See the face of ‘Ava,’ a Bronze Age woman who lived in Scotland 3,800 years ago

In 1987, Scottish workers accidentally unearthed the burial of a Bronze Age woman during a road construction project.

The stone, coffin-like tomb, called a cist, contained the woman’s skeletal remains alongside grave goods, including a short-necked pottery beaker, a cow bone fragment, and small pieces of flint.

The burial in Achavanich, in northern Scotland, came to be known as the Achavanich Beaker Burial. However, not much was known about the woman, whom archaeologists nicknamed “Ava,” other than what they determined through anthropological analysis.

She was between 18 and 25 years old when she died, and based on measurements of her tibia (shinbone), she was tall, standing approximately 5 feet, 7 inches (1.71 meters), according to a study published online on June 22. 

Based on her grave goods, it’s possible that Ava was part of the Bronze Age “Bell Beaker” culture, which was common in Europe during this time period and known for its distinctively round pottery drinking vessels.

Now, a new image offers a glimpse of what this mystery woman might have looked like.

To make the three-dimensional facial approximation, researchers used existing computed tomography (CT) scans of Ava’s roughly 3,800-year-old skull.

However, since the cranium was missing a mandible, or lower jaw, the team used data culled from CT scans of living donor individuals to piece together the final image, according to the study.

“Thanks to anatomical, statistical and logical data, it was possible to reconstruct” her face even without the mandible, study author Cícero Moraes, a Brazilian graphics expert, told Live Science in an email. “I then set out to trace the profile of the face, which we do through a combination of soft tissue thickness markers, which inform the limits of the skin,” he explained.

From there, the team performed an “anatomical deformation” of the virtual donor “that is adjusted until the donor’s skull converts to the skull of Ava,” Moraes said, “causing the skin to follow the deformation, resulting in a face compatible with the approximated individual.”

A 2016 analysis of Ava’s likeness showed her with light skin, blond hair, and blue eyes. But a separate facial approximation of Ava in 2018 analyzed her DNA and determined that she most likely had brown eyes and black hair and that “her skin [was] slightly darker than today’s Scots’,” the researchers wrote in the new study.

The researchers speculated, based on her height and facial features, that she may have been considered imposing during that time period.

Archaeologists find a 5,000-year-old piece of wood in Orkney, which they describe as “astonishing”

Archaeologists continue to make surprising discoveries in Orkney. Although organic materials are quite difficult to find, archaeologists have found a 5,000-year-old piece of wood in Orkney.

Archaeologists discovered the wood while excavating the Ness of Brodgar, which was home to a huge network of Neolithic structures, including a temple-style complex.

That the “astonishing new finding” of the wood was found at the site’s “Structure 12,” a huge rectangular building around 17 meters long.

The inside of the structure was split up by pillars to form a succession of bays, alcoves, and recesses around two huge hearths.

Sigurd Towrie, of the University of the Highlands and the Archaeological Institute of the Islands, told The Scotsman that wood was discovered in this area for the first time.

Mr. Towrie said: “Over the years of excavation the Ness has produced so many surprises that some archaeologists thought we had exhausted all the possibilities. Not so.”

Mr. Towrie said the wood was found in a post hole and had survived probably due to its preservation under a tiny amount of water.

“Preservation of organic material is very rare. The post hole sat in a depression and we think some water had gathered. It creates anaerobic conditions, which slows down decay,” he said.

While few trees remain on Orkney now, the islands were formerly densely forested, which has since vanished owing to increasing sea levels.

Recent research on the “woodlands beneath the waves” includes an examination of the remnants of a forest that had been driven under the ocean in the Bay of Ireland near Stromness and has been dated to be about 6,000 years old.

“The earliest Neolithic settlements were made of wood and then they later switched to stone,” Mr. Towrie said.

Although the wood found is in very poor condition, researchers hope to find answers to questions such as whether it is domestic or imported, and what type of wood is it.

The Ness of Brodgar location, located between the Ring of Brodgar and the Stones of Stenness in the Heart of Neolithic Orkney World Heritage Site, is approximately six acres in size.

The first structures were erected on the site in approximately 3300 BC, and the site was closed down and abandoned after around 1,000 years.

Earlier this year, a potter’s fingerprint was discovered on a vessel made some 5,000 years ago, creating a “poignant connection” to the people who lived and visited here.

Small Fort Found in Scotland on Rome’s Antonine Wall

The remains of a Roman fortlet have been discovered in West Dunbartonshire.

New technology has enabled the archaeology team at Historic Environment Scotland (HES) to uncover the structure after attempts to find it failed in the 1970s and 1980s.

The fortlet once stood next to the Antonine Wall.

Its buried remains have now been uncovered in a field close to Carleith Primary School in Duntocher, Clydebank.

HES announced the breakthrough on World Heritage Day, the international celebration of cultural heritage.

The Antonine Wall was the frontier that the Romans constructed across central Scotland, and is one of Scotland’s six Unesco World Heritage Sites.

Details of the fortlet were thought lost for hundreds of years.

It was referenced in 1707 by antiquarian Robert Sibbald, who wrote that he had seen a fortlet in the area around Carleith Farm. Excavation teams looked for it decades ago, but the exact location remained unknown.

After employing gradiometry, a geophysical surveying technique which looks under the soil without the need for excavation, the discovery was made.

The technique measures small changes in the earth’s magnetic field to detect archaeological features otherwise invisible from the ground surface.

It allowed archaeologists to identify the stone base of the fortlet, which remains buried underground. On top of this base, turf would have been laid to build a rampart about 2m high.

This fortlet would have been part of several along the Antonine Wall.

In its prime, it would have been occupied by 10 to 12 Roman soldiers who were stationed at a larger fort nearby, likely to be Duntocher. They would have manned the fort for a week at a time before being replaced by another detachment.

The fortlet would have been made up of two small wooden buildings to house the soldiers staying there and will have been used for the 20 years (AD142 – AD162) that the Antonine Wall was defended as the northernmost frontier of the Roman Empire.

‘Detective work’

Commenting on the discovery, Riona McMorrow, deputy head of world heritage at HES, said: “It is great to see how our knowledge of history is growing as new methods give us fresh insights into the past.

“Archaeology is often partly detective work, and the discovery at Carleith is a nice example of how an observation made 300 years ago and new technology can come together to add to our understanding.”

This discovery has led to HES reviewing the site’s designation to ensure the fortlet is recognized and protected as part of the Antonine Wall.

The geophysical survey will also help to better understand and protect the wall.

While up to 41 fortlets may have lined the wall when it was built, only nine have previously been found.

HES said the discovery marks the tenth known fortlet and shows that there is still more to be discovered about the Roman monument and its functions.

Tartan Recovered From Scottish Bog Dated to the 16th Century

A scrap of fabric found in a Highland peat bog 40 years ago is likely to be the oldest tartan ever discovered in Scotland, new tests have established.

The fabric is believed to have been created in about the 16th Century, making it more than 400 years old. It was found in a Glen Affric peat bog, in the Highlands, in the early 1980s.

The Scottish Tartans Authority (STA) commissioned dye analysis and radiocarbon testing of the textile to prove its age. Using high-resolution digital microscopy, four initial colours of green, brown and possibly red and yellow were identified.

The dye analysis confirmed the use of indigo or woad in the green but was inconclusive for the other colours, probably due to the dyestuff having degraded.

No artificial or semi-synthetic dyestuffs were involved in the making of the tartan, leading researchers to believe it predates the 1750s.

Experts have said the tartan was more than likely worn as an “outdoor working garment” and would not have been worn by royalty.

The STA said the textile was created somewhere between 1500 and 1655, but the period of 1500 to 1600 was most probable.

This makes it the oldest known piece of true tartan discovered in Scotland.

Peter MacDonald, head of research and collections at the STA, said the testing process took nearly six months but that the organisation was “thrilled with the results”.

“In Scotland, surviving examples of old textiles are rare as the soil is not conducive to their survival,” he added.

“The piece was buried in peat, meaning it had no exposure to air and it was therefore preserved.”

He said that because the tartan contains several colours, with multiple stripes, it corresponds to what would be considered a true tartan.

Mr MacDonald said: “Although we can theorise about the Glen Affric tartan, it’s important that we don’t construct history around it.

“Although Clan Chisholm controlled that area, we cannot attribute the tartan to them as we don’t know who owned it.”

Historical significance

He also said that the potential presence of red, a colour that Gaels consider a status symbol, is interesting because the cloth had a rustic background.

“This piece is not something you would associate with a king or someone of high status, it is more likely to be an outdoor working garment,” he added.

John McLeish, chair of the STA, said the tartan’s “historical significance” likely dates to the reigns of King James V, Mary Queen of Scots or King James VI/I – between 1513 and 1625.

Due to where it was found, the piece of fabric has been named the Glen Affric tartan and measures about 55cm by 43cm (approximately 22 by 17 inches).

It will go on public display at the V&A Dundee design museum from 1 April until 14 January next year.

James Wylie, the curator at V&A Dundee, said: “We knew the Scottish Tartans Authority had a tremendous archive of material and we initially approached them to ask if them if they knew of any examples of ‘proto-tartans’ that could be loaned to the exhibition.

“I’m delighted the exhibition has encouraged further exploration into this plaid portion and very thankful for the Scottish Tartans Authority’s backing and support for uncovering such a historic find.”

He added that it was “immensely important” to be able to exhibit the Glen Affric tartan and said he was sure visitors would appreciate seeing the textile on public display for the first time.

Do the Great Apes Share a Common Language?

Humans share elements of a common language with other apes, understanding many of the gestures that wild chimps and bonobos use to communicate.

That is the conclusion of a video-based study in which volunteers translated ape gestures.

It was carried out by researchers at St Andrew’s University.

It suggests the last common ancestor we shared with chimps used similar gestures, and that these may have been a “starting point” for our language.

The findings are published in the scientific journal PLOS Biology.

Lead researcher, Dr Kirsty Graham from St Andrews University explained that this gesture-based way of communicating is shared by other species of great apes, including gorillas and orangutans.

“Human infants use some of these same gestures, too,” she told BBC News.

“So we already had a suspicion that this was a shared gesturing ability that might have been present in our last shared ancestor.

“We’re quite confident now that our ancestors would have started off gesturing, and that this was co-opted into [our] language.”

This study was part of an ongoing scientific mission to understand this language origin story by carefully studying communication in our closest ape cousins.

This team of researchers has spent many years observing wild chimpanzees. They previously discovered that the great apes use a whole “lexicon” of more than 80 gestures, each conveying a message to another member of their group.

Messages like “groom me” are communicated with a long scratching motion; a mouth stroke means “give me that food” and tearing strips from a leaf with teeth is a chimpanzee gesture of flirtation.

Translating apes

Scientists used video playback experiments, because the approach has traditionally been used to test language comprehension in non-human primates. In this study, they turned the approach on its head to assess humans’ abilities to understand the gestures of their closest living ape relatives.

Volunteers watched videos of the chimps and bonobos gesturing, then selected from a multiple choice list of translations.

The participants performed significantly better than expected by chance, correctly interpreting the meaning of chimpanzee and bonobo gestures over 50% of the time.

“We were really surprised by the results,” said Dr Catherine Hobaiter from St Andrews University. “It turns out we can all do it almost instinctively, which is both fascinating from an evolution of communication perspective and really quite annoying as a scientist who spent years training how to do it,” she joked.

The gestures people can innately understand may form part of what Dr Graham described as “an evolutionarily ancient, shared gesture vocabulary across all great ape species including us”.

Neolithic Grinding Stone Found in Scotland

A place where people with an axe to grind gathered 4,500 years ago has been uncovered by archaeologists and volunteers.

An area of abrasive sandstone close to Balfron, near Stirling, has been found to have been used like a giant whetstone by Neolithic toolmakers to polish stone axes.

Over the summer, 33 U-shaped grooves called polissoirs were recorded.

The location represents Scotland’s largest concentration of Neolithic axe grind points, and one of only two known Scottish polissoir sites.

Experts believe people may have travelled for miles to smooth or sharpen axes at the sites.

Scotland’s Rock Art Project volunteer Nick Parish and Stirling Council archaeologist Dr Murray Cook were among those who stripped turf from the sandstone and recorded the polissoirs at Balfron.

The finds have been listed among archaeological highlights from this year by the Dig It! project, external.

Hoard of Medieval Silver Coins Discovered in Scotland

Metal detectorists have unearthed what may be one of the largest hoards of coins ever discovered in Scotland, in a field in the southwest of the country. The hoard is made up of more than 8,400 silver coins that date from the medieval period, mostly from the 13th and 14th centuries.

Ken McNab, a spokesman for the Scottish government, told Live Science that many of the coins are “Edwardian pennies” named after King Edward I, who reigned in England from 1272 to 1307.

Finding any coins in Scotland is rare, and this hoard is especially large. “This is the biggest medieval coin hoard found in Scotland since the 19th century,” McNab told Live Science in an email. 

The metal detectorists unearthed the coins last year in a field near the village of Dunscore, in the Dumfries and Galloway region about 50 miles (80 kilometers) southeast of Glasgow, and reported the hoard to the Treasure Trove Unit of National Museums Scotland, which oversees such finds.

McNab said the site was then investigated by archaeologists from National Museums Scotland, and each coin would now be identified, weighed, measured, and photographed — a lengthy process. 

Medieval kingdom

Scotland and England were independent kingdoms in the medieval period and often fought each other for control of their shared border. However, in 1296 Scotland was finally conquered by the armies of Edward I — earning the king the nickname “Hammer of the Scots.”

But the invasion sparked years of insurrectionist warfare, beginning with the famous rebellion led by William Wallace in 1297, and Edward’s descendants were troubled by uprisings until peace was agreed with the Scottish king Robert the Bruce in 1328, under the Treaty of Edinburgh-Northampton.

During his rule, Edward I reformed the coinage of his realm and introduced distinctive silver pennies with his face on one side and a Christian cross on the other. 

The design influenced English coins for hundreds of years, and today silver pennies from the reigns of Edward I and his son Edward II are much-prized by collectors.

Metal detectorists

Each of the newly discovered medieval coins is likely worth several dollars today, and the entire hoard is thought to be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, quite apart from its archaeological value.

According to the Scottish newspaper Daily Record, any artifact of archaeological significance, whether made from precious metals or not, technically belongs to the Scottish government and must be reported to the authorities.

The government doesn’t always act on possible claims, however; and McNab said the decision on how to allocate the coins and any remuneration paid to the finders would be considered by the Scottish Archaeological Finds Allocation Panel, which advises a government official known as the King’s and Lord Treasurer’s Remembrancer (KLTR).

McNab added that 12,263 artifacts were recorded by Scotland’s Treasure Trove Unit in 2022, including the 8,407 silver coins from the Dunscore hoard.