"Discovering the Northern Picts: Survey and Excavation in Northern Scotland"

Seminar by Dr Gordon Noble, University of Aberdeen


Report by Laura Cawley


This seminar focused on fortifying rulership in Northern Britain, in relation to the Picts. The period in question was the transition of the Iron Age to the Early Medieval period. This seminar was informed by Dr. Gordon Noble’s research in the Northern Picts Project. The focus of this project is Eastern and Northern Scotland and the Picts people, with a particular focus on Early Medieval Scotland (circa 400-900 AD).
At this time in Scotland there was a great diversity of people. The Picts were distinguished by their carved stones and metalwork. Areas researched as part of the project include forts, burial practices, environment, and symbol stones, as well as possible domestic settlements. Cé is one of the areas included in the project.

The origins of the Picts have been a source of confusion for historians and archaeologists in the past. At this time the origins of new forms of social hierarchy and authority were widespread. As a result of this complexity, the project uses interdisciplinary means to aid in its research, and material culture is utilised to define new relations of power.
The anthropogenic and archaeological signatures of kingship have left their mark on Scotland. Increased ritual power and the sacred role of the leader were shown through the power they exerted on nature. This led to sacred and exclusive objects and distinctive burials and monuments.
Irish written evidence has been used to enhance the project. These documents provide evidence of kings as leaders in war, justice and religion. They were involved in clientship which was materialised through military service, hospitality and annual labour, for example constructing ramparts. Kingship was also seen as part of the world order, and making things run as they should.
The historical sources used in this project include Ptolemy’s Geography, which uses 1st century AD information, and mentions many tribes. The Picts are mentioned from the 3rd century AD as a source of trouble for the Romans. This sudden mention of the Picts could be as a result of the consolidation of tribes to counteract the threat of the Romans. The mention of fewer tribes in later Roman sources could support this theory. Other sources include the kinglists of the 8th century AD, which note Pictish over-kingship by the 7th century AD. Later sources emphasise royal centres in the South.
The archaeological record is now being used to trace the origins and development of the Picts. This record includes symbol stones, fortified sites, and cemeteries. The writing system identified on the symbol stones is believed to mark out powerful individuals. Metalworking symbols on the stones are seen to be symbols of power. The Late Bronze Age and Iron Age hillforts which reemerge in the Post-Roman period were central to the kingship of these powerful individuals, according to the sources.

The origin of these symbol stones is generally taken to be the Late Roman period- 8th/9th centuries AD, but there is no real consensus. They originate in Northern Pictland. These stones have been dated relative to Christian monuments.
The symbol stones and fortified sites form the main sources for the project. One of the sites studied is Dunnicaer, which is a fortified site with carved stone monuments. Its promontory fort dates to the Pictish period. One of the structures there, Beannachar House, has Pictish stones in its association. These stones were found in 1832 by village youths but not studied until much later. The dates of the site are early- 3rd/4th century AD. Roman sources say that the Picts were sea raiders, which may mean that this site’s coastal location was a natural choice.
Rhynie is another fortified site studied for the project. The name means a place associated with a great king. It was a high status fortified site dating to the 5th/6th century AD, and was contemporary with the stones found there. This famous group of Pictish stones are more polished and elaborate than those found at Dunnicaer. They are an earlier type, as there is no Christian symbolism on them as on other stones. Symbols on these stones include fish, the Pictish beast, and the famous Rhynie Man. This was an important find as human representation in Pictish stones is rare. One of these stones was also left in its original location, which is rare with such stones. This provides a rare study opportunity. Ditches and a palisade were found nearby.
Imports were found at the site, including a Late Roman amphora from the Mediterranean and dating to the 6th century AD. These are rare in this area; they are found in South-West England at high status sites. Only two other sites in Scotland boast such a find, and both have royal associations. Glass from Western France which formed a beaker for wine was also found, and this is also a rare find in Eastern Scotland. High status metalworks such as bronze pins, brooch moulds, and exceptional iron tongs, which are also represented on the stones, were also found at the site.
The site has been dated from 450-550 AD, and is seen as a landscape of power. This was an Iron Age fort which was reused in the Early Medieval period. A high status cemetery and square barrows dating from 450-550 AD were also found. A stone socket for a standing stone was discovered at the entranceway of the fort, near Rhynie Man, with a deliberate deposit of a cattle jaw bone placed at the bottom.

This is a secular site but there are cult and ceremonial associations. Axe carrier symbols were found which have animal heads and elaborate teeth, similar to Rhynie Man, and could be interpreted as shamanic figures. There were similar axes to those represented found at the burial of Sutton Hoo, and Lagore crannóg in Meath. These were royal sites which also had animal remains, which were sacrificial at the burial and mostly cattle in huge quantities at Lagore. This shows how kings may have been implicated in the religious practices of their people.
Burghead was also studied, and is the largest Pictish fort. It is a promontory fort with monumental walls and depictions of bulls which may relate to animal sacrifice. Early Christian sculpture has been found, as the site was used to almost 1000 AD, when Christianity was spreading. Little excavation has been done, and the site was damaged with the building of a town on top of it. Test excavation revealed intact Early Medieval deposits and a cattle bone midden. Radiocarbon dates of the rampart place it in the 5th/6th century AD, the post hole to the 6th century AD, and the midden to the 9th/10th century AD.

Almost all of the forts studied date to the 5th century AD, showing them to be Post-Roman phenomena. Some sites, such as Rhynie, became disused during the 6th century, while the larger forts, such as Burghead, continued to be used for longer periods. This may mirror the rise of the overking in the sources; less centres of power as power becomes more centralised to certain areas.
In conclusion, warfare was materialised through enclosures which were important to the Northern identity in the 3rd/4th century, but this may have been geographically restricted. There may also have been use of sacred and restricted script to denote emerging elites in the same period. Bands of clientship allowed forts to be built in the late Roman and Iron Age periods, but these were consolidated from the 5th century AD and in a Post-Roman context. In the 5th/6th century an element of the divine and sacred was introduced in relation to rulership.

If you would like more information on this project, it can be found through the Tarbat Discovery Centre’s website, and the Northern Picts Facebook group.

"The Amesbury archer- Migration and Knowledge in the Copper Age"

Seminar by Dr Andrew Fitzpatrick

Report by  Emily Glynn-Farrell


On the 15th of October 2015 the society Welcomed Dr. Andrew Fitzpatrick of the University of Leicester for a seminar on 'The Amesbury Archer-Migration and Knowledge in the Copper Age'. This seminar discussed the discovery of the Amesbury archer near Stonehenge in Wessex, the movement of Bell-beaker people throughout Europe and the characteristics of their material culture.
Dr. Fitzpatrick began by giving us an introduction to the copper age in Europe. This is the beginning of Metallurgy using mostly copper and pure gold. This is the period of the Bell-beaker people. The bell-beaker culture originated in Europe in around 4500 years ago. It was a short-lived cultural phenomenon, only lasting a couple of hundred years, and most of our evidence for Bell-beaker people comes from burials. These burials mostly consisted of males and we have very little evidence of bell-beaker settlements.

The name 'Bell-Beaker' related to the form of pottery typical of the culture. These pots are often found in a burial context alongside other materials such as amber, jet beads and button, arrowheads and gold objects. The gold is quite significant because it is in bell beaker graves that we find the first appearances of gold ornamentation. Diadems and other temple-located head ornaments were most common and most likely displayed the status of the individual.
Bell-Beaker people were widely distributed in Europe. In areas around Iberia, the earliest evidence for Bell-beaker activity is around 2600-2200 BC. In Britain, it's around 2375 BC that the culture emerges. Though there is some local variation, bell-beaker culture is classified by a number of standard finds. This gives the culture a homogeneity accross Europe and demonstrated contact despite long distances.

The graves of bell-beaker people often show regional variation, evident in both grave goods and in the type of grave itself. In Eastern Europe and the UK, single inhumation burials are most common. In Iberia, parts of France and Ireland, collective burials were favoured.
The Amesbury Archer himself was found in Wessex near to some of the most important Neolithic monuments in England. Excavation of the archer came after an accidental discovery of material during the excavation of a Roman cemetery. The first finds to hint that a grave different to Roman burials might be located in the area was a gold ornament which Dr. Fitzpatrick recognised usually came in pairs.

In total almost 100 objects were found on and around the body. The Amesbury archer was placed in a semi-foetal position on his left hand side. He was about 30-45 years old at the age of death and most likely an individual of high status. Isotopic analysis has revealed that the archer grew up in a colder place than Britain but excluding Scandinavia, as the beaker culture was no earlier than Britain in that area. Dr. Fitzpatrick believes that the man was originally a native of an Alpine region before Journeying to Britain.

There is a debate as to how Bell-beaker individuals came into England. Some scholars theorise that people would have journeyed up the Rhine and across the Channel. Dr. Fitzpatrick is sceptical of this narrative. He suggested that the line of contact went through the south and west. I.E. through France and Spain.

The burial of the Amesbury Archer was rich with goods. Some of the finds were 3 copper daggers, several gold objects, and stones relating to metalworking among other objects. This is the most elaborate bell-beaker grave in Europe to date. Dr. Fitzpatrick's research of other bell-beaker graves brought up comparable finds in Germany. In Germany, the idea of such a richness of objects associated with a high status burial also seems likely. This model correlates with the Amesbury Archer's grave.

A year later, another series of graves were found nearby. These were known as the Boscome Bowmen. The burials were of at least 7 individuals, mostly male and with unsexed children and no certain females. The remains were disrupted by road works and electricity cables which meant that whilst a pelvis and leg bones were found in a certain individual grave, the other bones were in a jumbled mess.

The skulls of the bowmen show a possible familial connection. At the very least, we can deduce that they were closely related. In terms of grave goods, these burials were not as wealthy as the Amesbury archer. There were 3 individuals that were eligible for isotopic analysis. The results show that these individuals led a nomadic life and moved from place to place over 10 years. Definitively, these people were not from Wessex. Possibly they originated in Wales, Brittany, Germany, France or Iberia but unfortunately, unlike the Amesbury Archer, it was difficult to speculate.
Dr. Fitzpatrick concluded by attempting to place these burials within a bigger picture. The burials suggest that bell-beaker peoples migrated rather than the idea transferring. The graves also fit into a wider, pan-European copper age tradition. Whilst we can see a clear difference in material culture with the coming of these people, we struggle to see in the record other changes such as settlements and temples.

Dr. Fitzpatrick stressed that bell-beaker cultures could not have thrived as they did without interacting peacefully with local cultures. They probably wouldn't have had the access to metals and other materials without help and guidance from indigenous communities. So any ideas of bell-beaker isolation are unreliable except in terms of the culture of the people themselves.
Questions of how people travelled at this time are still unanswered and may never be answered. Could they have known were they were going? Did families travel in groups? Did they intend to return? It is difficult to speculate. What we do know is that there does not seem to be one single homeland for the bell-beaker people.

In conclusion, Dr. Fitzpatrick demonstrated that the discovery of the Amesbury Archer has a much wider significance than just relating to Stonehenge, England and Britain. Whilst we still don't know how he reacted with indigenous communities or how he came to Wessex, what we do know can shed a light on bell-beaker people and their spread in Europe and inform us further of the culture's rich material heritage.

“Dublin – Dead Centre of the Viking West?”

Second Seminar by Dr Stephen Harrison from University of Glasgow, given on 1st October 2015

Report by Catríona Baldwin

Was Medieval Dublin the conscience core of the Viking world? This was the question posed to us by Dr. Stephen Harrison on Thursday evening. Following the highly anticipated publication of his project “The Viking Graves Project”, after some fifteen years in the working, Dr. Harrison held the attention of a teeming crowd as he passionately spoke about his project. While informing us of the details of the project, Dr. Harrison also accentuated the variety of hidden issues and problems with the collection and scrutinizing of the materials available for use. Although problems with the antiquarian tradition of recording and preservation data was not unique to Ireland, the Royal Irish Academy’s methods of the documentation of Viking Graves left a lot to be desired. Records of the Viking Grave objects were not only limited but were frequently contradictory, with references being mixed up or not registered at all. For example, a sword unearthed in College Green was given four separate registration numbers. In order to overcome these issues, acquisition groups, based on location and dates, were established and in time were further filtered down to distinguish artefacts from each other within these assemblages. By doing this, it was then applicable to work out the minimum amount of Viking Graves in Ireland, an objective that had never been achievable prior to the project.
The outcome of these acquisition groups was astonishing. From 63 acquisition groups, collectively composed of 401 artefacts, it was arbitrated that there are 107 Viking burials in Ireland. Furthermore, it was also determined that of these 107 burials, three quarters of all furnished Viking graves and four fifths of all Irish Viking grave goods are from Dublin and even more curiously over half of all Irish furnished Viking graves are linked to Kilmainham – Islandbridge. In addition to this, the project enabled the ability to effectively map out the burial complexes in order to further analyse any distinctive patterns. This led to the questioning as to whether or not Dublin was in fact the centre of the Viking Western world.

Fig 1: Viking Burial Sites at Dublin. © National Museum of Ireland. 

In order to answer this question, Dr. Harrison examined the diversity and distributional patterns of Viking burials between Ireland and the insular British Isles. He uncovered that 21% of all Insular Viking graves and 29% of all Viking grave goods found throughout Ireland and Britain, are found in Dublin. This arises the question as to whether or not this is simply caused by a statistical blip and other Viking complexes around Ireland have yet to be located. Dr. Harrison made the compelling argument that due to the scale and extent of these Irish Viking burial complexes that this interpretation simply isn’t plausible and that location of Viking burials is deliberately concentrated in Dublin. In conjunction with this, Dr. Harrison, drawing upon the work of Neil Price, also acknowledged the unconventionally and uniqueness of Irish Viking graves and the rituals that appear to accompany these graves. Not only did Kilmainham-Islandbridge produce the largest number of balances in either Britain or Ireland, but was one of the prime locations where weapons were consciously destroyed beyond any repair.  Predominately in the central zone (Kilmainham-Islandbridge) were weapons deliberately bent, damaged or cremated as part of a carefully controlled ritual. This is perceived to be interconnected with the ideology that weapons, and in particular swords, are symbols of male dominance and power with Viking burials often being furnished with more weapons than one individuals could comfortably carry.
In addition to this, the distinction of Irish Viking weapons from that of the rest of the Viking world further exhibits the uniqueness of Irish Viking Burials. Not only were Irish Viking swords more elaborately decorated than their continental counterparts but other weapons, such as Dublin type Spearheads are found nowhere else in the Viking world. Smaller in size than traditional Scandinavian spearheads, the Dublin Type with its decorated rimmed sockets, was used primarily for throwing rather than for stabbing. Similarly Dublin type shield bosses were equally exclusive to Ireland. Found closely clustered, the shield bosses are believed to have originated from a single workshop, signifying localised metal production in Ireland.

Although male Viking graves are not stereotypical of traditional male Viking burials, female graves do not express this level of local identity and in fact are routinely identical to their eastern equivalent. This has led rise to a number of questions. Were female Viking graves more conservative than male graves, again tying in with this question of male dominance and power, or were the female graves trying to preserve a Scandinavian identity which was otherwise being rapidly assimilated into Irish society?
The question as to if Dublin really was the dead centre of the Viking west still remains a topic for debate. However as Dr. Harrison points out that regardless of the direction in which you approach Dublin you will undoubtfully pass a Viking burial complex. Not only are these complexes mapping out Viking Dublin but are also gallant expressions of a formidable community. We wish Dr. Harrison all the best with his book and further projects and once again thank him for coming and delivering a fascinating talk.

"How the Ancient Irish Destroyed Egyptian Civilisation"

First Seminar by Dr Barry Molloy from University College Dublin, given on the 24th September 2015

Report by Laura Cawley

The truth is, the ancient Irish did not destroy Egyptian civilisation. This seminar focused on how extensive the transcultural phenomena were that extended across Europe, and investigated how such phenomena may have originated and spread across Europe. It explored issues such as religious symbolism, focusing mainly from the period 1200-1000 BC.
In the early twentieth century, archaeologists such as Childe used directional diffusionism in archaeological explanation. Ex oriente lux and binary oppositions such as civilisation and barbarianism were used to explain archaeological cultures.

Today archaeologists have very different opinions on what Bronze Age life in Europe and the Mediterranean was like. Harding believes it was a period of local traditions with selective interconnections, while Kristiansen sees it as the ‘EU without the Red Tape’.
There is certainly evidence of cross-cultural links in this period, such as in the area of religious symbolism. One example of this is the sun wheel, which is a prominent feature of European prehistory. This symbol has been found in areas such as Ireland, Turkey, Sweden, Egypt, and many others. Sun symbolism was an integral feature of the period, with examples ranging from Early to Middle Bronze Age gold sun discs to sun symbolism evident on the base of Early Bronze Age pots in Atlantic Europe. It has also been found in the chariot wheels of the Indo-Europeans in the late third or early second millennium BC. Perhaps the most famous chariot which bears this symbol is the Trondheim chariot. This symbolism is evident in many other forms as well, including rock art, jewellery, shields, bridles, leg armour and helmets.

Shields in the Bronze Age world are another medium through which transcultural phenomena are evident. Examples from Iberia and North Western Europe were of similar v-notch forms, both from early dates. Those from Delphi in Greece and Clonbrin in Ireland are also of a v-notch form, as are examples from Denmark and the Czech Republic. There is evidence to support the development of such shields in Atlantic Europe, and their subsequent spread to central Europe.
Spearheads are another medium through which transcultural phenomena can be seen. Spearheads of a typology similar to Bronze Age European examples were found in Mycenaean Europe. These were copies of Bronze Age spears and were not functional, but show the importance of the symbolism of the Bronze Age, as it was still evident four hundred years later. This symbolism played an active role in identity religion.

Apollo was a key figure in Bronze Age religion, and is seen as a voyager between archaeological worlds. He is the only Olympian deity not mentioned in Linear B, and is sometimes confused with Helios. He is the only god whose worship place (Delphi) closed for a month each year. Apollo was introduced from beyond the Mycenaean world after its collapse. Common attributes and derivations of deities are widely shared in Bronze Age religion, as is evident from Apollo.
Bronze Age society collapsed in the Eastern Mediterranean circa 1200 BC. This was due to the invasion of the Sea Peoples. Representations of the boats of these peoples at Medinet Habu seem to indicate boats of Aegean or Danubian style. They may have been a European type, or a derivative thereof. Representations of boats found in Greece, Central Europe and Sweden show similar boats. This indicates a spread of people and ideas.

In conclusion, the Irish did not destroy Egyptian civilisation but the study of the transcultural phenomena across Bronze Age Europe and the Mediterranean have revealed clear linkages between the civilisations of these areas. Studying this with the balance between technology, ideology, and physical mobility kept in mind allows these phenomena to be more clearly seen. Morphometric or taxonomic approaches need a more central role in this study, as well as the up to now dominant typo-chronological approaches. Such study has revealed increased prosperity in Europe and the collapse of the Mediterranean at a time when long-established relationships were more visible. However, unknown parties did assassinate Ramses III by cutting his throat in the mid-twelfth century, leading to the fall of Egypt soon after…