Picts, Gaels and Scots: Early Historic Scotland

By Sally M. Foster

A look at Scotland before it was Scotland, with illustrations and photos included: “An outstanding book.” —Current Archaeology

Early historic Scotland—from the fifth to the tenth century AD—was home to a variety of diverse peoples and cultures, all competing for land and supremacy. Yet by the eleventh century it had become a single, unified kingdom, known as Alba, under a stable and successful monarchy. How did this happen, and when?

At the heart of this mystery lies the extraordinary influence of the Picts and of their neighbors, the Gaels—originally immigrants from Ireland. In this new and revised edition of her acclaimed book, Sally M. Foster establishes the nature of their contribution and, drawing on the latest archaeological evidence and research, highlights numerous themes, including the following: the origins of the Picts and Gaels; the significance of the remarkable Pictish symbols and other early historic sculpture; the art of war and the role of kingship in tribal society; settlement, agriculture, industry and trade; religious beliefs and the impact of Christianity; and how the Picts and Gaels became Scots.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Nov 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9780857908292

Sally M. Foster

Sally M. Foster studied medieval archaeology at University College London and later completed a PhD at the University of Glasgow. She subsequently worked for RCAHMS and Historic Scotland. After a temporary lectureship at University of Glasgow in 2010 and establishing her AbleMinds business, she joined Aberdeen University as a lecturer in archaeology in September 2011.

Book preview

Sally Foster is a lecturer in heritage and conservation at the University of Stirling. She studied medieval archaeology at University College, London and later completed a PhD at Glasgow. Employed for many years by Historic Scotland, latterly as head of the team responsible for the designation of archaeological sites and wrecks, she has since also held academic posts at Glasgow and Aberdeen universities.

First published in 2014 by

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Text copyright © Sally M. Foster 2014

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British Library

Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is availablefrom the British Library

Designed and typeset by

Mark Blackadder

Front cover:

detail of Fowlis Wester church cross-slab

Opposite title page:

detail of Nigg cross-slab

Printed and bound by

TJ International, Padstow

Contents

List of plates and figures

Acknowledgements

Foreword

Introductory note

1Setting the scene

2Communicating with the past: The sources

3The residence of power

4Agriculture, industry and trade: The currency of authority

5The strength of belief

6From ‘wandering thieves’ to lords of war

7Alba: The emergence of the Scottish nation

Monuments and museums to visit

Glossary

Further reading

Index

For Rod,

my fellow in love and learning,

and a brave man

List of plates and figures

Plates

1Kite-photograph of excavations at Rhynie in 2012

2Imported objects found at Rhynie

3The Book of Kells, fol. 124r

4The Book of Deer, f.4v

5Ogham-inscribed stone spindle-whorl from Buckquoy

6Decorative mount from Viewfield, Lhanbryde

7The Book of Kells, fol. 32v

8The different toponymic regions of Scotland

9Dinnacair stack site

10 Prehistoric and Pictish features to the south of Forteviot

11 Hilton of Cadboll cross-slab

12 Hunterston brooch

13 Dundurn glass boss

14 Aerial view of Whitebridge cemetery

15 Monymusk reliquary

16 Nigg cross-slab, front face

17 Sueno’s Stone, back face

Figures

1A child’s burial under excavation at Knowe of Skea

2St Vigeans 11 cross-slab, back face

3Summary of the excavated features at the Pictish monastery at Portmahomack

4Architectural sculpture discovered during excavations at Portmahomack

5Inchmarnock ‘adeptus sanctum premium’ slate

6A school party visits the archaeological excavations at Portmahomack

7Map of the known names of peoples and kingdoms in Scotland between the 1st and 10th centuries

8The Collessie Stone

9Inchmarnock ‘hostage’ slate

10 Examples of Pictish sculptures

11 General Roy’s plan of Burghead in the late 18th century

12 Aberlemmno 1 symbol-bearing stone

13 Tarbat inscription

14 Summary of Celtic languages

15 Summary of the ogham alphabet as used in Scotland

16 Aerial photograph of Newton, Islay

17 Aerial view of Old Scatness

18 Aldclune brooch

19 Comparison of animals on Insular manuscripts and Pictish carvings

20 Skei bucket

21 Carving of three warriors on a slab from the Brough of Birsay

22 Aberlemno 2 (churchyard), back face

23 Replica rock surface with carved footprint at Dunadd fort

24 St Andrews Sarcophagus

25 Map of documented early historic forts and other royal sites in Scotland

26 Plans of early historic forts

27 Aerial view of Dundurn fort

28 Dundurn, ‘St Fillan’s Chair’

29 Reconstruction of Dunadd fort

30 Burghead bull

31 Sculpted Celtic head found at Burghead

32 Rhynie man (Barflat) and iron pin

33 General Roy’s late 18th-century plan of Inchtuthil

34 Reconstruction of Buiston crannog

35 Forteviot arch

36 Location map of key sites in the heart of Strathearn

37 Reconstruction of Buckquoy with the Brough of Birsay in the background

38 Kirriemuir 1, back face

39 Woollen hood from St Andrew’s Parish, Orkney

40 Kirriemuir 2, back face

41 Wooden deer trap from Auquharney Moss, Aberdeenshire

42 Reconstruction of roundhouses and souterrain

43 Houses at Hawkhill

44 Pitcarmick building

45 Wheelhouse at Old Scatness

46 Craig Phádraig hanging-bowl escutcheon

47 Elgin Cathedral cross-slab

48 Norrie’s Law hoard

49 St Ninian’s Isle treasure

50 Distribution of imported pottery and glass in the British Isles

51 Carved wooden box from Evie

52 Dunadd fort with the Atlantic beyond

53 Sources of the imported material found at Dunadd

54 Examples of Pictish symbols

55 Monifieth Laws plaque

56 Cannel coal pendant in Inverness Museum, from Erchless

57 Silver chain from Whitecleugh

58 Symbol-incised slab from Dairy Park, Dunrobin

59 Brodie cross-slab, back face

60 Distribution of Pictish early sculpture and associated artwork

61 Brandsbutt symbol- and ogham-bearing stone

62 Dunfallandy cross-slab, back face

63 Distribution of eccles- place names, long-cist burials and early inscriptions in south-east Scotland

64 The cemetery around the Catstane under excavation

65 Plan of the cemetery excavated at Hallow Hill

66 Iona, general view

67 Comparative plans of early Christian monasteries

68 St Martin’s Cross, replica of St John’s Cross and St Columba’s Shrine, Iona

69 St Vigeans 7, front face and detail of Applecross cross-slab

70 Kildalton Cross, east face

71 Comparative plans of lesser early Christian sites

72 Reconstruction of the monastery of Eileach an Naoimh, Garvellachs

73 Beehive cell at Eileach an Naoimh

74 Sgòr nam Ban-Naomha, Canna

75 Papil shrine panel

76 Routes from Iona to Lindisfarne and Atholl

77 Aerial view of Tullich church

78 Excavations at the Pictish monastery at Portmahomack

79 Distribution of early historic sites in and around the Tarbat peninsula

80 Anglo-Saxon church at Escomb

81 Aberlemno 2 cross-slab, front face

82 Aberlemno 3 cross-slab (roadside), back face

83 Distribution of select types of non-symbol-bearing early historic sculpted stones

84 Hilton of Cadboll excavations in 2001

85 Collection of sculpted stones at Meigle, as displayed in 1953

86 Lochgoilhead alphabet stone

87 Constantine’s Cross from Dupplin

88 Crieff decorative mounts

89 Detail of St Orland’s Stone, Cossans.

90 Benvie cross-slab, back face

91 Inscribed sword chape from St Ninian’s Isle

92 Suggested model for the relationship between resources and the structuring of social authority over time and space

93 Sueno’s Stone, front face

94 Ardchattan cross-slab

95 Brechin round tower

96 Location map of monuments and museums to visit

Acknowledgements

Thank you to members of the public, Historic Scotland stewards, school children, students and academic colleagues whose use of the book and repeated queries about its future availability persuaded me there was still a value in summoning the time and energy to produce a new edition of something first crafted in what now seems the first flush of youth. Hugh Andrew, your bullying also worked. Thank you too, Hugh, for your dogged persistence in finding a way forward with Historic Scotland after a changed management dropped the Historic Scotland Batsford series. Financing the illustrations for a book, without institutional funding and support, is a major obstacle for any author because of the enormity of the cost of purchasing and reproducing images from copyright holders. I am therefore exceedingly grateful to those individuals and institutions that cheered me up with their prompt, pragmatic and selfless responses to my requests for images and other advice.

This book weaves the works and words of numerous others. I only hope I have done you reasonable justice. As previously, there is the inevitable risk of turning cautious agreement between disciplines into incautious fact through the inevitable inability of one person to master the ins and outs of all specialisms (see Clancy 2001a). While I have had to limit in-text citation, the last publishers allowed me to add some in the 2nd edition and my expanded Further Reading includes the most important current sources.

At the time of writing, I am coming to the end of a three-year temporary lectureship at the University of Aberdeen, where a dynamic new archaeology ‘department’ specialises in the Archaeology of the North. It is with particular pleasure that I therefore acknowledge the help I have received for this book from David Dumville, Jane Geddes, Laura McHardie, Tim Mighall, Gordon Noble and Paul Taylor, and I thank all my Aberdeen colleagues and students for providing such a friendly, stimulating and supportive environment to live and work in. I also thank Ewan Campbell, Nick Evans, Katherine Forsyth and Graeme Wilson, and the many acknowledged in the earlier editions on which this builds.

I have added new, revised and refreshed images. The distribution maps in 60, 63 and 83 are correct only to 2004, but the changes are not major. Ewan Campbell generously prepared Plate 10 and 50, with help from Lorraine McEwan and Kathy MacIver. Martin Carver and his colleagues at FAS-Heritage & University of York, Justin Lahire-Garner and Cecily Spall, very kindly allowed me to use 3, 4 and 6 in advance of their eagerly awaited Portmahomack monograph, while Jane Geddes gave me access to her forthcoming St Vigeans monograph. In addition to those just mentioned, or cited in Image credits below, I thank Michelle Andersson, Kyle Armstrong, David Clarke, Anne Crone, Neil Curtis, John R. Davies, Steve Dockrill, Kim Downie, Ellen Ellingsen, Vasiliki Koutrafouri, Chris Lowe, David Mackie, Bruce Mann, Hazel Moore, Graham Nisbet, Gordon Noble, Caroline Norman, Caroline Palmer, Doug Simpson, Sharon Sutton, Graeme Wilson and Maggie Wilson.

Quotations from Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People, translated by Leo Sherley-Price and revised by R.E. Latham (Penguin Classics, 2nd revised edition, 1990) are produced by kind permission of Penguin Books. The Goddodin quote is to be found in The Triumph Tree edited by Thomas Clancy, first published in Great Britain by Canongate Books, Edinburgh.

The long-drawn-out, behind-the-scenes history of this new edition contributed to my mid-life decision to change career, and I must thank friends and colleagues in the University of Glasgow, particularly Professor Stephen Driscoll, for setting me off on a new trail, and Professor Martin Carver for his much-valued advice and friendship. Last but by no means least are the thanks reserved for Rod McCullagh, the very best of critical friends.

Image credits

Illustrations are reproduced by permission as follows: Alan Lane 53; Aberdeenshire Council Archaeology Service, https://www.aberdeenshire.gov.uk/smrpub/ 77; Doug Simpson, with kind permission of Hamish Torrie of The Glenmorangie Company front cover, 24, 40; EASE Archaeology 1; Edwina Proudfoot 65; Ewan Campbell 50, 53; Reproduced by kind permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library Plate 4; Crown copyright Historic Scotland opposite title page, 12, 13, 14, 15, 19, 21, 22, 23, 25, 27, 29, 30, 34, 37, 38, 42, Plate 11, 47, 52, 54, 56, 57, 58, 62, 66, 67, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 81, 82, Plate 16, 84, 87, Plate 17, 92, 93, 95; © Courtesy of RCAHMS (Photographer: Trevor Cowie). Licensor www.rcahms.gov.uk 64; © Crown Copyright: RCAHMS. Licensor www.rcahms.gov.uk 2, 11, 16, 32 (left), 33, 43, 44, 68, 69, 85, 86, 94; Headland Archaeology Ltd 5, 9; Photographer R. Gourlay, Highland Council Plate 14; History Scotland Plate 8; Jan Henrik Fallgren Plate 9; Jill Harden 31; Leslie and Elizabeth Alcock (deceased)/ Society of Antiquaries of Scotland 26; Mark A. Hall 80; Martin Carver FAS-Heritage & University of York 3, 4, 6, 78; Photographer Per E. Fredriksen, © NTNU, Museum of Natural History and Archaeology, Trondheim, Norway 20; Orkney Library and Archive Plate 5; Rhynie Environs Archaeology Project per Gordon Noble Plate 2, 32 (right); Scottish Catholic Historical Association 76; Simon Taylor Plate 8, 76; I am grateful to the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland for permission to reproduce 5, 9, 26, 55, 65, 75; Stephen J. Dockrill 17, 45; Tom and Sybil Gray Collection per RCAHMS 18, 59, 89, 90; the Board of Trinity College Dublin Plate 3, Plate 7; the Hunterian, University of Glasgow 2014 Plate 13; Trustees of the National Museums Scotland 18, Plate 6, 35, 39, 46, Plate 12, 48, 49, 51, Plate 15, 88, 91; University of Aberdeen 41; University of Glasgow Plate 10. Several of the images are the author’s own copyright: 7, 10 (the Anderson Dunlop Fund of the Scottish Medievalists grant-aided its production), 28, 61, 96.

Where known, the illustrators are Alan Braby 42; Christina Unwin 7, 10, 14, 15, 19, 25, 36, 54, 60, 63, 67, 71, 79, 83, 92, 96; Dave Pollock 29, 37; James Renny 76; Lorraine McEwen Plate 10; Ian G Scott Plate 11, 87. Several maps are based upon Ordnance Survey material with the permission of Ordnance Survey on behalf of the Controller of Her Majesty’s Stationery Office © Crown copyright. Unauthorised reproduction infringes Crown copyright and may lead to prosecution or civil proceedings. Historic Scotland Licence No. 100017509 2004: 36, 60, 63, 79, 83.

Tom Gray’s pictures (8, 89) were first published in E. Sutherland In Search of the Picts (London, 1994). 15 is based on C. Thomas And Shall These Mute Stones Speak? (Cardiff, 1994), with amendments; 63 on Barrow 1983, Thomas 1981 and A.S. Henshall ‘A long cist cemetery at Parkburn Sandpit…’, Proc. Soc. Antiq. Scot. 89 (1955–6), with additions; 67and 71 mainly derive from Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historic Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS) Argyll vols 2–5 (Edinburgh, 1975–84) and C. Thomas The Early Christianity of North Britain (Glasgow 1971).

Foreword

I first wrote Picts, Gaels and Scots in 1996. Turning now to updating the 2004 version, I find I have amended this new edition of Picts, Gaels and Scots rather more than I originally thought I would. Why? I have respected the book’s original intentions to provide a wider context for monuments in the care of Historic Scotland and left my overall structure and thesis about the evolution of power – it still works in general terms. Certainly, I have introduced significant new discoveries, updated references, quietly deleted some outdated material and done the odd bit of finessing. But 18 years after the first edition, and ten years after the second, the fact is that the work published in the last ten years has begun to profoundly alter how we appreciate and perceive the early medieval peoples of Scotland. This Foreword offers my personal reflections on this; it also flags up where you may observe shifts in content. The changes are often relatively subtle – and something of a challenge to deal with in a work of concision such as this – but their impact is cumulative. If you are unfamiliar with the ground covered in the last edition (Foster 2004), then you may well get more out of this Foreword by reading it last; this will also help you locate the places I discuss below. For familiarity with the detailed evidence, and to become more critical of its interpretation, do please follow up the Further Reading.

The character of recent work

Outstanding overviews and momentous monographs exploring a particular site or subject in detail now have a place on our bookshelves. In 2004 my revisions were largely informed by new historical, place-name and art-historical research (some of which is now fully published, below) so it is heartening to see how archaeological fieldwork now begins to offer significant new insights as well.

James Fraser (2009) and Alex Woolf (2007) have dissected and then rebuilt the history of the period in The Edinburgh History of Scotland series. Fraser and Woolf build on not just their own groundbreaking research, but also that of Dauvit Broun, Thomas Clancy, Nick Evans, Alasdair Ross and Simon Taylor, in particular. Through Glenmorangie’s enlightened sponsorship of National Museums Scotland, in 2012 David Clarke, Alice Blackwell and Martin Goldberg produced a sumptuous Early Medieval Scotland. Individuals, Communities and Ideas, full of innovative and imaginative ideas and with a focus on what artefacts can tell us. Two lifetimes of scholarship have come together in George and Isabel Henderson’s 2004 The Art of the Picts, resolute in their singularly art-historical perspective. The reports of many important archaeological excavations have now appeared (notably Barrowman 2011; Carver et al 2012; Crone and Campbell 2005; Dockrill et al 2010; Hunter 2007; James and Yeoman 2008; Lowe 2008; Sharples 2012) or will do so very shortly.

Comparative studies such as Ewan Campbell’s magisterial 2007 Continental and Mediterranean Imports to Atlantic Britain and Ireland, AD 400–800 have considerably advanced our understanding of the nature and significance of the type of material imported into Scotland and its international context. The teams of scholars involved in Katherine Forsyth’s 2008 Studies on the Book of Deer or Heather James et al’s 2008 exploration of the Hilton of Cadboll Pictish cross-slab show how much can be gained from the detailed inter- and multi-disciplinary study of a single object, or a category of monuments, such as sculpture in Foster and Cross 2005. Stephen Driscoll et al’s 2011 Pictish Progress offers us informed reflections on how study of the Picts has changed in the last 50 years, and introduces new lines of enquiry. In addition to the dividends from sustained seasons of research-led fieldwork on a single site such as Portmahomack (see below), several significant landscape-centred studies have also been published that shed light on early medieval settlement in Angus and Strathdon, or are ongoing in Strathearn (Dunwell and Ralston 2008; RCAHMS 2007; Driscoll 2011). Meanwhile, Alasdair Ross’s work on dabhaichean (davachs) is of exceptional importance for our understanding of the early and sustained origin of land divisions (Ross 2006). Casual finds from metal detecting and of sculpture (new and rediscovery of ‘lost’) continue to enliven our vision of early medieval Scotland. Serendipitous discoveries from developmentled archaeology include some notable firsts, of which the Knowe of Skea on Berst Ness in Westray, Orkney, is a good example (1).

1. A child’s burial under excavation at Knowe of Skea.

Threatened by coastal erosion, EASE Archaeology with funding from Historic Scotland discovered a late Neolithic structure that became the focus for late prehistoric settlement. From the mid 1st millennium BC to the mid 1st millennium AD, associated with what may be a ‘shrine’, several hundred humans of people, including many infants and children, as well as some animal burials, were interred in the rubble. This site stands out because across Scotland as a whole we have recognised very few Iron Age burials, let alone cemeteries on this scale or of this nature. A site such as this is also of great interest for what it may tell us about pagan ritual practices in the face of incoming Christianity, and when this happened.

Key advances in thinking

The highlights of this recent work largely bear on our perceptions of the Picts rather than their Gaelic neighbours. A series of themes emerge that I will briefly introduce. A key trend is for recognising the importance of understanding the prehistoric roots of early medieval society. For example, the regional character of early Christian ritual practices is likely to lie in the creeds and ceremonies that preceded them (Carver