Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland 150

Professor John Coles, who died on 14 October 2020 aged 90, had a long and distinguished career as a prehistorian, experimental archaeologist and wetland archaeologist, and he made substantial contributions to Scottish archaeology, as well as to European and world archaeology more generally.

Although the Neolithic period is defined by farming, physical evidence for processes associated with farming are rare, with agricultural practices usually indicated by environmental and biomolecular proxies for domesticates such as pollen evidence, ceramic residues and lipids, animal bones, plant remains and stable isotope studies. This paper will, we hope, invigorate discussion on the recognition, interpretation and significance of physical traces of farming in Scotland. The starting point will be the summary of two excavations, Wellhill and Cranberry, both Perth and Kinross, in 2014 and 2016 respectively, part of the Strathearn Environs and Royal Forteviot (SERF) project. These cropmark sites revealed evidence for possible Neolithic farming in the form of possible ard marks and field ditches. There follows a synthesis of physical evidence for Neolithic farming in Scotland, drawing together evidence for ard marks, field boundaries, cultivation ridges, cultivated middens, and soils. Recommendations are made for recognising and interpreting such features on excavations, and the potential benefits of giving a higher profile to the act of farming in our narratives about Neolithic lifeways in Scotland and beyond are briefly explored.

The widely held view that Kellie Lodging (23 High Street, Pittenweem) was built as a townhouse for the Earls of Kellie cannot be correct. The stability of burgage plots in this part of the street shows a reliable match with 16th-century archival data, allowing identification of the occupants of the house at the time it was built (c 1585). Drawings made by Reverend John Sime in 1829 reveal a close historical association between this house and its neighbour at 19–21 High Street, demolished soon after his survey. The occupants of both houses were burgesses, living at a time of acute tension in the town between members of the laird class and the merchants. The siting of the houses at the head of Water Wynd, leading directly to the mid shore, reflects a shift in the town’s focus from the defunct religious area in the Augustinian priory towards a trade-oriented zone around the harbour. Kellie Lodging was the first in the street to have a projecting stair-tower, built not just for display but also for protection in dangerous times. It was quickly followed (1590) by the building of 19–21 with its own stair-tower directly abutting that of Kellie Lodging. Sime’s side-by-side plans of the two houses show the simple L-plan house of Kellie Lodging to be a less ambitious structure than 19–21, which had space to incorporate an inner courtyard to the rear. The street frontage symmetry of the two gables, with an unusual abutment of projecting stair-towers, can be read as a display of solidarity and resolution, as the merchants emerged as the dominant force in the burgh.

This article presents the results of the recent Historic Environment Scotland-funded project Tracing the Lines: Uncovering Grooved Ware Trajectories in Neolithic Scotland addressing the timing and nature of the adoption, development and ultimate demise of Grooved Ware in Scotland beyond Orkney. Following analysis within a Bayesian framework of over a hundred Grooved Ware-associated radiocarbon dates from Scotland beyond Orkney, evidence is presented that Grooved Ware pottery very closely related to Orcadian prototypes began spreading rapidly between key locales across Scotland towards the end of the 4th millennium BC. This was followed by a process of stylistic drift with regional variations. The so-called Durrington Walls sub-style was introduced some 200 years after the earliest Grooved Ware and is an exception to this pattern of gradual change. Our modelling suggests that the latest Scottish Grooved Ware has a currency that overlaps with the earliest Beakers by between 1 and 145 years and probably between 1 and 60 years.

Coins from 235 locations across Scotland are listed and discussed.

Until recently, deer hunting in medieval Scotland has been poorly researched archaeologically. In Hunting and Hunting Reserves in Medieval Scotland Gilbert identified medieval parks at Stirling and Kincardine in Perthshire that William the Lion created, but it is only in recent years that excavations by Hall and Malloy have begun to explore their archaeology. The Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland recorded another type of hunting feature, a deer trap at Hermitage Castle, in 1996 and then re-recorded the earthwork at Dormount Hope in 2000, originally reported as two separate monuments. Although the earthworks of parks and traps display similarities in the construction of their earthwork boundaries, the individual sites have variations in their topography that beg questions about their function. This paper establishes that the earthwork is indeed a single monument which has an open end allowing deer to be driven into the natural canyon of Dormount Hope. It goes on to discuss its dating in both archaeological and documentary terms and then its function as either a park, trap or hay (haga OE). This last possibility is raised by its apparent mention in a Melrose Abbey charter of the neighbouring estate of Raeshaw dating to the last quarter of the 12th century, made by the lords of Hownam, a family of Anglian origin. This Anglian connection leads to its interpretation as a hay – a kind of deer hunting enclosure or trap known in many parts of England prior to the Norman Conquest, for which ‘hay’ place names, such as Hawick, in the Scottish Borders provide support.

Underlying much research on Iron Age Scotland is a pervasive regionalism. This has led to the underplaying of cultural traits that are evident across the country. The examination of south-west Scotland, a region that does not have a distinctive later prehistoric character and which is often viewed as somewhat peripheral to understanding Iron Age Scotland, however, reveals underlying patterns of settlement and culture that are embedded across Scotland but markedly different to Iron Age societies to the south. Moreover, cultural traits apparent across Scotland but absent south of the border continued into the early medieval period, suggesting significant cultural divergences between 400 BC and AD 650.

Medieval Scottish women’s seals remain largely unexplored compared to the scholarship on seals and sealing practice elsewhere in medieval Britain. This article has two chief aims. First, it seeks to demonstrate the insufficiencies of the 19th- and 20th-century Scottish seal catalogues as a mediated record of material evidence and the use of them as comprehensive and go-to reference texts within current research on late medieval Scotland. This includes a discussion of the ways in which medieval seals survive as original impressions, casts and illustrations and how these different types of evidence can be used in the construction and reconstruction of the seal’s and charter’s context. Second, this paper will explore the materiality and interconnectedness of seals and the charters to which they are attached. A reading of these two objects together emphasises the legal function of the seal and shows its distinctive purpose as a representational object. While the seal was used in con-texts beyond the basic writ charter, it remained a legally functional and (auto)biographical object, and, as such, the relationship between seal and charter informs meaning in representational identities expressed in both. The article will apply this approach to several examples of seals belonging to 14th- and 15th-century Scottish countesses. Evidence reviewed this way provides new insight into Scottish women’s sealing practice and female use of heraldic device. The deficiencies of assuming women’s design to be formulaic or that their seals can be usefully interpreted in isolation from the charters to which they were attached will be highlighted. The interconnectedness of word and image conveyed personal links and elite ambitions, and promoted noble lineage within the legal context of charter production.

The hoard of bronze weapons found in 1961 at Peelhill Farm in South Lanarkshire remains one of the most remarkable discoveries of Late Bronze Age metalwork from Scotland, its importance reflected in the detailed account of the find published by John Coles and Jack Scott in 1963. In the present paper, the contents, location and significance of the discovery are reassessed in the light of more recent approaches to research on hoards. In particular, the renewed investigation provided fresh insights into the use and treatment of the artefacts prior to their deposition, while the local topography may have influenced the choice of location to a greater degree than previously assumed. Radiocarbon dates indicate a likely date in the 9th century BC. Taken together, Peelhill Farm and the related find of metalwork from Duddingston Loch, Edinburgh, comprise the northernmost representatives of a group of weapon-dominated hoards mainly recorded in southern Britain. In view of the bias towards martial equipment in their composition, it is argued that the evidence of unrepaired impact marks, and deliberate damage by bending, breaking and burning, all assume greater significance than hitherto recognised. Taken together with what may be assumed to be intentional placement of the artefacts into a boggy setting, the deposition at Peelhill Farm is interpreted as a weapon sacrifice after a warlike event rather than as a ‘scrap hoard’ as once thought.

This research aims to reconstruct the childhood diets (aged 9–10 years) of the individuals buried during the active years of the Pictish monastic community (hereafter referred to as PMC) from early medieval (7th–11th century) Portmahomack in north-east Scotland, using 13C and 15N isotopes. Dietary reconstructions were achieved by isotope analysis of δ13C and δ15N on the tooth root apex from permanent first molars (M1) of 26 adult male individuals. The results indicate that the indi-viduals in PMC predominantly consumed terrestrial C3 resources during childhood, with a rich terrestrial protein diet and some marine resource consumption. Statistically significant differences were observed between childhood and adulthood diets (the latter derived from previous research), suggesting that when these individuals were children, they consumed more marine protein than in later years as adults. This is true for all individuals, whether or not they spent significant time in Portmahomack during their childhoods. This is the most extensive study of the childhood diet of in-dividuals from the PMC and so makes a significant contribution to augmenting information on diet and lifestyles in Pictish Scotland.

This article re-evaluates the two inscriptions and the mirror symbol on the Newton Stone. The ogham is unusual in that it is read from the top rather than the bottom. The alphabetic inscription is intended to be read with, or to supplement, the ogham inscription. Close analysis demonstrates that the alphabetic inscription was painted onto the stone prior to carving. The carver may have followed an exemplum for the alphabetic inscription, possibly written on a wax tablet. Examination of the alphabetic script demonstrates that it is most closely related to informal scripts of the Late Antique period. The inscription is written in the Pictish language, and the stone probably dates to the 6th or early 7th century. The placement of the inscriptions and the mirror symbol may indicate that the two inscriptions were used in place of Pictish symbols.

Cetacean remains have been recovered from archaeological sites all over Europe, but are especially abundant in Scotland. These remains originate from all periods and have often been worked into artefacts or tools, including chopping blocks, plaques, combs, pegs, snecks and perforated vertebral epiphyseal discs. It still remains unclear which species were exploited and to what extent active whaling was undertaken in the region. To address these questions Zooarchaeology by Mass Spectrometry (ZooMS) was undertaken on 35 cetacean specimens from five sites in Scotland (Jarlshof, Brough of Birsay, Quoygrew, Deerness and Freswick Links), dating from the Iron Age to the post-medieval period. Furthermore, morphological analysis was performed on the material in order to optimise the ZooMS identifications. A large variety of species were identified, including high numbers of Balaenidae sp and Globicephalinae sp. Comparison with other ZooMS studies in north-western Europe revealed equally high specimen numbers for these species, but also fin whale (Balaenoptera physalus), sperm whale (Phy-seter macrocephalus) and humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae). Moreover, one grey whale (Eschrichtius robustus) was identified in the Scottish specimens, adding to an increasing number of specimens indicating that the grey whale was once abundant in European waters. Furthermore, only one specimen of the common minke whale (Balaenoptera acutorostrata) was identified, despite modern stranding data which suggests this is the most common large whale species in Scottish waters. The large variety of species identified suggests that opportunistic scavenging was likely the primary method of acquiring cetaceans, though historical and ethnographic sources suggest that two distinct forms of active whaling may have occasionally been undertaken. The high number of Globicephalinae specimens from Jarlshof raise the possibility that drive-hunting might have already been undertaken at the site during the Iron Age.

An investigation of Aros Castle (NM 56287 44989) was undertaken which included low-level survey of the site’s north-west block followed by lab-based analysis of a mixed assemblage of building material samples. The study presents the first independent evidence relating to the chronology of building construction on the site and reveals the wide range of techniques and materials exploited during that process. The results are consistent with surviving documentary, architectural and art-historical evidence, and highlight the importance of the site’s masonry structures for the mediation and display of Clan Donald power during their later medieval floruit as Lords of the Isles and Earls of Ross.