How the ancient Picts were the kings of the hill...
SCOTLAND is awash with ancient ruins and artefacts, but experts at Aberdeen University have found a settlement that may also have been a continental powerhouse.
An archeological survey of a site perched high on the Tap O’ Noth fort near Rhynie, Aberdeenshire, suggests nearly 4,000 people may have lived there in more than 800 huts – big enough to have rivalled the largest known post-Roman settlements in Europe.
Carbon dating traced the town as far back as the third century AD.
Research leader Professor Gordon Noble said: ‘It is mindblowing and demonstrates just how much we still have to learn about settlement around the time that the early kingdoms of Pictland were being consolidated.’
Who knew a hill in Rhynie was once a global metropolis?