket and with repeated twisting there by means of a socketed metal key. Close to the string hole are oblique stains suggestive of a winding of metal wire. X-ray fluorescence analysis in the vicinity of these stains suggests long-term exposure to contamination from strings of copper alloy or from some nearby copper-alloy fitment. However, an unexpectedly strong iron signal from within the soil residues still packing the string hole leaves open the possibility of iron or steel wire.

This article will examine the evidence for woodland management in Scotland from the 12th to the 16th centuries and will try to draw some overall conclusions about that management and how effective it was. Although there are difficulties in using medieval documentary evidence in terms of its Latin and Scots vocabulary, it does show that woodland was being managed throughout this period by enclosing woods, excluding animals and allowing time for regrowth – in other words, by coppicing and possibly, in some instances, by coppicing on a formal rota. Pollarding, shredding and growing coppice with standards may also have taken place. Examples of woodland management will be looked at in more detail in Darnaway and Campsie Forests. Despite this management, there is no doubt that a shortage of timber did develop in Scotland in areas of heavy use, especially from the 14th century onwards. What appears to have happened was that the majority of users of the woods were the lord’s tenants and men. Their requirements were not for large timbers but for small trees and underwood. Consequently, in many places where underwood survived it was cut before it could grow into timber and, despite efforts in the 15th century by lords, parliament and the king, young wood continued to be cut at the expense of future supplies of timber.

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.