Your opportunity to help dig up Perthshire’s past

ArchAeology: Iron Age hill fort is home to hidden treasures

A chance to help unlock the secrets of a mysterious Perthshire hill fort and to piece together the lives of the people who lived there is on offer.

A team of staff and volunteers from the Tay Landscape Partnership (TayLP) will be helping unearth an impressive prehistoric site as part of archaeological dig in September.

The Iron Age Moredun Top hill fort on the outskirts of the city on Moncreiffe Hill was an important power centre and was likely to have been occupied for hundreds of years.

This year the team will be excavating the interiors to find out what the hill fort was used for.

Volunteers are a key part of this dig and last year more than 60 helped uncover the hill fort walls and a possible broch – a fortified house – and found items such as a gaming piece, a bead and pieces of a bracelet.

TayLP is now looking for more people to get involved in the latest excavation. an No experience is necessary as training is provided.

Dig volunteer Sally Rose said: “I have been to the top of Moredun countless times but this experience really brought the area to life and gave me a much better understanding of how it has evolved.”

The hill fort was occupied over several periods of time. There are remains of at least two forts of late Iron Age, as well as traces of other buildings.

Volunteers aged 16 plus with reasonable fitness are being sought.

For details see taylp.org/diggin-it or contact Lindsey Gibb, volunteer coordinator on 01738 477086 or lindsey. gibb@pkht.org.uk

Volunteers at work on the Mordun Top hill fort by Perth and one of the discoveries, a sandstone bead.