Britain in archaeology

A hillfort on the Tap o’ Noth, Aberdeenshire, is the largest in early medieval Britain: its 16.75 hectares is three times the size of the nearest Scottish contender at Burghead, and more than twice that of Tintagel and Cadbury Castle in southern England. A lidar survey revealed 800 house platforms. If all were lived in at once – they do not overlap – they might have housed 4,000 people. The discovery, Gordon Noble of the University of Aberdeen told British Archaeology, is “truly mind blowing”.

Archaeologists had earlier researched the site of the Rhynie Man stone in the valley below (feature Sep/Oct 2011/120). In 2017 they started work on the Tap o’ Noth, showing that a small vitrified stone fort was Iron Age (400–100bc). The much longer but slighter ramparts lower down were assumed to be that or Bronze Age, but after excavation last year, radiocarbon dates obtained in March placed them and the house platforms between the third and sixth centuries ad.

Large-scale isotopic analysis of skeletons excavated at Portmahomack on Tarbat Ness, Easter Ross (feature Mar/Apr 2017/153) rumbled a Pictish monk who enjoyed fish while his colleagues survived on meat and vegetable soup. Shirley Curtis-Summers, who led the research from the University of Bradford, said the man may have had privileged rights as head of the monastery ( ad700– 1100). An earlier Pictish lay community (550–700) eschewed both marine and freshwater fish, despite its familiarity with the sea. Pictish carvings feature salmon, said Curtis-Summers, which was an important symbol of wisdom; consumption may have been deliberately avoided. The locals turned to fish after a Viking raid around ad800. The study is in Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports.

Archaeologists investigating the site of a former Tetley’s Brewery in Leeds found a stash of over 600 bottles piled on what would have been the cellar stairs of the Scarborough Castle Inn. Analysis showed the contents not to be ginger beer, as had been suspected, but alcoholic beer, with what would now be deemed a highly unhealthy level of lead. David Williams, senior project manager at Archaeological Services wyas, said the drink, thought to have been brewed in the 1880s, was probably contaminated by lead pipes.

An experimental study of bronze swords, which included “rigorous field tests carried out by experienced fencers” in full body protection, has concluded that Bronze Age

fighters deliberately sought contact with their foes’ swords, “to stifle and control them”. Drawn from combat tests with replica swords and analysis of wear marks on prehistoric blades from the uk and Italy, the conclusion is at odds with academic theories that such contact would have been avoided for fear of damaging the weapons, and that swords might even have been made largely for ceremonial use. The study was led by Raphael Hermann, now at the University of Göttingen, Germany, when he was a research student at Newcastle University, and is published in Journal of Archaeological Method & Theory.

Study of human bones excavated in Exeter some 15 years ago has revealed that arrows fired from medieval longbows could pass through the skull with effects “not incomparable to modern gunshot wounds”. Evidence for weapon trauma in medieval burials is unusual, say a team of archaeologists from the University of Exeter writing in The Antiquaries Journal, and is found mainly in battle contexts. The remains they studied came from a 13th-century Dominican friary. The results, they say, “have profound implications for our understanding of the power of the medieval longbow and for our knowledge of how common violent death and injury were in the medieval past.”