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Journal article
The development of the Pictish symbol system: inscribing identity beyond the edges of Empire
The date of unique symbolic carvings, from various contexts across north and east Scotland, has been debated for over a century. Excavations at key sites and direct dating of engraved bone artefacts have allowed for a more precise chronology, extending from the third/fourth centuries AD, broadly contemporaneous with other non-vernacular...Noble, Gordon ; Goldberg, D Martin ; Hamilton, Derek
language, Scotland, Pictish, writing, carving, and symbolism
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Journal article
The Excavation: The Later Post-Medieval Period. In: Stoakley, M 2019 ‘Great fears of the sickness here in the City … God preserve us all …’ A Plague Burial Ground in Leith, 1645: an archaeological excavation at St Mary’s (Leith) RC Primary School, Leith Links, Edinburgh, Scottish Archaeological Internet Reports 86
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...Haggarty, George ; Stoakley, Megan
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Journal article
Investigating jet and jet-like artefacts from prehistoric Scotland: the National Museums of Scotland project
The black spacer plate necklaces and bracelets of the Early Bronze Age (Figure 1) are among the most technically accomplished prestige items of this period in Britain and Ireland. There has been much debate over the years as to whether these artefacts and other prehistoric black jewellery and dress accessories...Sheridan, J A ; Davis, M ; Clark, Iain ; Redvers-Jones, Hal
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Journal article
The radiocarbon dating programmes of The National Museums of Scotland
Since 1991, the Archaeology Department of the National Museums of Scotland (NMS) has been undertaking programmes of AMS radiocarbon dating of organic items in its collections, particularly wetland finds. This work was initially stimulated by the success of Caroline Earwood’s research on dating bog butter containers and other wooden vessels...Sheridan, J A
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Journal article
An Early Bronze Age 'dagger grave' from Rameldry Farm, near Kingskettle, Fife
In February 2000, ploughing disturbed the capstone of a cist, located on the side of a prominent knowe at Rameldry Farm, near Kingskettle in central Fife. Excavation by Headland Archaeology Ltd on behalf of Historic Scotland revealed a short cist which contained the crouched inhumation of a man aged 40-50,...Baker, L ; Sheridan, J A ; Cowie, Trevor
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Journal article
Radiocarbon dating results from the Beaker People Project: Scottish samples.
The Beaker People Project is a major interdisciplinary five-year research programme, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and led by one of the authors (Mike Parker Pearson of Sheffield University). It aims to investigate patterns of diet, mobility and health in British Beaker-associated skeletons (and in contemporaneous non-Beaker...Sheridan, J A ; Parker Pearson, Mike ; Jay, Mandy ; Richards, Mike ; Curtis, Neil
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Journal article
The re-dating of some Scottish specimens by the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit (ORAU)
The purpose of this note is to alert readers to the fact that some AMS dates determined by ORAU on Scottish material between 2000 and 2002 have had to be deleted and re-determined, because of a problem in the ultrafiltration system used to pretreat bone samples during that period (see...Sheridan, J A ; Higham, Tom
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Journal article
Radiocarbon dating results from the Beakers and Bodies Project
The Beakers and Bodies Project is a two-year project based in Marischal Museum, University of Aberdeen, funded by the Leverhulme Trust. It is assessing the beaker-related evidence from North-East Scotland (between the Moray Firth and the Firth of Tay), including the dating and stable isotope analyses of some 40 human...Curtis, Neil ; Wilkin, Neil ; Hutchison, Meg ; Jay, Mandy ; Sheridan, J A …
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Journal article
The age of Stonehenge
Stonehenge is the icon of British prehistory, and continues to inspire ingenious investigations and interpretations. A current campaign of research, being waged by probably the strongest archaeological team ever assembled, is focused not just on the monument, but on its landscape, its hinterland and the monuments within it. The campaign...Parker Pearson, M ; Cleal, R ; Marshall, P ; Needham, S P ; Pollard, J …
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Journal article
Beaker vessel
This report provides an account of the excavations of a cropmark enclosure and other prehistoric remains at Dryburn Bridge, near Innerwick in East Lothian. The excavations were directed over two seasons in 1978 and 1979 by Jon Triscott and David Pollock, and were funded by the Ancient Monuments Branch, Scottish...Sheridan, J A
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Journal article
Excavation at Aguas Buenas, Robinson Crusoe Island, Chile, of a gunpowder magazine and the supposed campsite of Alexander Selkirk, together with an account of early navigational dividers
Excavations were undertaken of a ruined building at Aguas Buenas, identified as an 18th-century Spanish gunpowder magazine. Evidence was also found for the campsite of an early European occupant of the island. A case is made that this was Alexander Selkirk, a castaway here from 1704 to 1709. Selkirk was...Takahashi, Daisuke ; Caldwell, David H ; Caceres, Ivan ; Calderon, Mauricio ; Morrison-Low, A D …
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Journal article
Towards a fuller, more nuanced narrative of Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Britain 2500-1500 BC
This contribution considers some of the many recent advances in our understanding of Chalcolithic and Bronze Age Britain and uses these to highlight the weak points in our current state of knowledge. Focusing mainly on the period 2500–1500 BC, it concentrates on issues of chronology, human movement, the role of...Sheridan, J A
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Journal article
Upper Palaeolithic evidence from Kilmelfort Cave, Argyll: a re-evaluation of the lithic assemblage
An assemblage of flint and quartz artefacts recovered during the destruction of Kilmelfort Cave, Argyll, in 1956, was initially attributed to the Mesolithic period. In this paper the assemblage is reanalysed and the conclusion that it represents the residue of human occupation at the site during the Late Glacial Interstadial...Saville, Alan ; Ballin, Torben Bjarke
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Journal article
Gristhorpe Man: an Early Bronze Age log-coffin burial scientifically defined
A log-coffin excavated in the early nineteenth century proved to be well enough preserved in the early twenty-first century for the full armoury of modern scientific investigation to give its occupants and contents new identity, new origins and a new date. In many ways the interpretation is much the same... -
Journal article
The iconography of the Hunterston brooch and related early medieval material
This paper highlights a new aspect of the design and iconographical programme of the Hunterston brooch. Animals embedded in the form of the brooch terminals fiank the cross panel, and are interpreted as a motif rooted in the Canticle of Habakkuk's assertion that Christ would be recognised between two living...Blackwell, Alice
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Journal article
The Kilmichael Glassary Bell-shrine
The Kilmichael Glassary Bell-shrine is one of the treasures of National Museums Scotland. This paper reassesses the circumstances of its discovery, its context and importance, and its role as a relic of a saint, not Moluag, as previously suggested, but possibly Columba. The wider use of handbells in the early...Caldwell, David H ; Kirk, Susy ; Márkus, Gilbert ; Tate, Jim ; Webb, Sharon
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Journal article
Artefacts In: Croig Cave: a Late Bronze Age ornament deposit and three millennia of fishing and foraging on the north-west coast of Mull, Scotland
Activity within caves provides an important element of the later prehistoric and historic settlement pattern of western Scotland. This contribution reports on a small-scale excavation within Croig Cave, on the coast of north-west Mull, that exposed a 1.95m sequence of middle deposits and cave floors that dated between c1700 BC...Mithen, Steven ; Wicks, Karen
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Journal article
Biting the bullet: the role of hobbyist metal detecting within battlefield archaeology
In the UK battlefields are becoming more frequently associated with the label 'heritage at risk'. As the concept of battlefield and conflict archaeology has evolved, so too has the recognition that battlefields are dynamic, yet fragile, archaeological landscapes in need of protection. The tangible evidence of battle is primarily identified...Ferguson, Natasha
artefact scatters, hobby, metal detecting, eBay, conflict archaeology, battlefield archaeology, and rallies
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Journal article
Roman and medieval coins found in Scotland, 2006-10
Coins and other numismatic finds from 219 locations across Scotland are listed and discussedBateson, J D ; Holmes, N M McQ.
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Journal article
'Shale armlet'. In: Church, M. J., Nesbitt, C. & Gilmour, S. M. D. ‘A special place in the saltings? Survey and excavation of an Iron Age estuarine inlet at An Dunan, Lewis, Western Isles’
This is the third of a series of four papers that present the excavations undertaken on the Uig Peninsula, Isle of Lewis, as part of the Uig Landscape Project. We present the archaeological evidence from An Dunan, a causewayed tidal islet in the salt marsh of Uig sands, a liminal...Hunter, Fraser
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Journal article
'Amber'. In: Church, M. J., Nesbitt, C. & Gilmour, S. M. D. ‘A special place in the saltings? Survey and excavation of an Iron Age estuarine inlet at An Dunan, Lewis, Western Isles’
This is the third of a series of four papers that present the excavations undertaken on the Uig Peninsula, Isle of Lewis, as part of the Uig Landscape Project. We present the archaeological evidence from An Dunan, a causewayed tidal islet in the salt marsh of Uig sands, a liminal...Hunter, Fraser
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Journal article
'Synthesis of material culture'. In: Church, M. J., Nesbitt, C. & Gilmour, S. M. D. ‘A special place in the saltings? Survey and excavation of an Iron Age estuarine inlet at An Dunan, Lewis, Western Isles’
This is the third of a series of four papers that present the excavations undertaken on the Uig Peninsula, Isle of Lewis, as part of the Uig Landscape Project. We present the archaeological evidence from An Dunan, a causewayed tidal islet in the salt marsh of Uig sands, a liminal...McLaren, Dawn ; Hunter, Fraser
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Journal article
Immediate replacement of fishing with dairying by the earliest farmers of the NE Atlantic archipelagos
The appearance of farming, from its inception in the Near East around 12 000 years ago, finally reached the northwestern extremes of Europe by the fourth millennium BC or shortly thereafter. Various models have been invoked to explain the Neolithization of northern Europe; however, resolving these different scenarios has proved...Cramp, Lucy J E ; Jones, Jennifer ; Sheridan, J A ; Smyth, Jessica ; Whelton, Helen …
stable carbon isotopes, lipids, Neolithic diet, pottery, biomarkers, and archaeology
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Journal article
An integrated approach to the taxonomic identification of prehistoric shell ornaments
Shell beads appear to have been one of the earliest examples of personal adornments. Marine shells identified far from the shore evidence long-distance transport and imply networks of exchange and negotiation. However, worked beads lose taxonomic clues to identification, and this may be compounded by taphonomic alteration. Consequently, the significance...Demarchi, Beatrice ; O'Connor, Sonia ; Ponzoni, Andre de Lima ; Ponzoni, Raquel de Almeida Rocha ; Sheridan, J A …
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Journal article
The excavation of two short cist burials at Broomlands, Kelso
Two stone-built short cists were excavated in Broomlands, Kelso, by AOC Archaeology Group under the Historic Scotland Call-off Contract for Human Remains. A single poorly preserved adult inhumation was recovered from one cist, along with a small intrusive disc-shaped perforated oil shale object. The inhumation was dated to 2340–2120 cal...McLaren, Dawn ; Wilson, Donald
inhumations, Kelso, cist, spindle whorl, and Bronze Age
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Journal article
An Iron Age burial with weapons, on a site with evidence of medieval and post-medieval occupation from Dunbar, East Lothian
In September and October 2015, an archaeological excavation was undertaken on the site of the former Empire Cinema on Dunbar High Street. In addition to late medieval and post-medieval remains, a cist grave of pre-Roman or Roman Iron Age date was excavated and recorded. Two adult males occupied the cist...Roy, Mike
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Journal article
A short cist burial at Kilkeddan Farm, Campbeltown, Argyll & Bute
AOC Archaeology Group undertook the excavation of a previously unknown Bronze Age cist, located in a field close to Kilkeddan Farm, Argyll & Bute, during September 2005 under the Historic Scotland call-off contract for human remains. The cist was found to contain poorly surviving unburnt human skeletal remains along with...McLaren, Dawn ; Wilson, Donald
Knife, Burial, Food Vessel, Bronze Age, and Rapid-Response Excavation
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Journal article
Rodents: food or pests in Neolithic Orkney
Rodents have important effects on contemporary human societies, sometimes providing a source of food but more often as agricultural pests, or as vectors and reservoirs of disease. Skeletal remains of rodents are commonly found in archaeological assemblages from around the world, highlighting their potential importance to ancient human populations. However,...Romaniuk, Andrzej A ; Shepherd, Alexandra N ; Clarke, David V ; Sheridan, J A ; Fraser, Sheena …
Rodentia, Microtus arvalis, human subsistence, archaeology, and animal osteology
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Journal article
Links of Noltland, Westray, Orkney: radiocarbon dating and chronological modelling
This report contains details of all the publically available radiocarbon determinations obtained on samples dated from the Links of Noltland up to the end of 2016. The chronological modelling of these radiocarbon dates was undertaken as part of The Times of Their Lives Project (European Research Council Advanced Investigator grant...Marshall, P ; Clarke, David V ; Sheridan, J A ; Shepherd, Alexandra N ; Sharples, N …
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Journal article
In memoriam Alan Saville, 31 Dec 1946–19 June 2016
Sheridan, J A
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Journal article
The end of the world, or just ‘goodbye to all that’? Contextualising the red deer heap from Links of Noltland, Westray, within late 3rd-millennium cal bc Orkney
As part of a major international research project, The Times of Their Lives, a programme of radiocarbon dating and Bayesian modelling was undertaken to refine the chronology of activities in one small but important part of the extensive Late Neolithic and Bronze Age settlement in Links of Notland on the...Clarke, David V ; Sheridan, J A ; Shepherd, Alexandra N ; Sharples, N M ; Armour-Chelu, Miranda Jane …
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Journal article
Lost in translation: discussing the positive contribution of hobbyist metal detecting
This paper will consider the positive contribution from hobbyist metal detecting from both the perspective of the archaeological and metal detecting community. Are we currently opting for a path of least resistance with a ‘better than nothing’ approach to encourage reporting and to maintain good working relationships, even if it... -
Journal article
One Theban tomb, 1000 years of burial
A new exhibition at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh, 'The Tomb: Ancient Egyptian Burial', explores changing funerary practices through the story of one Theban tomb, used and reused for over 1000 years, before it became the first to be systematically excavated and recorded 160 years ago, as curator...Maitland, Margaret