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Excavation of an Iron Age settlement and industrial centre near Inverness (Posted August 2006)

Ross Murray

A spectacular Iron Age settlement has been discovered at Culduthel, just south of Inverness, and it may be one of the most important archaeological finds of the last twenty years as it contains both houses and industrial remains. The discovery, made during work for a new housing development, shows how the expansion of Inverness is bringing many unexpected benefits to the capital of the Highlands. A less obvious benefit has been the increase in the opportunities for archaeological work created by the demand for new housing.

The initial excavation focused on a circular enclosure that was visible on aerial photographs as a cropmark. Once excavation began it was clear that the ‘simple’ enclosure was part of a much bigger settlement as seventeen roundhouses were slowly uncovered. These did not show up on aerial photographs because they lay at the foot of a small hill and were covered by a deeper layer of topsoil washed down over the last 2000 years. All were located outside the circular enclosure and several of the buildings were exceptionally well preserved by the hillwash that sealed a large area of Iron Age archaeology, protecting it from plough damage.

The roundhouses were part of a large settlement, without any boundary in the form of a defensive ditch and bank, situated on a terrace overlooking Inverness, commanding clear views across the valley at the top of the Great Glen. The houses belonged to different phases of the settlement but were all built in the same way with a ring of posts, and most had an entrance porch facing northeast, away from the prevailing wind. Two of the buildings had a narrow trench outside the ring of posts that would have held an outer wattle and daub wall. The larger of these buildings was also the best preserved and, with a diameter of twenty metres, is one of the largest roundhouses found in Scotland. There was also an entensive cobbled yard on its east side. At some point the occupants of this house decided it was not grand enough and a stone and turf façade was added to it to increase the monumentality of the building. First impressions were clearly important to the people who lived here.

Curiously, for such a substantial settlement we found very little domestic debris and few pottery sherds were recovered from the site despite the level of preservation. There were, however, rotary querns or fragments of querns in most of the buildings and many of these seem to have been deliberately placed during the construction of the buildings. This kind of ritual deposition was not confined to quern stones: several metal artefacts, specifically weapons, were also found in postholes of roundhouses. For example, an iron sword had been placed vertically, point down, among the packing stones of one posthole. A small iron knife, a knife tip and a spearhead were found in similar circumstances in other buildings.

Many of the buildings were identified as having had an industrial function. One was clearly a small structure for processing grain as well-used rubbing stones were placed in the building during construction and an impressively large quern placed after it had gone out of use. A further five buildings were bloomeries or smithies, identified by the presence of well preserved iron-smelting furnaces located in the interiors. It was clear that these were not domestic hearths as they were constructed with large edge-set stones forming a box, designed to collect the slag and iron bloom. The tops of these stones were fused together by a crust of iron slag and, in some cases, the remains of a baked wattle and daub superstructure was also present. One building contained a spectacular example where a series of three furnaces inter-cut one another.

With so many furnaces it was no surprise that the surrounding deposits contained large amounts of iron slag and other metal-working debris. This included clay furnace lining, and iron bloom. Small amounts of copper slag were also recovered from these deposits as well as numerous crucible fragments and several clay moulds. One of the most unusual finds was a rotary quern stone that had been re-used with two ingot moulds on one surface and a unique ‘fish-tailed’ mould on the other for casting a mysterious copper alloy object.

The settlement was rich in artefact types that are unusual in Iron Age sites in Scotland. The presence of these coupled with the size of the roundhouses indicates that the settlement was of extremely high status. A few small Roman coins were recovered from one roundhouse. Iron objects were found in abundance and were very well preserved. As well as the weapons mentioned above, there were also woodworking tools (chisels and awls), bolts for joining wood, and smaller decorative objects. The most impressive copper alloy objects were an enamelled Romano-British bow and fantail brooch, an intricately decorated cross (part of a horse harness), and a decorated sword-hilt guard. These artefacts date this part of the settlement to the late 1st - early 2nd century AD. Several types of glass bead appear to have been manufactured on site. One of these, made from pink glass, is possibly a unique find from Iron Age Scotland. Also recovered were the fragmented remains of a fine glass vessel. Glass waste and bead blanks were present in a few areas but were not common. Small fragments of enamel waste were found and it is likely that the enamelled broach was also manufactured, or at least enamelled, on site. The decorated cross was unfinished and may have been lost or discarded before it was enamelled.

The site at Culduthel had one final revelation. After excavating the roundhouses we found two small cairns beneath the Iron Age ground surface and another layer of hillwash. They were roughly circular arrangements of small rounded stones with a central pit that had been robbed out and backfilled during antiquity. Flint tools and flakes were present in many deposits across the site and are thought to be residual evidence of earlier prehistoric activity. The date of the cairns is not known at present but they are probably Bronze Age.

Although the analysis of this site is at an early stage it is clear the discovery at Culduthel will shed light on many aspects of Scottish Iron Age society. Not only are the roundhouses among the best-preserved examples ever excavated but the industrial activity is on a scale not seen before in Scotland. Evidence for the production of iron in the Iron Age is not common and the excavation of so many well preserved buildings and furnaces will make a significant contribution to our understanding the of the technology involved. All the evidence suggests that the occupants of this settlement were a power to be reckoned with in the Inverness area. They controlled the production of an important resource, were producing metalwork of high quality, and appear to have been in contact with the Roman world to the south.

Ross Murray
Headland Archaeology

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