Series: Scottish Archaeological Internet Reports

In 2016, Wardell Armstrong undertook an archaeological excavation at St Mary’s (Leith) RC Primary School, Edinburgh. The archaeological excavation revealed four phases of activity; Phases 1 and 2 comprised coffined and uncoffined human burials. The lack of infectious pathognomic skeletal lesions, the dating of the finds, the dendrochronological analysis of the coffin wood and technological data, along with the known historic land-use of the area, all indicate that the burial ground relates to the 1645 outbreak of plague in Leith. Dendrochronological analysis revealed a terminus post quem felling date of c 1640 for the coffin wood, while analysis of the coffins’ manufacture revealed hasty construction methods. Phase 3 comprised a series of waste disposal pits of 19th-century date. Phase 4 comprised levelling deposits, which were likely associated with the construction of the school and the demolition of the 19th-century smallpox hospital located to the north of the site. A total of 81 individuals were interred at the site. Adults represent 68.3% while non‐adults represent 31.7%. All age groups were present except neonates. Artefacts including keys, coins, sewing kits and combs were recovered. That the bodies were interred seemingly fully clothed and the corpses not rifled prior to burial strongly indicates a fear of the diseased corpse. The presence of everyday items on the bodies may also indicate a more sudden death outside the sick bed, possibly indicating the occurrence of septicaemic plague. Frequent occupation and attrition-related skeletal and dental pathologies indicate lives characterised by poverty and toil. Strontium analysis revealed that almost all individuals were local to Leith; several individual had rosary or paternoster beads, indicating a likely Catholic affiliation, which would have been risky given that the pro-Presbyterian Covenant was signed in Leith in 1638. In contrast to older children, the younger children were interred in coffins, indicating differing views on the treatment of the body.

Two rescue excavations at the northern edge of a rather sparsely occupied part of the interior of Caithness are reported here, lying near to one of the largest clusters of archaeological sites in the modern county. In the event, the monuments were not threatened, and survive.<br /><br />Because of the limited nature of the excavation at Loch Shurrery (NGR ND 043568),the main value of the evidence about the hut circle relates to its structure and dating. The excavated remains represented a medium-sized oval house with a west-facing entrance. It had an off-centre hearth of rectangular construction. It was rather different in structure to the majority of the small group of such sites which have been excavated in the northern part of the Scottish mainland, as it did not appear to have an internal ring of post holes. In addition, its western entrance is not matched at the other sites, where entrance orientations are to the south, east or south-east. The wall of the Loch Shurrery house was fairly thick and the excavation suggested that it was complex, while the entrance passageway was quite long. The existence of door checks is also an unusual feature and may relate to the entrance structures of brochs and other substantial roundhouses. Two samples of charcoal from the hearth inside the hut circle were submitted for radiocarbon dating: the determinations produce calibrated ranges (at 2-sigma) of 346-4 cal BC and 341 cal BC-1 cal AD. It is likely that most of the excavated, undecorated pottery is also Iron Age, part of a broad tradition of very coarsely tempered pottery. Not-withstanding evidence of extended occupation, the whole period of construction and occupation may have occurred within the Iron Age.<br /><br />The mound of Lambsdale Leans (NGR ND 051548)lies in Reay parish, situated on low-lying ground at the head of Loch Shurrery and close to where its main tributary (the Torran Water) enters the loch from the south. The main characteristics of the this partially-excavated site are the presence of what appeared to be two extended inhumations and the remnants of possible structures associated with several layers of burnt material. Lambsdale Leans itself was a natural mound, of elongated shape and composed largely of sand, into which were set the burials and structural remains. The burials (one certainly female, the other probably so) were not in cists. The structural remains, while not fully excavated, accord well with the general tenor of the available evidence of later first millennium AD buildings in the north of Scotland. Both structures at Lambsdale Leans had floors comprising roughly laid paving, edged with upright slabs, and with an outer kerb of stones. The earliest-dated pottery sherds, unstratified, are from a single grass- tempered handmade vessel whose form cannot be determined. Overall,on one interpretation the Lambsdale Leans evidence favours a context within the Early Medieval period in Caithness. The pottery however, being mostly C12-C13 oxidised wheel-thrown vessels, can be seen to support the suggestion that occupation on the site may have begun in the Medieval period.

Archaeological evaluation of the Southern Courtyard of the Parliament House complex, to the south of St Giles’ Cathedral in Edinburgh’s Old Town, has provided a valuable insight into the lives, health and mortality of the inhabitants of the late medieval city. The evaluation revealed a backland area in the centre of medieval Edinburgh, with deposits rich in artefactual and ecofactual material derived from the everyday lives of the populace, underlying early burghal surfaces. The presence of artefacts including a small leather assemblage and a seal matrix may indicate production and trading activities between the High Street and the Cowgate in the late medieval period. Above these surfaces, and underlying fragmentary evidence of the post-medieval Meal Market, numerous late medieval inhumations were recorded; these belonged to the southward expansion of St Giles’ graveyard. This report details the analysis of the skeletal remains, illuminating the health and demography of the population of the city from around the mid-15th to the early-to-mid-16th century.

Excavations in advance of a phased commercial development have revealed a palimpsest of activity spanning the Middle Bronze Age to the medieval period. There was a scatter of domestic settlement in the Middle Bronze Age and pre-Roman Iron Age, together with small ring-groove features which may be the remnants of a barrow cemetery forming part of a later prehistoric ritual landscape centred on Huly Hill. Perhaps the most significant discovery of these excavations is the identification of a section of Roman road which probably represents the westward extension of Dere Street linking Inveresk and Carriden. Its discovery provides solid evidence for the routeway that the milestone at Ingliston and the temporary camps at Gogar have always intimated. Finally, the area was farmed in the medieval period, the associated settlement probably lying to the north of the excavated area. The dating evidence suggests two distinct phases of activity, in the 11th to 12th centuries and in the 13th to 14th centuries, a pattern reflected in other medieval settlement in the Lothians.

The remains of two 19th-century row cottages and associated structures and deposits were discovered at Jack's Houses, near Kirkliston. Nearby agricultural remains included a field system with boundary walls, drains and a draw well. A large rubbish dump containing pottery and ceramics has been interpreted as urban waste imported to the site to be added to the land in order to break up the clay soil for cultivation. A historical study undertaken in combination with the archaeological work afforded a view into the lives of the transient agricultural labourers and their families who occupied the houses over a century. The combined disciplines have provided us with a rare insight into a part of rural social history from the early-mid 19th to the early 20th centuries.

Excavations were undertaken at Achanduin Castle, Lismore, Argyll (NGR: NM 8043 3927), over six seasons from 1970 to 1975 under the direction of the late Dennis John Turner (1932–2013), henceforward referred to as DJT. Partly funded by the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland and with tools and equipment loaned by RCAHMS (now Historic Environment Scotland), the work was carried out in support of the RCAHMS’s programme of survey in the Lorn district of Argyll. Its purpose was to examine an apparently little-altered but much-ruined example of a castle of enclosure ascribable to a small but identifiably distinct group of rectangular, or near rectangular, courtyard castles. DJT concluded that it was built c 1295–1310 by the MacDougalls, and only later passed to the bishops of Argyll. The authors add their own observations on the excavations in a separate section. They note tenuous evidence for a pre-castle phase. The bulk of the report focuses on the erection and occupation of the castle, followed by abandonment, post-medieval occupation, collapse/demolition and recent times.

The An Corran rockshelter, on the north-east coast of the Trotternish peninsula, Skye, contained a series of shell midden and other deposits with evidence for human occupation from Mesolithic and later periods. A rescue investigation of the site in the winter of 1993-94, immediately prior to anticipated total destruction by rock-blasting for roadworks, included the excavation of a trench dug down to bedrock. A total of 41 separate contexts were identi-fied. Of these, 31 were recent or later prehistoric, the upper levels containing a series of hearths of recent date and an Iron Age copper-alloy pin. The lowest 10 layers were identified initially as Mesolithic on the basis of bone tool and lithic typology, but a series of 18 radiocarbon dates indicates they contain the residues of subsequent prehistoric activity as well. These layers consisted of several distinct areas of midden, below which there were two, possibly three, horizons which probably, based on the presence of broad blade microliths, represent Early Mesolithic activity. The midden layers also contained some human bones radiocarbon-dated to the Neolithic period. The rockshelter was located below an outcrop of baked mudstone and near a source of chalcedonic silica. Both these lithic raw materials were widely used during the Mesolithic as far away as the island of Rum.

This report presents the results of an excavation and historical study of an early 19th-century settlement at Brunary Burn near Arisaig, Highlands (NGR: NM 6770 8578). CFA Archaeology Ltd carried out the excavation during October 2005 in advance of the realignment and upgrading works of the A830 between Fort William and Arisaig. Two rectangular drystone buildings were excavated, along with a yard area between them. Artefacts recovered included pottery, iron tools, cauldron fragments, slate roofing and clay pipe fragments. The project provided an opportunity to bring together social historical research with archaeological evidence for a somewhat archaeologically under-studied period, and also identified the former inhabitants of the settlement as Angus McEachen and his extended family. The buildings appear to have been occupied for perhaps a single generation before the family was evicted and moved to new accommodation within the area.

Archaeological monitoring of water mains renewal in Musselburgh has provided new information on the medieval and post-medieval development of the burgh, as well as adding to known information on the vicus of the Roman fort, the Newbigging pottery and the town mill lade. Activity associated with the Newbigging pottery seems to have extended further to the west than the boundaries of the pottery indicated on 19th-century maps of the town, while Roman remains associated with the vicus survive in places beneath the road surface of Inveresk Brae. However, while archaeological deposits related to the medieval burgh were located broadly where expected, they were fragmentary in comparison with similar deposits from pipeline monitoring schemes in Perth, North Berwick and Crail. The data from Musselburgh are in part less coherent due to the kinds of work monitored within the burgh core, but it is probable that they also reflect a lesser degree of preservation of archaeological deposits beneath the road surface. This is partly due to modern development, and partly due to the geographic situation of the burgh, which does not appear to have encouraged the formation of stratified deposits sealed by wind-blown sand, as in North Berwick, or the anaerobic preservation conditions prevalent within Perth.

A summary of these specialist reports (Parts 1 and 2) was published in 2008 in the monograph on the Holyrood Parliament Site Project: Scotland's Parliament Site and the Canongate: Archaeology and History by the Holyrood Archaeology Project Team, Chapter 3.9 &amp; 3.10 (HAPT 2008). Except for sections 3.9 and 3.10, Chapter 3 in that monograph has been repeated here as Part 3, in order to provide the archaeological context for the artefactual and environmental evidence alongside the specialist reports.