Gordon Noble's analysis follows the Neolithic period in Scotland from around 4000 BC to the transformation of Neolithic society in the Early Bronze Age fifteen hundred years later. Synthesizing ...research from the past century, Noble suggests new directions for the interpretation of this elusive period.
The Neolithic period is one of the great transformations in human history - when agriculture first began and dramatic changes occurred in human society. These changes occurred in environments that ...were radically different to those that exist today, and in northern Europe many landscapes would have been dominated by woodland. Yet wood and woodland rarely figures in the minds of many archaeologists, and it plays no part in the traditional Three Age system that has defined the frameworks of European prehistory. This book explores how human-environment relations altered with the beginnings of farming, and how the Neolithic in northern Europe was made possible through new ways of living in and understanding the environment. Drawing on a broad range of evidence, from pollen data and stone axes to the remains of timber monuments and settlements, the book analyzes the relationship between people, their material culture, and their woodland environment.
There are longstanding questions about the origins and ancestry of the Picts of early medieval Scotland (ca. 300-900 CE), prompted in part by exotic medieval origin myths, their enigmatic symbols and ...inscriptions, and the meagre textual evidence. The Picts, first mentioned in the late 3rd century CE resisted the Romans and went on to form a powerful kingdom that ruled over a large territory in northern Britain. In the 9th and 10th centuries Gaelic language, culture and identity became dominant, transforming the Pictish realm into Alba, the precursor to the medieval kingdom of Scotland. To date, no comprehensive analysis of Pictish genomes has been published, and questions about their biological relationships to other cultural groups living in Britain remain unanswered. Here we present two high-quality Pictish genomes (2.4 and 16.5X coverage) from central and northern Scotland dated from the 5th-7th century which we impute and co-analyse with >8,300 previously published ancient and modern genomes. Using allele frequency and haplotype-based approaches, we can firmly place the genomes within the Iron Age gene pool in Britain and demonstrate regional biological affinity. We also demonstrate the presence of population structure within Pictish groups, with Orcadian Picts being genetically distinct from their mainland contemporaries. When investigating Identity-By-Descent (IBD) with present-day genomes, we observe broad affinities between the mainland Pictish genomes and the present-day people living in western Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and Northumbria, but less with the rest of England, the Orkney islands and eastern Scotland-where the political centres of Pictland were located. The pre-Viking Age Orcadian Picts evidence a high degree of IBD sharing across modern Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, and the Orkney islands, demonstrating substantial genetic continuity in Orkney for the last ~2,000 years. Analysis of mitochondrial DNA diversity at the Pictish cemetery of Lundin Links (n = 7) reveals absence of direct common female ancestors, with implications for broader social organisation. Overall, our study provides novel insights into the genetic affinities and population structure of the Picts and direct relationships between ancient and present-day groups of the UK.
This is an account of the Neolithic period in Scotland from its earliest traces around 4000 BC to the transformation of Neolithic society in the Early Bronze Age fifteen hundred years later.
•Microbotanical and micro-algae residues confirm early medieval turf walled structure.•Phytoliths reveal cereal cultivation at a Pictish fort.•Phytoliths and micro-algae provide important evidence ...for Pictish landscape use.•Microbotanical residues present where other organic remains are scarce.
Early medieval architecture is notably difficult to trace in northern Britain. The fortuitous survival of an intact floor of a building located just outside a ringfort at Cairnmore, a high-status early medieval ringfort enclosure in Aberdeenshire, Northeast Scotland, allowed the targeted deployment of a paleoethnobotanical approach that utilized microbotanical (i.e., phytoliths) and micro-algae residues (e.g., diatom frustules) to illuminate the character of the unusual survival of an early medieval building in Scotland. This research revealed novel data on the architecture of the early medieval roundhouse floor in this poorly documented region and era for settlement remains, securely identifying the use of turf for walling in an early medieval lowland building. Evidence for roofing material was also preserved in the phytolith signature. Moreover, the microbotanical assemblage from Cairnmore was found to represent a use of a variety of ecological niches providing important evidence for landscape use. The presence (and absence) of particular microbotanical indicators also allowed interpretation of the possible uses of the structure. The results from this research demonstrate that microbotanical approaches can be critical in understanding architecture in regions where settlement survival is poor, highlighting the merits of microbotanical and micro-algae analyses in northern environments. The article concludes by advocating for the in-tandem assessment of these proxies in archaeological investigations where macrobotanical and other organic residues are poorly preserved.
Excavated by Leslie Alcock in the 1950s, the inland promontory fort of Dinas Powys is widely cited as a type site for elite settlements of post-Roman western Britain. Alcock's interpretation and ...dating of the main defences as a Norman-period castle were effectively disproven in the 1990s, but the excavator's original chronology continues to be cited. Here, the authors present a revised chronology, integrating new radiocarbon dates and stratigraphic analysis to re-evaluate the history of occupation. The new phasing redates the main defences to the early medieval period, which aligns with the site's notable early medieval assemblage. The findings contribute to understanding of post-Roman western Britain and the (re)occupation of late antique hilltop sites more generally.
THE EMERGENCE OF FORMAL CEMETERIES is one of the most significant transformations in the landscapes of 1st millennium ad Scotland. In eastern and northern Scotland, in the lands of the Picts, square ...and circular burial monuments were constructed to commemorate a small proportion of the population - perhaps a newly emerging elite in the post-Roman centuries. This paper presents the results of a project that has consolidated and reviewed the evidence for monumental cemeteries of the northern Picts from Aberdeenshire to Inverness-shire, transcribing the aerial evidence of many sites for the first time. In addition, the landscape location of the cemeteries is assessed, along with their relation to Pictish symbol stones, fortified sites and settlement landscapes of the 1st millennium ad. Two particular elements of the burial architecture of northern Pictland are highlighted - barrow enlargement, and the linking of barrows through the sharing of barrow/cairn ditches. Both of these practices are suggested here to be implicated in the creation of genealogies of the living and the dead during an important transitional period in northern Europe when hereditary aristocracies became more prominent.
Summary
This article presents major discoveries from a new campaign of large‐scale multi‐method geophysical surveying, focused on Navan Fort and its environs. Alongside a re‐appraisal of excavated ...evidence, it offers a new model for the evolution of Navan. The large earthwork now known as Navan Fort sits alongside other iconic monuments such as Tara, Rathcroghan, Knockaulin and Cashel as one of Ireland’s so‐called provincial centres. Historical texts imply that these Iron Age complexes became enduring symbols of power for early medieval societies, and royal centres for overkings. These references, alongside the incredible scale of these landscapes, have encouraged intensive research, but only recently has non‐invasive survey begun adding new data and facilitating new interpretations. Prior to the present study, discussion of Navan Fort was limited to the results of small‐scale but iconic excavations. These new discoveries significantly change understandings, adding spectacular new monumental phases, and facilitating re‐assessment of Navan’s role within both later prehistoric and medieval society, as well as of the nature of ceremonial landscapes and their role in developing sacral kingship in northern Europe.
Paleogenomic and archaeological studies show that Neolithic lifeways spread from the Fertile Crescent into Europe around 9000 BCE, reaching northwestern Europe by 4000 BCE. Starting around 4500 BCE, ...a new phenomenon of constructing megalithic monuments, particularly for funerary practices, emerged along the Atlantic façade. While it has been suggested that the emergence of megaliths was associated with the territories of farming communities, the origin and social structure of the groups that erected them has remained largely unknown. We generated genome sequence data from human remains, corresponding to 24 individuals from five megalithic burial sites, encompassing the wide-spread tradition of megalithic construction in northern and western Europe, and analyzed our results in relation to the existing European paleogenomic data. The various individuals buried in megaliths show genetic affinities with local farming groups within their different chronological contexts. Individuals buried in megaliths display (past) admixture with local hunter-gatherers, similar to that seen in other Neolithic individuals in Europe. In relation to the tomb populations, we find significantly more males than females buried in the megaliths of the British Isles. The genetic data show close kin relationships among the individuals buried within the megaliths, and for the Irish megaliths, we found a kin relation between individuals buried in different megaliths. We also see paternal continuity through time, including the same Y-chromosome haplotypes reoccurring. These observations suggest that the investigated funerary monuments were associated with patrilineal kindred groups. Our genomic investigation provides insight into the people associated with this long-standing megalith funerary tradition, including their social dynamics.
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