Carnoustie dig uncovers huge timber building older than Stonehenge

The Herald Scotland

6 days ago

The discovery was made during archaeological excavations by GUARD archaeology commissioned by Angus Council, before the construction of new football pitches near Carnoustie High School.
Archaeologists have been scrutinising their findings after the site was uncovered when digging work began in 2017.
They have now concluded it was once home to a huge structure which would have been 'alien', in terms of design and complexity, to the people who came before and is unique to the time period in Scotland.
Dating to 4,000BC, the hall was built in a woodland clearing and would have been an imposing structure, its walls made of thick panels and its roof supported by huge beams.
There are suggestions it was used for ancient rituals – with buried tool 'offerings' found inside its walls – and the hall was kept in use for hundreds of years.
Some of the stone axe head 'offerings' found at the site (Image: Guard Archaeology) And even after it succumbed to the elements, the site was used by people – though they were building on a smaller and less grandiose scale.
Alan Hunter Blair, who directed the fieldwork said: 'The Carnoustie excavation produced exceptional results, the traces of the largest early Neolithic timber hall ever discovered in Scotland, dating from near 4000 BC.
'Its walls were wattle and daub panels supported by posts that were partly protected by its over-hanging roof. And its internal space was sub-divided by more postholes and narrow channels.'
Beverley Ballin Smith, one of the co-authors of a report into the excavation, said: 'This monumental timber hall, completely alien to the culture and landscape of the preceding Mesolithic era, was erected by one of the very first groups of farmers to colonise Scotland, in a clearing within the remains of natural woodland.
'It was fully formed, architecturally sophisticated, large, complex and required skills of design, planning, execution and carpentry.'
Unlike other Neolithic halls in Scotland, which were all discrete solitary structures within the virgin farmland of early Neolithic Scotland, the large Carnoustie Hall was accompanied by another building.
This was still a substantial structure almost 20m long and over 8m wide, but while GUARD's excavation of the smaller hall revealed a large hearth with charred cereal grains and hazel nutshells consistent with a domestic function, the excavation of the larger hall indicates it was used for a different purpose.
Stone artefacts appear to have been deliberately buried inside its walls, offering tantalising traces of the beliefs and rituals of the community that built and used it.
Beverley Ballin Smith said: 'The Carnoustie halls, elevated and prominent in the landscape, were probably close to routeways where people may have congregated naturally at various seasons of the year.
'The availability of hazel nuts in autumn is a strong indicator that that season was an important one for meeting, feasting and celebrating. The Carnoustie timber halls may have been a focal point, their significance great enough to attract people from a much wider area.
'We know from the materials found in the Carnoustie buildings that some artefacts came from distant places and represent deliberate deposition, such as fragments of Arran pitchstone, an axe of garnet-albite-schist and a piece of smoky quartz from the Highlands, while other materials were found more locally such as agate, quartz and chalcedony. '
The dig uncovered evidence of a massive structure (Image: Guard Archaeology) After about 200 years use, it is thought both halls were dismantled and a smaller hall was built within the footprint of the larger hall, around 3800-3700 BC.
But this building also continued to receive deliberate deposits of stone tools until about 3600 BC.
The site continued to be revisited with evidence of people camping and gathering outside where the buildings once stood, carrying on the seasonal round of activities until around 2500 BC.
However, this was not the only prehistoric secret that the Carnoustie excavations unearthed.
'A rare and well-preserved metalwork hoard of a sword within its wooden scabbard, a spearhead with a gold decorative band around its socket and a bronze sunflower-headed swan's neck pin were found wrapped in the remains of woollen cloth and sheep-skin,' said Alan Hunter Blair.
'This small hoard had been deliberately buried in a pit within the midst of a late Bronze Age settlement sometime between 1118 - 924 BC.'
Around 1400 BC, during the Bronze Age, people returned to this same site at Carnoustie, probably oblivious to its significance to earlier Neolithic communities.
A settlement was established, comprising a single roundhouse, much smaller than the previous Neolithic halls, and replaced three or more times over the following centuries until around 800 BC.
The best preserved of the Bronze Age roundhouses was positioned over part of the foundations of the large Neolithic timber hall.
Near this building, the hoard of precious weapons and jewellery was deliberately buried.
The Bronze Age sword found at Carnoustie (Image: Guard Archaeology) Co-author Warren Bailie said: 'The metallurgical and lead isotope studies suggest that all the bronze objects were probably made in Scotland, but from metal imported from further south, eastern England for the bronze and, perhaps the Irish Sea area for the gold.
'If any object was a direct import, it would be the sunflower pin. The sword was a viable weapon that from the pattern of notches and rebound marks along its blades had probably seen some use in combat, but there was weakness in the core of the spearhead that would have made it vulnerable in use. '
'And while the metalwork in the Carnoustie Hoard was impressive enough, the associated organic remains are exceptional.The remarkable preservation of the wooden scabbard, woollen cloth and sheepskin was down to the anti-microbial properties of copper, which all of these items were in contact with.'
'This rich hoard of metalwork, together with a shale bangle found in the roundhouse indicate that while the settlement was otherwise very modest and unassuming, its occupants were wealthy and had some status in the wider community, ' added Beverley Ballin Smith.
'Hoards such as this are rare, but a similar hoard of bronze swords and another gold decorated spearhead found in the 1960s just north of Dundee indicates a shared cultural practice amongst late Bronze Age households for burying wealth such as this for safekeeping.
'The reason as to why they never came back to recover these prized belongings, however, has been lost to the passage of time.'
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The team discovered that the last occupant of the Carnoustie site was a small field mouse - investigation of the contents of the spearhead's socket revealed a considerable amount of fresh-looking grass stems stained by the copper, suggesting that a very small rodent (such as a field mouse) had set up house during the fairly recent past in the socket itself.
The archaeological work was funded by Angus Council and was required as a condition of planning consent by Angus Council who are advised on archaeological matters by the Aberdeenshire Council Archaeology Service.
Kathryn Lindsay, Chief Executive Angus Council, said that no-one could have imagined what lay under the ground when work began.
She said: 'When Angus Council approved the development of two outdoor football pitches on land at Balmachie Road in Carnoustie, no one imagined the process would reveal one of the most remarkable and internationally significant archaeological discoveries in Scotland.
'Many current residents in the area may not have imagined life during this period of history, right on their doorstep.