Archaeology efforts at Ross-shire and Sutherland sites in the running for top awards
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ARCHAEOLOGICAL digs which helped to bring fascinating chapters of Highland history to life have been nominated for national awards in recognition of their success.
Two projects - Tarradale Through Time's work at key Black Isle sites, and Historic Assynt's dig in Sutherland's ancient Clachtoll Broch - have both been nominated in widely-read Current Archaeology magazine's annual awards.
Tarradale Through Time's investigations of different sites covering several thousand years of history in the Muir of Ord area have seen it nominated for Archaeological Research Project of the Year.
While Historic Assynt's Clachtoll Broch Project, which excavated an unstable broch ruin directly above the shore north of Clachtoll, is in the running for Archaeological Rescue Project of the Year.
Tarradale Through Time has investigated several very different sites. Coastal sites identified from shellfish remains gathered for food by hunters and gatherers 6000 to 8000 years ago have yielded two antler axes and a harpoon as well as the possible outline of a tent or shelter, while the excavation of a Pictish barrow cemetery in 2019 uncovered one of the largest and most important Pictish burial sites in the Highlands.
Although the mounds that were raised over the graves have now been ploughed away, archaeologists from the North of Scotland Archaeological Society, working with the local community, were able to identify the remains of the ditches that enclosed the graves as well as uncovering the skeletal remains of what was almost certainly a Pictish person of considerable importance.
Volunteers working with Historic Assynt and AOC Archaeology spent several years excavating, consolidating and conserving the massive stone remains of Clachtoll broch which is located right on the edge of the sea, six miles north of Lochinver. After hundreds of tonnes of rubble had been removed from the interior of the tower-like broch, the archaeologists discovered an amazing scene.
Evidence of a massive fire 2000 years ago had forced the Iron Age inhabitants of Clachtoll broch to flee, leaving hard-won food and everyday tools behind as their home burned down around them.
The wreckage of this destruction, undisturbed until the present, sealed a vivid time capsule of their lives, including the remains of cattle, deer, sheep or goats and marine mammals as well as masses of barley burnt in situ and an extensive collection of ceramic, stone and iron objects such as reaping hooks, a substantial sickle or scythe and several axes and blades.
Eric Grant, project leader for Tarrdale Through Time, and Gordon Sleight, project leader for Historic Assynt, were delighted that their projects had been nominated for awards,
They said: "These nominations are not only in recognition of the importance of these sites to an understanding of people living in the Highlands in the past, but are recognition of the tremendous amount of time and effort that community and other volunteers have invested in these projects today."
Anyone can read more about and vote online for these projects by visiting the awards section of the Current Archaeology website at www.archaeology.co.uk/vote. Voting ends on February 8.
