600-Year-Old Skeleton found beneath Edinburgh School Playground

A skeleton discovered in a school playground could be that of a 600-year-old pirate, according to archaeologists. City of Edinburgh Council workers found the remains at the city’s oldest primary school while carrying out survey work to build an extension.

Victoria Primary School is close to Newhaven’s harbour, where workers had expected to find remains of the original marina but instead made the gruesome discovery.

Archaeologists have since studied the bones and initially thought they were Bronze Age because they were in such poor condition and found next to 4,000-year-old shards of pottery.

But during carbon dating, they were found to be from the 16th to 17th centuries.

The skeleton is believed to belong to a man in his fifties – who was probably a criminal. Six hundred years ago Newhaven dockyard was home to a gibbet – commonly used to execute witches and pirates.

Experts think the man could have been killed in the device for criminal behaviour or piracy before his body was dumped in the nearby wasteland.

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The condition of his bones and his burial site close to the sea rather than in any of the nearby graveyards suggests that after his execution the man’s body was displayed insight of ships to deter other pirates.

His burial in a shallow, unmarked grave also suggests he had no relatives or friends in the area. Forensic artist Hayley Fisher, along with AOC Archaeology, has created a facial reconstruction of the pirate’s skull.

Councillor Richard Lewis, Culture Convener for the City of Edinburgh Council, said: ‘Edinburgh has an undeniably intriguing past and some of our archaeological discoveries have been in the strangest of places.

‘Thanks to carbon dating techniques, archaeologists now know that the skeleton was likely to have been a murder victim – and quite possibly a pirate.

‘It’s fantastic that through the Council’s archaeology and museums service, we are able to investigate such discoveries and add to our understanding of Newhaven’s heritage.’

Laura Thompson, Head Teacher at Victoria Primary School, said her pupils were excited about the discovery.

She said: ‘As the oldest working primary school in Edinburgh, we are proud of our history and heritage and the school even has a dedicated museum to the local area.

‘The pupils think it’s fantastic that a skeleton was found deep underneath their playground.

‘The archaeologists will hold a special lesson with some of the children about how they have used science to analyse the remains and it will be a good learning opportunity for them.’ 

Intact 3,000-Year-Old Horse Harness Unearthed in Scotland

A metal detectorist has discovered a rare hoard of Bronze Age artifacts, which experts describe as “nationally significant”, in the Scottish Borders. Mariusz Stepien was searching a field near Peebles with friends when he found a bronze object buried half a meter (1ft 8in) underground. Archaeologists called to the site near Peebles also excavated decorated straps, buckles, rings, ornaments, and chariot wheel axle caps. 

Evidence of a decorative ‘rattle pendant’ from the harness was also discovered – the first one to be found in Scotland and only the third in the UK.

The hoard has been moved from the site in a large block of soil and taken to the National Museums Collection Centre in Edinburgh. Experts, who described the objects as ‘nationally significant’, have dated them to the Bronze Age, which began around 2,000 BC and lasted for nearly 1,500 years. 

The period marks a time when bronze gradually replaced stone as the main material for making tools.  Communities in Late Bronze Age Scotland (1000-800 BC) often buried hoards of metalwork.  

‘This is a nationally significant find – so few Bronze Age hoards have been excavated in Scotland,’ said Emily Freeman, head of the Treasure Trove Unit (TTU) overseeing the recovery and assessment of the find.

It was an amazing opportunity for us to not only recover bronze artifacts but organic material as well. There is still a lot of work to be done to assess the artifacts and understand why they were deposited.’ 

The Crown Office, which runs the TTU, told MailOnline it can’t provide a more specific location of the discoveries than ‘near Peebles’ because of the ‘security and privacy concerns of the landowner’. 

The collection was promptly reported to TTU and excavated by archaeologists from National Museums Scotland.  The metal objects are believed to be decorative and functional pieces of a Bronze Age horse harness, while the sword is still in its scabbard and encrusted within the chunk of rock. 

The complete horse harness – preserved by the soil – and the sword have been dated as being from 1000 to 900 BC. These are rare objects, some of which are unique in Scotland,’ said National Museums Scotland. They have affinities with objects across Europe and were likely deposited by a well-connected community. 

‘The organic preservation in the hoard is remarkable and includes leather and wood that is three thousand years old. 

This allows archaeologists to see how the horse harness was assembled – this has never been seen before in Britain. The hoard was uncovered by Mariusz Stepien, 44, who was searching a field near Peebles with friends on June 21 this year when he found a bronze object buried about a foot and a half underground.

The group camped in the field and built a shelter to protect them find from the elements while archaeologists spent 22 days investigating.

‘I thought I’ve never seen anything like this before and felt from the very beginning that this might be something spectacular and I’ve just discovered a big part of Scottish history,’ said Stepien.  

‘I was over the moon, actually shaking with happiness.

‘We wanted to be a part of the excavation from the beginning to the end.

‘I will never forget those 22 days spent in the field. Every day there were new objects coming out which changed the context of the find, every day we learned something new.

‘I’m so pleased that the earth revealed to me something that was hidden for more than 3,000 years. I still can’t believe it happened.’

As he was getting strong signals from the earth around the initial object, Stepien contacted the TTU to report his find.   Scotland’s TTU is ‘the first port of call’ for new discoveries and carries out investigations and object assessments of new objects. 

All ancient objects newly discovered in Scotland need to be reported to the TTU, as they belong to the Crown, whether or not they’re precious metal. We could not have achieved this without the responsible actions of the finder or the support of the landowners,’ said Freeman. 

‘The finder was quick to action when they realized that they had found an in-situ hoard, which resulted in the TTU and National Museums Scotland being on-site within days of discovery.’

Scottish Farmer Discovers 5,000-Year-Old Lost City

Scotland is full of vivid, complex history, as is the case for other European compatriots. And no, it’s not all the violent headlines that Braveheart sees — though there is a great deal of war in the country’s rearview mirror.

Nonetheless, not so long ago, a farmer discovered something amazing about ancient Scotland buried in the sand dunes of one of the northernmost islands of the country The kicker? He found this amazing discovery behind something unbelievably ordinary…

Around 1850 a Scottish farmer passed through the sand dunes of the western shore of the island of Orkney. There he pushed a rock aside and discovered something that had been hidden for thousands of years.

At first, he saw what looked like a simple hole, but when he peered inside, he couldn’t believe his eyes: it was a passageway that appeared to be a part of an entire labyrinth of rooms and corridors. An entire ancient city was hidden behind an ordinary slab of stone that whole time!

The settlement, it turned out, was the remains of Skara Brae, a neolithic city. Researchers believed that the ancient settlement might’ve been over 5,000 years old, making it more ancient than even the Egyptian pyramids.

Luckily, because the city had been covered by the sand dunes, it remained preserved for centuries until the farmer found it, untouched by other humans and hidden from the wear and tear of the passage of time.

Researchers believed that this was one of the oldest permanent settlements in Great Britain.

Each house had been sunk into middens, mounds of waste used to stabilize the structure and insulate those insides from Scotland’s brutal climate.

Though only eight houses now remain, it is believed the settlement was once much larger.

Researchers estimated this ancient lost city could have been home to between 50 and 100 people.

All of the houses were connected using a tunnel system, but those tunnels could be closed off and separated with large, sliding stone doors.

Early citizens would then be able to travel throughout the city, but close off their homes for privacy when they needed to.

Each hut contained multiple bedding areas; in most of the huts, researchers discovered, one of the bedding areas was typically larger than the others. These rooms were presumably reserved for the heads of the house—kind of like ancient master bedrooms.

The houses also contained a waterproof storage bin. Researchers believed this could’ve been an indication that these early people stored fresh fish in the huts. If that was the case, fish was likely their main source of food.

There are still questions to be answered about this hidden city and its people. Nevertheless, there is so much we can learn from ancient cities like this.

For many years, archaeologists thought that every important Egyptian discovery was already found. But that all changed recently.

Evidence of 5,000-year-old Neolithic fabric found in Orkney

In Orkney, Scotland, archeologists found new evidence of ancient fabrics from the Neolithic era more than 5000 years ago.

The only discovery in Scotland, the second of its kind, came from a fragment of pottery with an impression of a cloth stamped into its surface, found at Ness of Brodgar. 

The site is part of the Heart of Neolithic Orkney World Heritage Site on the small island archipelago off the northern coast of Scotland.

Because it’s rare for organic material from prehistory to survive outside of very specific oxygen-free conditions, researchers studying Neolithic textiles have generally had to rely on secondary evidence like pottery fragments.  

This latest discovery came from the Archaeology Institute of the University of the Highlands and Islands (UHI), which in 2019 began working to find pottery fragments with these types of impressions on them, known as ‘sherds.’

The team used a technique called reflectance transformation imaging (RTI) to examine the sherds, which involves taking multiple photographs of them with a slightly different angled source of light in each frame. 

These images were analyzed by a computer program that created a highly-detailed digital image of the sherds, that could be more closely examined than the real physical fragment.   

RTI analysis of the outer face of the sherds suggested multiple fragments had been ‘co-joined’ with a cord cloth, possibly in the shape of a basket-like object.

The inner face of the fragments had a different patterned impression that researchers believe came from the clothing worn by the potter who made the original piece. 

‘There is no evidence of textile tools available in Neolithic Orkney, suggesting textiles were made by hand, or using tools made with organic materials that have not survived in the archaeological record,’ Ness of Brodgar’s site director Nick Card said.

‘This lack of material culture around textile production can help us to infer what techniques they may have been using.’ The patterns match similar findings at other sites in the region, that suggest using textiles with clay vessels was common.  

‘A growing number of base sherds from the Ness have impressions of coiled mats used in the construction of clay vessels,’ Card said.

‘These match examples found at Barnhouse and Rinyo in Orkney and also at Forest Road in Aberdeenshire.

‘All specimens suggest fibre mats of spiral construction that may have eased the turning of the pot as it was formed and even facilitated its transportation whilst it was dried and then fired.’

The announcement of the Orkney discovery comes just a month after researchers in France discovered strands of woven yarn believed to be between 41,000 and 52,000 years old. 

The yarn fragments were believed to have been used to bind simple tools and could have been used in more complex forms of weaving.  

Hillfort revealed to be the largest Pictish site ever discovered in Scotland

The fort, overlooking the small village of Rhynie, is believed to be one of the largest ancient settlements ever discovered in Scotland.

Researchers think that as many as 4,000 people may have lived in more than 800 huts on the Tap O’Noth in the fifth to sixth centuries.

However, the settlement may date back as far as the third century, which would make it Pictish in origin.

The Aberdeenshire settlement may, in fact, date back as far as the third century, meaning it is likely to be Pictish in origin.

The Picts were a collection of Celtic-speaking communities who lived in the east and north of Scotland during the Late British Iron Age and Early Medieval periods.

It was previously thought that settlements of that size did not appear until about the 12th century.

At its height, it may have rivalled the largest known post-Roman settlements in Europe.

Archaeologists from the University of Aberdeen used radiocarbon dating to establish timeframes.

Judging by the distribution of the buildings, they are likely to have been built and occupied at a similar time.

Many are positioned alongside trackways or clustered together in groups, the University of Aberdeen said.

Drone surveys showed one hut that was notably larger, suggesting a hierarchy.

Professor Gordon Noble, who led the research, said the discovery was “truly mind-blowing”, adding that it “shakes the narrative of this whole time period”.

He continued: “The size of the upper and lower forts together are around 16.75 hectares and one phase at least dates from the fifth to sixth centuries AD.

“This makes it bigger than anything we know from early medieval Britain.

“The previous biggest known fort in early medieval Scotland is Burghead at around five and a half hectares, and in England, famous post-Roman sites such as Cadbury Castle is seven hectares and Tintagel around five hectares.”

He said the site was “verging on urban in scale and in a Pictish context we have nothing else that compares to this”.

Scottish storms unearth 1,500-year-old Viking-era cemetery

The native Picts, a Celtic-language speaking tribe, once populated the Scottish Islands, similar to the natives that live on what is now Scotland. 

Several powerful storms on Scotland’s Orkney Islands have now revealed ancient human remains in a Pictish and Viking cemetery dated back to about 1,500 years ago.

To order to protect the damage to the former Newark Bay cemetery on Orkney’s largest island, volunteers are now placing sandbags and clay around. The site dates from the middle of the sixth century when ancient Pictish people inhabited the Orkney Islands.

Picts or Norse?

The cemetery was used for about 1,000 years, and numerous burials from the ninth to the 15th century were Norsemen or Vikings who had seized the Orkney Islands from the Picts. Now, storm waves are destroying the low cliff where the ancient site is located, Peter Higgins from the Orkney Research Center for Archaeology (ORCA), said.

“Every time we have a storm with a bit of a south-easterly [wind], it really gets in there and actively erodes what is just soft sandstone,” Higgins explained.

Approximately 250 skeletons were taken out of the cemetery about 50 years ago, but researchers do not know how far the site extends from the beach. They believe that hundreds of Pictish and Norse bodies are still buried there.

“The local residents and the landowner have been quite concerned about what’s left of the cemetery being eroded by the sea,” Higgins said.

Uncovered bones are usually either coated with clay to protect them or removed from the site after their positions are thoroughly labeled, so it is rather unusual for bones to end up on the beach, he explained.

Researchers do not know yet of the exposed bones belong to Picts or Vikings, as no burial objects or funeral clothes were spotted, and the bodies were buried four of five layers under the surface.

Cultural Transition

Historians claim that the first Norse immigrants to the Orkney Islands established there in the late eighth century, leaving a rising new monarchy in Norway. They used the Orkney Islands to begin their own voyages and Viking raids, and ultimately, all the islands were ruled by the Norse, according to The Scotsman.

The relationship between the Picts and the Norse on the Orkney Islands is highly argued by scholars. They cannot know for sure whether the Norse took over by force, or were settlers who traded and entered marriage with the Picts. However, now, the ancient cemetery at Newark Bay may help researchers answer their questions.

“The Orkney Islands were Pictish, and then they became Norse,” Higgins said. “We’re not really clear how that transition happened, whether it was an invasion, or people lived together. This is one of the few opportunities we’ve got to investigate that.”

A part of the scientific work on the remains would require testing genetic material from the ancient bones, which might demonstrate that some people living on the Orkney Islands today are successors of people who lived there more than 1,000 years ago.

“We’re fairly confident that we’re going to find that some local residents are related to people in the cemetery,” Higgins said.

Traces of 18th-Century Glass Factory Uncovered in Scotland

Interesting traces of Leith’s glass-making past are being uncovered as preparatory works to construct a new residential development gather steam.

The City of Edinburgh Council lodged proposals by Barratt Homes to develop 212 new apartments plus commercial units on a former industrial land stretch near Leith Docks at Salamander Lane. two years ago and are currently at the consultation stage.

Work is already underway to prepare the site ahead of full planning approval, with a number of buildings that were once home to Garland and Roger Ltd timber yard and a six-metre-high boundary wall cleared at the start of the year.

Workers and archaeologists are now starting to uncover traces of an almost extinct Leith industry which has flourished for centuries and was even responsible for the naming of the road on which it was situated.

There was evidence of the once enormous glasswork in Salamander Lane, which can trace its origins from more than two and a half centuries to 1747.

Aerial photographs show the re-emergence of what’s left of one of the glassworks’ six huge furnace cones as well as a number of other buildings, including workshop and warehouse remains.

The furnace cones measured between 80 and 100 feet in height with a diameter of around 40 feet at the base. The brick-built sixsome towered above the Leith skyline at the time and could be easily spotted from the slopes of Calton Hill more than two miles away.

Archaeologists are currently on-site examining the glassworks buildings and deep layers of ancient beach sand deposits that have been exposed as a result of the excavation.  John Lawson, the City of Edinburgh Council’s Archaeologist, said his team is hopeful of uncovering important artefacts during the dig.

He said: “Archaeological investigations have just started on the site which once housed the nationally significant Edinburgh and Leith Glass Works and formed an iconic element of Leith’s industrial skyline.

“It is hoped that the excavations will reveal important evidence as to its development since it moved to this site in the mid 18th Century.”

From the 14th century onwards, Leith boasted trading links with Europe and the world, importing and exporting a wide range of shipments. Alcohol was among the most sought after produce being brought in and the harbour was regularly flooded with casks and barrels of fine French wine, sweet Spanish sherry and Portuguese port.

Leith’s growing whisky industry and Edinburgh being a burgeoning centre for medicine meant an increasing demand for glass products, further underlining the need for a dedicated glassware and bottling works. As chance would have it, the old port was the perfect home for such an industry as the district boasted substantial quantities of sand and kelp – both of which were essential in glass manufacturing during the Georgian era.

Following the opening of earlier works elsewhere at Leith Citadel and in Edinburgh, the first furnace at what would become the Edinburgh and Leith Glass Works on Salamander Street was fired up in 1747. The works opened on the border of what was then Leith Sands, which, for more than 200 years, was home to Scotland’s main horse racing event, the infamous Leith Races.

A total of six giant, brick-built cones had risen from the site by 1783 and would continue to belch out fire and smoke for the best part of the next century. The amphibian-sounding Salamander Street appeared on maps in the early 19th century and was even coined, it is thought, as an allusion to the glass-making industry – the salamander being supposedly fire-proof, according to medieval legend.

At its height, the glassworks had a lot of bottles, producing in excess of one million glass vessels per week – but it wouldn’t last forever. Editions of The Scotsman dating from 1874 record that the dissolution of the Edinburgh and Leith Glass Works Company occurred in December of that year.

The site was put up for lease and the entire plant, stock and materials of the glassworks, which included a 6-horse power horizontal steam engine; a grinding mill; a “first-class nearly new” turning lathe; and all manner of pot-boards; tank rings and “bottle moulds of ever variety from flasks to carboys”, were listed for auction.

Local Blue Badge tourist guide and historian Fraser Parkinson says he hopes chiefs of the ongoing residential development are respectful of the history being uncovered.

He said: “The glass making industry had a strong footing in Leith until the second half of the 19th century, so it is really exciting to be able to view the footprint of the old glass making buildings and especially the foundations of the old cones which could be seen from Calton Hill.

“It’s a brief but appreciated glimpse back in time. Let’s hope that the developers make good recordings of what is unearthed before moving onto Leith’s future buildings.”

The last of the glass works’ furnace cones was demolished in 1912. The timber yard of Garland & Rogers Ltd filled the space in the decades that followed, as one by one Leith’s traditional industries slowly began to disappear.

Ancient ‘power centre’ uncovered in Perthshire, Scotland

A hilltop fort near Dunkeld was an important Pictish power centre, say archaeologists who excavated the site. Evidence of metal and textile production were revealed at King’s Seat Hillfort, a legally protected site.

Finds such as glass beads and pottery suggested the Picts who occupied the site in the 7th to 9th centuries had trade links with continental Europe.

Other finds included pieces of Roman glass that were recycled and reused as gaming pieces.

In a new report on last year’s excavations, archaeologists said the wealth of finds suggested the site had been a stronghold of the elite in the local population, with “influence over the trade and production of high-status goods”.

Fragments of pottery – of the kind made in continental Europe – and Anglo-Saxon glass beads suggested the Picts were trading far afield. As well as evidence of metal-working, spindle whorls used in textile production were found.

Archaeologists said the artefacts uncovered were in keeping with other high-status, royal sites of early historic Scotland, including the early Dalriadic capital of Dunadd in Argyll and the Pictish royal centre of Dundurn near St Fillan’s by Loch Earn.

Perth and Kinross Heritage Trust (PKHT) worked with Dunkeld and Birnam Historical Society, archaeological contractors AOC Archaeology Ltd on the digs.

Thirty community volunteers and Pitlochry High School students assisted with the excavations.

Last year’s work marked the third and final season of excavations as part of the King’s Seat Hillfort Community Archaeology Project. The site is a scheduled ancient monument and digs can only be done with prior permission.

David Strachan, director of PKHT, said: “We have uncovered lots of evidence of how people were living and working, and the remains of a building with a large hearth on the summit, with fragments of glass drinking vessels, gaming pieces, animal bone and horn.

“They paint a vivid picture of high-status people gathering and feasting, decorated in the latest high-status jewellery and ornamentation.”

Cath MacIver, of AOC Archaeology, said crucibles, whetstones, stone and clay moulds found indicated that craft production took place at the hillfort.

“What’s particularly interesting is that evidence of this activity has been found in all of the trenches [excavated areas],” she said.

“There must have been a lot of iron and other metalworking going on here making the site an important centre for production – not just the home of a small group of people making items for their own use.”