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Journal article
Three Early Bronze Age flint daggers from Northumberland and their typological context
The flint dagger from Highfield Hope is reassessed and discussed here together with two other daggers from Northumberland which are in Scottish museum collections. An appendix provides details of a previously unillustrated parallel from Scotland for the Highfield Hope example.Saville, Alan
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Journal article
A Scottish Neolithic carved stone ball with enigmatic surface details
A Scottish carved stone ball with unusual surface markings is described and analysed. Although undoubtedly an original prehistoric artefact, it is an unprovenanced find and there is no absolute certainty about the dating and character of its unique markings. Its enigmatic nature, with the possibility of anthropomorphic depiction, presents an...Saville, Alan ; Grant, E ; Cavers, G ; Braby, A
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Journal article
Metal detecting, collecting and portable antiquities: Scottish and British perspectives
While it is common to focus on the detail and intent of heritage law, this article focuses instead on the social and cultural attitudes of both archaeologists and finders towards the finding and ownership of portable antiquities, not least in the different laws regarding portable antiquities that operate within the...Campbell, Stuart
Portable Antiquities Scheme, Treasure trove, metal detecting, Scotland, metal detectors, and heritage law
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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
A stone head from Port Appin, Argyll
Cowie, Trevor
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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
Radiocarbon dates arranged through National Museums Scotland Archaeology Department during 2007/8
The main thrust of NMS Archaeology Department's radiocarbon dating activities this year was on Scottish Bronze Age monuments, with Historic Scotland kindly funding a series of dates for funerary (and other) monuments in mid-Argyll and Morvern, with a special focus on kerb cairns, and NMS funding dates for monuments elsewhere...Sheridan, J A
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Journal article
When the potters make the story...
Salanova, Laure ; Sheridan, J A
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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
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
The beads. In: M. Johnson ‘Excavation of two Early Bronze Age short cists and a prehistoric pit at Lindsayfield, near Stonehaven, Aberdeenshire'
Two short cists of Early Bronze Age date, containing prehistoric flint artefacts and shale/cannel coal beads, were discovered during topsoiling operations for the Aberdeen to Lochside Natural Gas Pipeline, to the south of Lindsayfield, near Stonehaven, Aberdeenshire. Cremated human bone from one of the cists was radiocarbon dated to the...Johnson, M ; Sheridan, J A
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Journal article
Bronze Age pottery (and a spindle whorl). In M. Carver, J. Barrett, J. Downes and J. Hooper : Pictish byre-houses at Pitcarmick and their landscape: investigations 1993–5
'Pitcarmick-type' houses were identified by the Royal Commission in north-east Perthshire in 1988 and published in their survey of 1990. Long and narrow with rounded ends, they seemed to occur in a sequence between prehistoric roundhouses and medieval and post-medieval dwellings. They were therefore provisionally assigned to the later 1st...Carver, Martin ; Barrett, John ; Downes, Jane ; Hooper, Janet
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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 changing pace of insular life: 5000 years of microevolution in the Orkney vole(Microtus arvalis orcadensis)
Cucchi, Thomas ; Barnett, Ross ; Martinkova, Natalia ; Renaud, Sabrina ; Renvoisé, Elodie …
zooarchaeology, tooth shape, Dispersal, island evolution, geometric morphometrics, and evolutionary rate
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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
'Arnish Man' revisited
Cowie, Trevor
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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
With contributions. In Christina Donald, 'Adding a new dimension to Dundee's medieval carved stones'
A project to bring eight medieval grave slabs associated with Dundee's St Mary's Steeple church out of storage and into the public eye is described. The stones date to the 13th or 14th centuries and were digitally scanned and photographedClarke, David V
medieval, gravestone, Dundee, cross slab, 3D digital scanning, and St Mary's
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Journal article
‘The cannel coal bangle’. In: H Gray & I Suddaby, ‘Early Neolithic pits, an Iron Age ring-ditch house and associated features at Coul Brae, Mosstodloch, Moray’
Excavations at Coul Brae, Mosstodloch, Moray, revealed the remains of a multi-period site including two Early Neolithic pits containing large quantities of Carinated Bowl in the modified ‘North-East Style’, lithics, a broken saddle quern and charred oak. To the south of these features lay the remains of an Early to...Hunter, Fraser
Moray, Carinated Bowl ware, Neolithic pits, Iron Age, and ring-ditch
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Journal article
The curious case of the Norrie's Law hoard fakes
Experts working at National Museums Scotland have uncovered a mysterious tale of stolen treasure and deception associated with two of the items in the Norrie's Law Pictish silver hoardGoldberg, D Martin
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Journal article
Oronsay's sculptural heritage
A team consisting of an archaeologist, David Caldwell, a scientist, Susy Kirk, and two geologists, Simon Howard and Nigel Ruckley, report on a project re-examining the medieval stone carvings at Oronsay Priory.Caldwell, David H ; Kirk, Susy ; Howard, Simon ; Ruckley, Nigel
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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
Portmahomack/Balintore
Sheridan, J A
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Journal article
Celtic arts
In September the British Museum opens a major exhibition about Celts, which moves to the National Museum of Scotland in March next year. Julia Farley and Fraser Hunter (who edited the accompanying book) and Martin Goldberg and Ian Leins outline the background to what promises to be a spectacular show,...Farley, Julia ; Hunter, Fraser ; Goldberg, D Martin ; Leins, Ian
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Journal article
Refining the chronology of the Neolithic settlement at Pool, Sanday, Orkney: implications for the emergence and development of grooved ware
New radiocarbon dates for the Neolithic settlement at Pool on Sanday, Orkney, are interpreted in a formal chronological framework. Phases 2.2 and 2.3, during which flat-based Grooved Ware pottery with incised decoration developed, have been modelled as probably dating to between the 31st and 28th centuries cal bc. There followed...MacSween, A ; Hunter, John ; Sheridan, J A ; Bond, Julie ; Bronk Ramsey, C …
radiocarbon dates, Grooved Ware, Orkney, Bayesian modelling, and Neolithic
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Journal article
The Society of Antiquaries of Scotland and their Museum: Scotland’s national collection and a national discourse
Founded in 1780, the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland began immediately to form a museum that has survived remarkably intact within the National Museums of Scotland. Their initiative marked a significant point in the evolution of material culture studies between the “cabinet of curiosities” of the Renaissance and the large...Cheape, Hugh
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Journal article
Appendix 5: the Sheep Hill oil shale and cannel coal jewellery: In E W MacKie, Excavations on Sheep Hill, West Dunbartonshire, 1966-69: a Late Bronze Age timber-framed dun and a small Iron Age hillfort
Excavations at Sheep Hill hillfort, West Dunbartonshire, took place at weekends between 1966 and 1969, with a small team of volunteers. The fort is sited on a volcanic plug of basalt with extensive views up and down the river Clyde. The finds are in the Hunterian Museum of the University...Mackie, Ewan ; Hunter, Fraser
vitrified fort, moulds, shale ornaments, cup-and-ring rock, and hillfort
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Journal article
Excavations on Sheep Hill, West Dunbartonshire, 1966-69: a Late Bronze Age timber-framed dun and a small Iron Age hillfort
Excavations at Sheep Hill hillfort, West Dunbartonshire, took place at weekends between 1966 and 1969, with a small team of volunteers. The fort is sited on a volcanic plug of basalt with extensive views up and down the river Clyde. The finds are in the Hunterian Museum of the University...Mackie, Ewan
vitrified fort, moulds, shale ornaments, cup-and-ring rock, and hillfort
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Journal article
A Boyne to Brodgar research framework
Note: this research framework, created by Alison Sheridan (National Museums Scotland) and Gabriel Cooney (University College Dublin), forms part of an article, ‘The Boyne to Brodgar initiative: understanding – and preserving, presenting and raising awareness of – Neolithic monuments and the people who built and used them in Ireland, Scotland...Sheridan, J A ; Cooney, Gabriel
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Journal article
Celts: an exploration through objects
Fraser Hunter and Martin Goldberg introduce a major new exhibition which brings together renowned Celtic art from across the continent for the first time in a generation.Hunter, Fraser ; Goldberg, D Martin
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Journal article
Treasure Trove Finds Day
Natasha Ferguson reports from a recent Treasure Trove Finds Day, where members of the public were invited to bring in historic items they have discovered.Ferguson, Natasha
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Journal article
How art treasures reveal the story of the Celts
A major exhibition at the National Museum of Scotland is seeking to unravel the complex story of the different groups who have been given the name Celts, through the extraordinary art objects they made and used.Hunter, Fraser ; Goldberg, D Martin
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Journal article
A Neolithic carved stone ball from Scotland, acquired by Sir John Lubbock (Lord Avebury), with comments on the Scottish connections of Lubbock and his collection
A previously unpublished Neolithic carved stone ball from Aberdeenshire, Scotland, is described. This intricately decorated object formed part of tht collection of Sir John Lubbock (Lord Avebury) and is now housed at the Bromley Museum, Orpington, Greater London. The intrinsic importance of this ball is discussed and its interest is...Saville, Alan
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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
‘Where the battle rages’: conflict in Post-Medieval archaeology
War and conflict has been well represented in Post-Medieval Archaeology over the last 50 years with a range of research exploring the archaeology of conflict in the modern world. The aim of this article is to review themes of war and conflict as presented in Post-Medieval Archaeology and to track...Ferguson, Natasha ; Scott, D
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Journal article
Archäologie ohne Aufgaben? Wie die Fortschritte naturwissenschaftlicher Verfahren die moderne archäologische Forschung an Funden beeinflussen und verändern: Scientific archaeology - to what end? How progress in the analytical methods of the natural sciences has influenced and changed modern archaeological research on finds
Modern research on archaeological artefacts has profited considerably from the use of analytical techniques from the natural sciences. Recent research has allowed us to reconstruct considerably more precise "biographies" of artefacts than was the case previously, as illustrated by several examples from the author's own current research. However, as is...Sheridan, J A
Archaeology, Natural Scientic Analysis Methods, and New Findings
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Journal article
The Boyne to Brodgar initiative: understanding—and preserving, presenting and raising awareness of—Neolithic monuments and the people who built and used them in Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man
This contribution introduces a new initiative, focusing on Neolithic monumentality in Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man, that aims to combine fresh research and fieldwork with a strategy to raise public awareness of the wealth and interconnectedness of the monuments in these areas. The background to the initiative -...Sheridan, J A ; Cooney, Gabriel
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Journal article
Settlement duration and materiality: formal chronological models for the development of Barnhouse, a Grooved Ware settlement in Orkney
Radiocarbon dating and Bayesian chronological modelling, undertaken as part of the investigation by the Times of Their Lives project into the development of Late Neolithic settlement and pottery in Orkney, has provided precise new dating for the Grooved Ware settlement of Barnhouse, excavated in 1985–91. Previous understandings of the site...Richards, C ; Jones, A M ; MacSween, A ; Sheridan, J A ; Dunbar, Elaine …
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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
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
The legacy of nineteenth-century replicas for object cultural biographies: lessons in duplication from 1830s Fife
The St Andrews Sarcophagus and Norrie's Law hoard are two of the most important surviving Pictish relics from early medieval Scotland. The entanglement of their later biographies is also of international significance in its own right. Soon after discovery in nineteenth-century Fife, both sets of objects were subject, in 1839,...Foster, Sally M ; Blackwell, Alice ; Goldberg, D Martin
facsimiles, early photography, Norrie's Law hoard, St Andrews Sarcophagus, entanglement, and plaster casts
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Journal article
Beaker people in Britain: migration, mobility and diet
The appearance of the distinctive ‘Beaker package’ marks an important horizon in British prehistory, but was it associated with immigrants to Britain or with indigenous converts? Analysis of the skeletal remains of 264 individuals from the British Chalcolithic–Early Bronze Age is revealing new information about the diet, migration and mobility...Pearson, Mike Parker ; Chamberlain, A ; Jay, Mandy ; Richards, Mike ; Sheridan, J A …
Beaker, Britain, Bayesian analysis, mobility, diet, Bronze Age, migration, isotope analysis, and osteology
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Journal article
Gifts to the Gods? Bronze Age weapons from Coll
Cowie, Trevor
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Journal article
The land before symbol stones
Gondek, Meggen ; Noble, Gordon
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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
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
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
Seventh century or seventeenth century?
Blackwell, Alice ; Kirk, Susy
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Journal article
Gods and monsters in Roman Scotland
Hunter, Fraser
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Journal article
Cathcart Castle, Glasgow – Excavations 1980–81
Excavations on the site of the tower-house at Cathcart, demolished in 1980, produced evidence for the construction of the tower and associated barmkin, dated to the mid 15th century. No earlier structural remains were found but residual pottery suggests that the site was occupied prior to the construction of the...Kerr, Brian
Cathcart, Towerhouse, Plasterwork, Castle, and Barmkin
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Journal article
Mithras in Scotland: a Mithraeum at Inveresk (East Lothian)
Excavations to the east of the Roman fort of Inveresk in 2010 partly uncovered remains of a Mithraeum — the first from Scotland and the earliest securely dated example from Britain. A large rectangular sunken feature with lateral benches contained two altars buried face down at its north-western end. One...Hunter, Fraser ; Henig, Martin ; Sauer, Eberhard ; Gooder, John
Apollo Citharodeous, Mithras, Inveresk, pigments, Sol, plectrum, lyre, and Mithraeum
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Journal article
Tracing troops: an Upper German belt-fitting from Roman Scotland
A silver belt-fitting from Cramond in the shape of a ring-pommel sword is linked to a class of beneficiarius equipment typical of Germania Superior. It is argued that this represents troop movements connected with the Severan campaigns.Hunter, Fraser
beneficiarius, ring-pommel, military belt-fitting, Germania Superior, Roman military equipment, silver, and Cramond