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This paper seeks to explore life during the post-medieval period in a small part of the Ochil Hills in Perthshire, Scotland, and in doing so, demonstrates how landscape archaeology can uncover stories which reflect the complexity and nuance of life in the past. Drawing on a range of approaches, this paper explores the stories uncovered through a programme of landscape archaeology. This includes considering the dramatic changes and reformations that have shaped the landscape over recent centuries, histories of specific people and places - and the relationship between the two. It asks questions of the role of archaeology in telling these stories and considers how a variety of approaches can reveal a multitude of voices and narratives from the past. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses interdisciplinary methods to investigate responses to the Little Ice Age in regions where livestock farming was dominant, a neglected subject due to the scarcity of detailed written records regarding pastoral land use. It argues that landscape-level histories which include pollen evidence and archaeology can address this challenge and reveal local processes of climate adaptation. Here we focus on Ireland and Scotland and a fascinating rise in small-scale cereal cultivation on upland pastures during the Little Ice Age. Bayesian modeling is used to test the chronological resolution of field evidence and compare it with climate reconstructions. We can see that the cultivation emerged in late medieval times, when cattle were facing climate-related stresses, and increased in early modern times during the Little Ice Age's main phase. We suggest that it started in an indirect adaptation to climate change, supplementing supplies of food and fodder for pastoralists, but increased as rural populations and external market demands grew. There is a need for finer temporal resolution in pollen records and archaeology, as well as greater integration with socio-economic history, if we are to be more certain about changes in the relative significance of climate in pastoral land use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper conceptualises practice in the space between and beyond Art & Archaeology as a zone where disciplinary certainties and known practices are unsettled, expanded and re‐cast. We will outline our current thinking about heritage landscapes as places and temporalities for engagement in the practice of what Henk Slager calls the para‐archive. For us, landscape functions as a kind of living archive, however, following Jacques Derrida, we are sceptical of the privileged relation between archive, law and authority. Therefore, in this paper we will think through our interdisciplinary research in the context of the development of creative para‐archives, which facilitate new, affective ways of thinking and making by bringing together the previously unimagined. Responding to the challenge of the SARS‐CoV‐2 discomfort zone, we seek to surface creative practices, activate archival disruptions and expand pedagogical approaches to the articulation of uncomfortable archival landscapes. The pandemic has brought into sharp focus the need to re‐conceptualise visions of space, experiences of place and archival practices. During a virtual fieldtrip students accessed a range of materials from Scotland's National Record of the Historic Environment. We aimed to enable the co‐design and co‐production of a virtual fieldtrip, followed by discussions about our collective conceptualisations of landscapes of discomfort. The archaeological fieldwork in the virtual realm provides a context for students to engage in desirology as a catalyst for deranging, re‐associating and re‐imagining the archive in creative ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The notion of counter-archaeology is echoed by the opposing faces of the volcanic plug of Dumbarton Rock, Scotland. On the one side is the ‘official’ heritage of Dumbarton Castle, with its upstanding seventeenth-century military remains and underlying occupation evidence dating back to at least the eighth centuryad. On the other side lies a landscape of climbing, bouldering and post-industrial abandonment. This paper develops counter-archaeology through the climbing traditions and boulder problems at Dumbarton Rock and brings to the surface marginalized forms of heritage. Climbers and archaeologists have co-authored the paper as part of a collaborative project, which challenges the binary trope of researcher and researched and provides a model for a collaborative, co-designed and co-produced counter-archaeology. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Using the archaeological displays at the Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh, this paper examines the exhibition as a site of identity creation through the negotiations between categories of same and Other. Through an analysis of the poetics of display, the paper argues that the exhibition constructs a particular relationship between the Celtic Fringe and Scottish National identity that draws upon the historical discourses of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland as a place and a time 'apart'. This will be shown to have implications for the display of archaeological material in museums but also for contemporary understandings of Scottish National identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"The Viking Age in Scotland: Studies in Scottish Scandinavian Archaeology" is a book that emerged from a conference held at the University of Glasgow in 2018. The book contains 26 thematic papers written by scholars from the UK and abroad, providing an accessible introduction to key archaeological material, sites, and concepts related to the Viking Age in Scotland. The papers cover various topics, including the arrival of the Vikings, Native-Norse interactions, burial practices, settlement patterns, economics and exchange, environmental data, and political power in the landscape. The book offers a balanced view of the relationships between the native population and the Vikings, challenging previous assumptions. It also showcases new fields of study and theoretical approaches, making it a valuable resource for students and researchers interested in Viking-Age Scotland. [Extracted from the article]

The Kilmartin Valley (also known as Kilmartin Glen) is located within the county of Argyll in western Scotland and covers an area of approximately 50 km2 (11 [north-south] x 5 [eastwest] km). It has within its curtilage one of the largest and most complex later prehistoric landscapes in northern Britain. Monuments include Neolithic and Early Bronze Age (EBA) stone chambered burial ritual monuments (including long cairns, round cairns, barrows and cists), a henge, standing stones and engraved open-air rock art. The Royal Commission for Ancient and Historic Monuments for Scotland (RCAHMS) list over 150 later prehistoric sites within a nine kilometre radius. Engraved rock art is found on or close to burial monuments and as open-air sites on exposed rock outcropping. In 2013, a team of archaeologists from the Welsh Rock Art Organisation (WRAO) began a study on the Later Prehistoric sites that contained rock art in western and northern Britain. This study followed an earlier research project which concentrated on a corpus of open-air sites. One of the areas included within this study was Kilmartin Valley. This paper assesses and discusses some of the findings of this project, suggesting that rock art provided a ritual link between monument and landscape. The focus of this paper will be the small but significant assemblage of the Neolithic stone chambered monuments, cists and standings stones that occupy the lower, central and upper sections of the valley, extending from the village of Kilmartin and the rugged foothills in the north to the marsh grassland of Mòine Mhòr in the south. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper assesses the provision of cultural heritage information relating to offshore submerged archaeology for Environmental Impact Assessments as part of the management of the seabed around Scotland. Over the past millennia areas of the seabed around Scotland have at times been dry land. This means that they were available for human settlement and are likely to preserve the remains of ancient habitation and other activity. Elsewhere in the UK and in Europe work on submerged archaeology has confirmed the existence of an extensive and often well-preserved resource stretching back to the last Ice Age and beyond. This paper is concerned solely with sites that once comprised terrestrial archaeological sites; it does not cover wreck archaeology. The submerged terrestrial archaeological resource is fragile, and little understood. In Scotland it has been ignored until the inception of a research project in 2006, The Rising Tide, which is investigating past sea-level change and submerged archaeology around Orkney. Up to now, general management has been carried out through a system of benign neglect despite increasing threat to the resource from the development of the seabed. The Marine (Scotland) Act enshrines the need to protect and manage submerged sites and landscapes, through the implementation of marine planning, licensing, and Marine Protected Areas. One of the principal relevant measures for environmental protection through which this is carried out is the inclusion of archaeological information as a critical resource for Environmental Impact Assessments on the seabed. This is enshrined in EC Directives (and applies equally to sites on land). However, good management is hampered by a lack of baseline data on the resource and by a lack of awareness among those responsible. Responses to a questionnaire on the awareness of submerged archaeology and the need to consider it as part of the seabed planning process highlighted a number of serious weaknesses in the current system, not least a lack of awareness, of Scottish-based guidelines, and relevant skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change is threatening an uncalculated number of archaeological sites globally, totaling perhaps hundreds of thousands of culturally and paleoenvironmentally significant resources. As with all archaeological sites, they provide evidence of humanity's past and help us understand our place in the present world. Coastal sites, clustered at the water's edge, are already experiencing some of the most dramatic damage due to anthropogenic climate change, and the situation is predicted to worsen in the future. In the face of catastrophic loss, organizations around the world are developing new ways of working with this threatened coastal resource. This paper uses three examples from Scotland, Florida, and Maine to highlight how new partnerships and citizen science approaches are building communities of practice to better manage threatened coastal heritage. It compares methods on either side of the Atlantic and highlights challenges and solutions. The approaches are applicable to the increasing number of heritage sites everywhere at risk from climate change; the study of coastal sites thus helps society prepare for climate change impacts to heritage worldwide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How we construct our relationships to the past and the impact of this for the future of cultural identity is explored with reference to the cultural context, environment and intangible heritage of the Western Isles. This paper starts from the premise that an interest in heritage and the roots of cultural traditions is not the exclusive concern of archaeologists, historians or folklorists. Cultural traditions, cultural identity and cultural aspirations influence how we create and give meaning to our environment. Local populations may assign importance and value to places and landscapes according to their own cultural criteria which may differ from that of professional groups. In the Western Isles, institutions such as local museums and Comann Eachdraidh (historical societies) are instrumental in the preservation and transmission of local memories, traditions, and local history. However, the forging of these memories through stories, monuments and cultural artefacts fall outside current professional frameworks. While moves in academic discourse to re-inscribe the concept of collective memory into the field of local history recognise that social memories are intended to create and consolidate identities, to enable such knowledge of local heritage to be recognised and protected, this cultural criteria needs to come into the mainstream of heritage assessment and discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wind power is seen by many as a key industry for the future: an environmentally benign renewable energy to replace fossil fuels. The Northern and Western Isles, with their high average wind speeds, would seem to be well placed to exploit this rapidly emerging demand. As well as meeting a global need, to reduce output of greenhouse gases and a national need for security of supply into the twenty-first century, wind power promises an economic future for rural regions whose prospects are otherwise uncertain. However, this benign scenario is marred by potentially serious negative consequences for local environmental systems, landscape aesthetics and archaeology, which are themselves often of national and international importance. With particular reference to proposed projects in Lewis and Shetland, this paper will consider the competing demands from national and local policy on the location of wind farms, and weaknesses in the current planning process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increasing use of digital technologies can provide significant benefits to the excavation and interpretative process in archaeology. Yet, despite major developments in the last two decades, digital recording can still be seen as part of the realm of tech savvy archaeologists, well-funded projects, or larger commercial units who can develop their own recording systems or deploy a pre-existing application. The latter are often expensive and can be technologically challenging to implement, and few of these focus on both context recording and feature drawing. In response, this paper presents an accessible and flexible low-cost DIY digital workflow developed by the Comparative Kingship Project, Scotland, allowing field practitioners to benefit from some of the key advantages of "going digital" without the associated costs or complexities of some of the other systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The first millennium AD was a transformative period when many of the medieval kingdoms of Europe began to take shape, but despite recent advances in palaeoecological and archaeological research there remains a shortage of interdisciplinary collaborative research targeting this period. For some regions we know relatively little about the societies who lived during this formative period. This current investigation focusses on an early medieval elite centre near to Rhynie in NE Scotland; an important power-centre during the fourth–seventh centuries AD as evidenced by a remarkable series of Class I Pictish symbol stones, fortified enclosures at Cairn more, Tap o' Noth and the Craw-Stane, as well as high status metal-working and a range of continental imports from the Craw-Stane enclosure. However, by the end of the seventh century AD, elite focus appears to have shifted elsewhere with the Craw-Stane and Cairn More enclosures all being abandoned. By combining paleoenvironmental analysis with available historical and archaeological archives this paper provides new insights into societal change during the first Millennium AD, with focus on the economic, social and environmental impacts caused by the rise and subsequent abandonment of elite nodes of power. A calibrated age of AD 260–415, near the base of the core, coincides with the earliest dates for the Craw-Stane complex and pre-dates the construction of the nearby Cairn More enclosure. The results provide a rare snapshot of the Late Roman Iron Age to Medieval environment of Northeast Scotland. This centre appears to have been supported by a rich agricultural landscape, with evidence of pastoral and arable farming, and potential metal working. One of the most significant findings of this study has revealed that despite abandonment of these elite enclosed sites by the seventh century AD, people continued to utilise the surrounding landscape and available resources right through until modern times. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on the automation of data related to the collections of the National Museums of Scotland. It states the that planning of this automation lies in the relationship between the existing paper records and the database that will be created from them. The author notes on the constraints on automation which includes the history of the institution and the representation of that history by its surviving archives. He adds that the archeology collections of the National Museum of Scotland date back from 1780 and they have used various methods for record-keeping which resulted in some overlaps in the sets of paper records.

Applications of remote sensing data for archaeology rely heavily on repurposed data, which carry inherent limitations in their suitability to help address archaeological questions. Through a case study framed around archaeological imperatives in a Scottish context, this work investigates the potential for existing satellite systems to provide remote sensing data that meet defined specifications for archaeological prospection, considering both spatial and temporal resolution, concluding that the availability of commercial data is currently insufficient. Tasking a commercial constellation of 12 spacecraft to collect images of a 150 km2 region in Scotland through the month of July 2020 provided 26 images with less than 50% cloud cover. Following an analysis of existing systems, this paper presents a high-level mission architecture for a bespoke satellite system designed from an archaeological specification. This study focuses on orbit design and the number of spacecraft needed to meet the spatial and temporal resolution requirements for archaeological site detection and monitoring in a case study of Scotland, using existing imaging technology. By exploring what an ideal scenario might look like from a satellite mission planning perspective, this paper presents a simulation analysis that foregrounds archaeological imperatives and specifies a satellite constellation design on that basis. High-level design suggests that a system of eight 100 kg spacecraft in a 581 km altitude orbit could provide coverage at a desired temporal and spatial resolution of two-weekly revisit and <1 m ground sampling distance, respectively. The potential for such a system to be more widely applied in regions of similar latitude and climate is discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In August 2018, a group of experts working with terrestrial/marine geophysics and remote sensing methods to explore archaeological sites in Denmark, Finland, Norway, Scotland and Sweden gathered together for the first time at the Workshop 'Sensing Archaeology in The North'. The goal was to exchange experiences, discuss challenges, and consider future directions for further developing these methods and strategies for their use in archaeology. After the event, this special journal issue was arranged to publish papers that are based on the workshop presentations, but also to incorporate work that is produced by other researchers in the field. This paper closes the special issue and further aims to provide current state-of-the-art for the methods represented by the workshop. Here, we introduce the aspects that inspired the organisation of the meeting, a summary of the 12 presentations and eight paper contributions, as well as a discussion about the main outcomes of the workshop roundtables, including the production of two searchable databases (online resources and equipment). We conclude with the position that the 'North', together with its unique cultural heritage and thriving research community, is at the forefront of good practice in the application and development of sensing methods in archaeological research and management. However, further method development is required, so we claim the support of funding bodies to back research efforts based on testing/experimental studies to: explore unknown survey environments and identify optimal survey conditions, as well as to monitor the preservation of archaeological remains, especially those that are at risk. It is demonstrated that remote sensing and geophysics not only have an important role in the safeguarding of archaeological sites from development and within prehistorical-historical research, but the methods can be especially useful in recording and monitoring the increased impact of climate change on sites in the North. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the results of archaeological investigations of the remains of an 18th-century glassworks at Prestongrange Museum, near Prestonpans, East Lothian. The site is part of an industrial complex previously known as Morison's Haven, named after its associated tidal harbour. It has a long history of coal extraction that was established as early as the 13th century, and includes industries such as glassmaking, salt, pottery and brick and tile manufacture, and a colliery. The archaeological remains of the glassworks came to light during investigative works designed to locate Gordon's Pottery, which was known to have manufactured fine tablewares in the 18th century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This is the first of four papers that present the results of survey and excavations undertaken in the late 1990s as part of the Uig Landscape Project on Lewis in the Western Isles (Na h-Eileanan Siar). This paper introduces the project and presents' the results' of the survey and excavations on the promontory enclosure of Gob Eirer, one of the earliest of the Uig sites excavated. Gob Eirer is located on a stack just off the Uig shoreline in the Camas Uig, connected to the mainland by a pebble beach. The results of the excavations are discussed in terms of the structural form, stratigraphy, material culture and environmental evidence from the site. Gob Eirer is then considered within the wider context of the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age archaeology of Atlantic Scotland and broader research themes surrounding promontory enclosures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper presents new chronological data applied to the problem of providing a date for the construction of a prehistoric building, with a case study from the Old Scatness Broch, Shetland. The innovative methodology employed utilises the combination of radiocarbon and optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dates with the archaeological information, which includes the stratigraphic relationships of sampled deposits, context information, and evidence relating to the formation of the deposit. This paper discusses the scientific validity of the dates produced, and the advantages that the methodology employed at this site offers for archaeological interpretation. The combined dating evidence suggests that the broch at Old Scatness is earlier than the conventionally accepted dates for broch construction. More broadly it shows the value of integration of the specialists at the planning stages of the excavation. The application of a Bayesian statistical model to the sequences of dates allowed investigation of the robustness of the dates within the stratigraphic sequences, as well as increasing the resolution of the resulting chronology. In addition, the value of utilising multiple dating techniques on the same deposit was demonstrated, as this allowed different dated events to be directly compared as well as issues relating to the formation of the sampled deposit. This in turn impacted on the chronological significance of the resulting dating evidence, and therefore the confidence that could be placed in the results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Abstract: The documentation of cultural heritage assets requires precise and consistent approaches to preserve, analyse and monitor their integrity to future generations. The present paper deals with the 3D documentation of a unique early Christian carved stone discovered from Scotland that had been restored in the early 20th BC after accidental fragmentation. Different recording approaches are investigated; one range-based, acquired with a triangulation laser scanner and two image-based 3D reconstruction approaches, following computer vision and photogrammetric workflow with differing numbers of images. An off-the-shelf zoom digital camera was used to acquire the data, followed by ‘structure from motion’ and dense multi-view image matching to create dense 3D point clouds. The differences in the derived 3D models are presented and meaningful recommendations can be extrapolated for likewise surveys. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Recognition of the richness and diversity of Scottish coastal archaeology has been one of the most important developments in the study of the archaeology of Scotland during recent times. The Isle of Harris, however, has been left behind. Perhaps due to its lack of upstanding archaeological monuments, or because of its harsh terrain - steep mountains, secluded valleys and deep machair (blown sand) dunes - little research has been undertaken to characterise the archaeological resource of the island and how this might be integrated into the wider trends of past human activity in the Western Isles. This paper introduces some of the preliminary results from a long-standing archaeological research project on Harris and offers a new insight into the archaeological and cultural resource of this island. The unique geological, topographical and geomorphological characteristics will be outlined and explored, with particular reference to how these factors have impacted upon the recognition of buried archaeological remains. The results from key sites will be summarised and the importance of this new dataset within local and regional studies of the development and history of the Western Isles archipelago outlined. Key themes within the discipline of island archaeology will be discussed, focusing upon the reaffirmation of the need to understand fully the cultural and archaeological development of each individual island before expanding into inter-island studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Iron Age archaeology of south-west Scotland has always been anonymous in national syntheses of the period in comparison to better studied areas. This lack of attention does not reflect the quality of the archaeological record however, which testifies to a rich and diverse later prehistoric society. This paper is a discussion of the range and nature of the evidence for Iron Age society in Dumfries and Galloway west of the Nith, considering affinities with other areas, particularly the Atlantic regions to the north, and exploring the reasons for the form and distribution of lron Age monuments in the area. It is argued that a reanalysis of our definition and interpretation of fundamental characteristics of later prehistoric society, such as domestic monumentality, may be rewarding in heterogeneous and unsorted areas such as Galloway. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper challenges the view, widespread amongst historians and archaeologists, that prior to the Improvement period the carselands west of Stirling were devoid of settlement due to near-continuous peat mosses. The argument is supported by cartographic evidence of pre-Improvement settlement and by documentary evidence of farming and settlement from the 15th century onward. Settlement was concentrated along the river margins and most of the modern carseland settlements are recorded by the 17th century. Eighteenth-century writers thought that the mosses had always been discontinuous and identified the important relationship between settlement and soil-types across the carse. Fortunately, the scientifically and archaeologically important surviving peat mosses have made the area a focus of palaeo-ecological and geomorphological research in recent decades. The scientific evidence supports the historical conclusion that the mosses were likely to be discontinuous in the pre-Improvement period, providing attractive sites for early settlement along their margins and confirms the correlation between documented early modern settlement and soil types, themselves a reflection of the evolution of the carse in the post-glacial period. The modern landscape is not, in this view, simply a product of moss clearance but also includes land never covered by moss and land only partially reclaimed. The reasons why recorded archaeological evidence for settlement is confined to the margins of the carse are briefly considered, as are some of the wider historical implications (such as movement between the north and south of Scotland). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Iron Age studies in northern Britain have been dominated by one monument form, the broch. This focus on these monumental towers of the Atlantic Scotland, perhaps at the expense of other archaeological evidence, has brought about a strong division in the archaeological community. MacKie and Armit have both recently summarized the development of broch studies detailing the opposing arguments for the date of construction. In recent years archaeological evidence for these monuments has indicated an indigenous development rather than being associated with the movement of Iron Age peoples. This paper presents new chronological data for the construction of a Shetland broch and examines the archaeological repercussions for the 'early' chronology provided by these dates. Excavations at Old Scatness in the South Mainland of Shetland have revealed new evidence for a broch and defended Iron Age Village. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we develop an original statistical method to infer palaeoenvironmental conditions from fossil taxonomical assemblages based on the present-day observed environmental characteristics of these taxa. We illustrate this method by analysing present-day and Holocene African bovid (Artiodactyla, Mammalia) species assemblages. Firstly, the modern bovid species occurrences in African environments ranging from tropical rainforest to desert are compiled in order to define the environmental characteristics of each species analysed. Secondly, these modern characteristics are considered in order to construct a statistical model of prediction of actual environmental conditions from the sets of most likely environments associated with each present-day location (station). The model then allows us to infer palaeoenvironmental conditions associated with archaeozoological evidence of 53 Holocene localities from Western Africa. Our results show that a tree cover was well established near rivers and uplands, and constituted refuge areas for human occupation during times of climatic desiccation. This conclusion is discussed in the climatic, environmental and archaeological contexts of the Holocene evolution and prehistory of Western Africa. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper examines the spatial distribution of the human bone sample excavated from the Mesolithic shell midden site of Cnoc Coig on Oronsay in the Inner Hebrides, Scotland. Although no burials were recovered the information from the apparently isolated bone finds has been significant. Two types of bone group are distinguished, one that resembles the widely reported ‘loose bone’ phenomenon that is widely recognised from European Mesolithic sites. The other, represented by two bone groups at Cnoc Coig, is, at this time, restricted to western Scotland. It is dominated by hand and foot bones and appears to represent purposive behaviour. We concentrate our discussion on the latter phenomenon and place it within discussion of the nature of the later Mesolithic in western Scotland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Excavations in the 1920s at the Creag nan Uamh bone caves, near Inchnadamph, aroused considerable interest in the possibility of evidence for a Palaeolithic presence in north-west Scotland. Four objects found during those excavations, including the one on which the principal claim for a Palaeolithic date was based, are published here for the first time. Two are probable Viking Age/early medieval artefacts of unusual type, one is undated but is possibly also of the same period, and the fourth, while almost certainly of Pleistocene age, is regarded as an unmodified natural object, Collectively these items serve to discount previous claims for Palaeolithic human presence. Radiocarbon dating of the human skeletal remains found, however, suggests the caves were a burial place in the Neolithic period. This paper makes extensive use of archive documentation to put the 1920s discoveries at Creag nan Uamh and their aftermath into historical context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The excavation and publication of the Bronze Age banks discovered at the Black Crofts, North Connel. in the years around 1970 remains an important landmark in prehistoric archaeology in Scotland and, in particular, the study of archaeology under blanket peat. Investigations at the site continued up to 1978 bat the results of this later work were never fully published. Recent archaeological investigations, triggered by housing developments in the Black Crofts, have led to renewed interest in the site and the earlier archaeological studies. This paper provides, for the first time, a summary of all of the work undertaken at this key site and undertakes a re-assessment of the published interpretations of the bank system in the light of more recent research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At the WARP (Wetland Archaeology Research Project) conference in Dublin in 1998, John Coles took the Scottish delegates to task for the absence of any strategic programme of wetland archaeology in Scotland. Spurred into action, the delegates established the Scottish Wetland Archaeology Programme (SWAP), an informal group of interested people whose overall aim was to initiate such a programme. Seven years on, SWAP was able to present what has been achieved in Scotland since then at the 11th WARP conference held in Edinburgh. This paper briefly summarizes progress in Scotland to date and outlines the SWAP proposal for a strategic programme of works which we hope would see the potential of the archaeological resource of the Scottish wetlands more fully addressed. We should establish at the outset that SWAP is focusing primarily on freshwater wetlands, because a Scottish forum to develop and promote initiatives in coastal archaeology already exists (Dawson 2005). However, it is recognized that there will be a great deal of overlap between respective interest areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews recent trends and developments in the study of the Mesolithic period in Scotland and places them in their historical context. The last decade has witnessed a flourishing of research activity, not just in terms of discovery and excavation, but also artefact studies, dating programmes, and other types of research. The contribution of development-led projects is challenging traditional interpretations that have relied heavily on the evidence from the maritime west. These and other major issues such as chronology, subsistence strategies and archaeological signatures are reviewed and some future research priorities are suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As part of a programme of consolidation and presentation by Historic Scotland, Headland Archaeology Ltd undertook a series of archaeological investigations at the site of the Hackness Gun Battery, South Walls, Orkney Islands between 1997 and 2001. The investigations revealed the remains of both the 1815 battery and the 1866 refurbishment and upgrading. The battery, which was supported by two Martello towers, is unique in Scotland and a very striking reminder of a turbulent and unsettled political climate throughout the 19th century. This paper is intended to detail the physical nature of the installation and the political climate that caused it to be constructed in 1815 and strengthened in 1866. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We report a survey of the state of local authority archaeological services in Scotland following local government reorganization. Several service provision models are in place, including a new model of joint provision by councils of the former Strathclyde Region. Several councils which lacked a service before reorganization now buy it in from neighbouring councils. Some gaps in cover however persist. There are good reasons for the variety of models, and it would not be appropriate to seek to impose a single model. Planning guidance issued in 1994 has shifted the balance of service provision towards development control and away from other functions, as resources are squeezed. The implications of the Scottish Parliament are considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The results of sediment-stratigraphic, diatom and pollen analyses, and AMS 14C dating of salt marsh sediments at Higgin's Neuk, Airth in the inner Forth estuary in central Scotland are reported. Engineering borehole records of abundant peat within mudflat sediments encouraged work to establish rates of mudflat accretion over the last several centuries. However, six 14C assays on peat closely associated with buried archaeological structures of likely eighteenth century age record later prehistoric and early historic age-estimates. The assays are thought to be correct. The peat is not in situ. It probably originated from the well-documented, extensive late eighteenth and early nineteenth century clearance of raised mosses in the River Forth for agriculture. The sediment-stratigraphic evidence is important because it confirms the scale of the impacts of peat clearance on the inner estuary derived from contemporary documents. The peat may act as a marker horizon in mudflat and salt marsh sediments from which rates of post-eighteenth century mudflat accretion can be derived. At Higgin's Neuk these were probably very high, given uncertainties in dating controls, around 0.8 cm/yr (1.2 yrs/cm) for the last ca. 150 years, a finding which accords with other studies around the North Sea. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bere is a landrace of barley, adapted to the marginal conditions of northern Scotland, especially those of the Northern and Western Isles. The history of bere on these islands is long and, in an era of diminishing landrace cultivation, bere now represents one of the oldest cereal landraces in Europe still grown commercially. The longevity of bere raises the possibility of using grain characteristics of present-day specimens to identify bere in the archaeological record. Geometric modern morphometric (GMM) analysis of grains from bere and other barley landraces is conducted to determine whether landraces can be differentiated on grain morphology. Results indicate that there are morphological differences between bere and other British and Scandinavian landraces, and between bere from Orkney and the Western Isles, both of which are apparent in genetic analysis. This finding paves the way for the identification of bere archaeologically, helping to establish its status as living heritage and securing its commercial future. More broadly, this work indicates the potential of grain GMM for the recognition of cereal landraces, permitting the ancestry and exchange of landraces to be traced in the archaeological record. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT Bird bone assemblages from coastal sites in the north and west of Scotland are very diverse. Here, bird bones from 25 assemblages from 15 sites are compared. Many birds were caught for food, but there are also up to 50 incidental species, some of which are represented by one or two bones only. While the principal origin of the birds is seabird fowling, some were also obtained as a bycatch of fishing and others were collected casually. Some may have been collected accidentally with seaweed. Many are non-anthropogenic, from raptor discards and bird pellets, but possibly also from other predators. These diverse origins of the bird bones have important implications for interpreting former avian distributions. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

WHY WERE important Viking longhouses built on large mounds of sand and then repeatedly rebuilt in precisely the same apparently challenging location? Generations of Viking-late Norse people did so, on sandy bays along the coasts of the Northern Isles of the United Kingdom. These prominent, 'layered-up' longhouse complexes were landscape statements. They reflected, in their location and the detail of their construction and use, the social attitudes and arrangements of those who lived in and visited them. The settlements played a pivotal role in power relationships and in the organisation of the local economy. This article explores the meaning of these focal settlement mounds through landscape archaeology; investigates building practices, stratigraphic detail and place-name associations; looks at their cultural roots in Scandinavia; and considers the role they played in the development of local social and political structures in Orkney. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

THIS ARTICLE presents a summary and interpretation of burial practices in Scotland in ad 400-650. Due to the dearth of documentary sources, mortuary archaeology provides a window on the changes occurring at the juncture between prehistory and history. Yet previous work has generally approached burial as evidence for a single aspect of this transition: the conversion to Christianity. Rather than signalling ethnic or religious affiliation, it is argued that graves should be understood as acts of structured deposition which enabled new relationships to be forged between the living and the dead at a local level. The composition of the grave with stone, sand, timber and earth can be seen as a form of furnishing cognate with the use of grave goods elsewhere in Britain and the continent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Archaeological investigations were carried out at Leamington Wharf on the Union Canal in Fountainbridge, Edinburgh. The remains of a stone quay, wooden platforms and staging, a rope walk and a canal vessel were investigated prior to redevelopment of the site for housing. The combination of archaeological excavation and historical research has illuminated the development of this former canal basin at the terminus of the Union Canal, and provided a rare opportunity to study the remains of a canal vessel likely to date from the early to mid 19th century. A scaled model of the vessel was commissioned as part of the project and will be submitted to the local museum service as a record. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses the roofs over the north, east and west ranges of Newark Castle. Summarizing the results of a comprehensive research project undertaken in 2007-08, it discusses the roof carpentry of the castle in its historical and technical contexts and illuminates important aspects of building construction in 16th-century Scotland, in particular the problems associated with Scottish rafter single roofs, as well as proposing a construction sequence for the building of Newark. For the first time an important roof structure of central Scotland is discussed in detail, thereby focusing on a British region that has so far raised little interest in timber studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The advent of developer-funded fieldwork in many countries has inevitably led to an increase in the production of fieldwork reports. Despite being a major resource for archaeological research the majority of these reports have remained unpublished and are often only accessible via the local authority curators or state historic preservation offices (in the UK known as Historic Environment Records). In the United Kingdom the OASIS project (Online AccesS to the Index of archaeological investigations) exists as a collaborative venture between the Archaeology Data Service, English Heritage, Historic Scotland, the Royal Commission for Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland and the Archaeological Investigations Project. The project has aimed to provide data to create an easily maintainable and publicly accessible unified index to archaeological investigations. In addition, it has created a system by which fieldwork reports can be deposited in a digital format with the Archaeology Data Service. In February 2005, the Archaeology Data Service was able to make public its growing archive of such fieldwork reports. There are now over x reports in this grey literature library, and this is being added to at the rate of 100 a month. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

European institutions collected indigenous Australian human remains from the late eighteenth century onwards, forming part of collections that contained the physical remains of people from all around the world, including Europe. Obtained for the purposes of studying so-called ‘racial’ difference, their removal was deeply embedded within a racist scientific paradigm that has long been abandoned but which played a large part in the oppressive treatment of Aboriginal people by the colonizing state. Evidence that remains were taken without consent, and against the wishes of the indigenous population, permeates the historical literature. Since the 1980s many indigenous groups have campaigned for the return of their remains from institutions around the world so that they can be reburied. This article considers the case of Edinburgh University, which amassed a large collection of human remains from around the world in the nineteenth century and, following campaigning from Aboriginal people, adopted a pro-repatriation policy in 1991. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The identification of the island named Hinba, referred to in Adomnán's Life of Columba, has exercised scholarly attention intermittently for hundreds of years. Successfully identifying Hinba would have the potential to enhance our understanding of the geography, politics and culture of western Scotland in the early medieval period. This article analyses Adomnán's references to Hinba and assesses the toponymic, material culture and written evidence pertaining to the islands of western Scotland, to propose Canna as the most likely location. A review of the stone sculpture and archaeological remains on Canna supports the proposition. An inquiry into the probable geographical feature referred to by Adomnán as Muirbolc Már includes a summary of the known instances of the placename element muirbolc in Scotland and Northern Ireland and proposes that it may not, as generally thought, indicate an enclosed bay. The significance of Eigg, where one of Columba's disciples was marooned en route to Hinba, is assessed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In August 2001, a programme of survey and trial excavation was carried out on the island of Inchkeith in the Firth of Forth in Scotland. The work was carried out as part of the first series of the BBC TV series Two Men in a Trench, and examined the WWII defences, together with some of the Victorian defences and a midden that probably dates to the 16th century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since a part of Orkney was inscribed as a World Heritage Site in 1999, a Management Plan and Research Agenda have been prepared, and an active programme of research is being pursued. The approach taken to the research will be outlined. The results of this research will be described as illustrative of methods that can be adopted elsewhere and of how very quickly our knowledge and understanding of the place is changing. The challenge arising as to how this research feeds into management and interpretation of the Site will be discussed, as will the wider management issues concerning ownership and access. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the archaeology of post-medieval rural Scotland, research traditions have inhibited understanding of social change prior to the 18th century as the emphasis has been on the dramatic overturn of 'traditional' society with Improvement and the Clearances. This contrasts with the situation for England and, indeed other parts of Europe, where there is an established concern for the much earlier 'Age of Transition' from medieval to modern. Here I explore the ancestry of Improvement by considering the genesis of the landed estate in the 16th and earlier 17th centuries, and this is primarily achieved through an analysis of the architecture and geography of castles in one area of the Highlands. This case study concerns the castles of the Glenorchy Campbells, a lineage emerging in the earlier 15th century and proceeding to become one of the most significant of Scottish, and British, landed families. In no small part through a changing approach to castle building, their rise was predicated on the transformation of clan territory into landed estate in the period after 1550. The usefulness of the 'Age of Transition' construct, in this specific context and in general, is appraised. In concluding, I argue for the alternative of the dialectical Marxist concept of contradiction. This places the focus on tension, fluidity, and lack of resolution in society, running counter to the idea of transition from one state to another. With contradiction, modern society as a simply definable entity is never established and cannot be delineated in a straightforward way. It is an itinerant process, constantly emerging and changing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A programme of historic building recording took place at Kilncraigs, later Patons & Baldwins woollen mill, in Alloa, Clackmannanshire in advance of the redevelopment of the site as a super- market. This project involved a full architectural, historical and social study of the complex, which ranged from several stone-built mills of the 19th century to modern single-storey spinning sheds of the 1980s and which had, for over two centuries, been a striking and socially important landmark for this small town on the Hillfoots of the Ochils. The recording work carried out by AOC Archaeology was to a specification laid out by Clackmannanshire Council. This article has been sub-divided into four sections. The first part of the article deals with the background surrounding the project and what was required to record the mill in its entirety prior to demolition. The second part of the article deals with the methodology employed on-site during the archaeological works. Thirdly, the wool industry in Scotland is discussed and the role that Kilncraigs mill had in this industry and in Alloa. Finally, the article concentrates on the architectural history and development of one of the most intact remains of the woollen industry throughout the last two centuries in Central Scotland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary A newly recognized tanged flint point from Shieldaig in north-west Scotland is described and discussed in terms of its potential as an indicator of Lateglacial human settlement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on archaeological relics in Taransay, Scotland. Monuments on the summit rocks of Beinn na h-Uidhe; Material remains of crofting agriculture, the feannagan; Grave of Ton's collie dog Charlie.