Newsletter – Issue 156, January 2006
The National Museum of Scotland – Prehistory and Early History
The lower floors of the National Museum of Scotland are packed with material relating to the Mesolithic and Neolithic periods, the Bronze and Iron Ages and occupation of Scotland by the Picts, Scots and Norse. Through the good offices of Dave Jones we have obtained the services of Mr Crammond to take us round the more interesting items and explain their relevance to us. Mr R D Crammond, CBE, has a great deal of experience as a museum guide and was also a member of the team who planned and set up the museum’s exhibits. This means that we are guaranteed an interesting visit. It is planned to meet at the two fish ponds in the main concourse of the Royal Museum of Scotland at 2.00pm on Thursday, 16th February 2006.
Lectures
Having just heard about military surgery from Professor Kaufman, our lecture programme continues on Wednesday, 15th February with George Mudie on Wester Dalmeny and then on Tuesday, 21st March with Professor David Breeze on The Antonine Wall, A World Heritage Site. Members will notice that the January and March lectures had to be switched.
2006 Society Activities
As they say ‘many a slip …………’, but 2006 looks like being a very busy year. At the Committee meeting this week the number of possible archaeological activities discussed for 2006 was the highest since I have been a member of the Committee – let’s hope they all go ahead.
2005 Retrospection
The past year has seen a number of survey reports published that cast new light on sites of very different ages and their likely remains.
The Corstorphine survey showed clearly the 19th century cottages to the south of the church but, more importantly, indicated high resistance that was earlier in date and could relate to buildings around the 1429 Collegiate church of Sir John Forrester. The survey adjacent to the Dower House showed remains that cannot be reconciled with any O.S. map and probably are buildings that were part of the additions made by the Edinburgh lawyer, Samuel Mitchelson around 1765.
In Dalmeny there are a number of high and low resistance lines, parallel and at right angles to the present road at the western end of the village. This would seem to confirm that there was at least a row of cottages on the other side of the road from the medieval Wester Dalmeny Farm excavated by CFA Archaeology Ltd in 2002 (see February lecture above).
The survey that has the greatest potential for future work was made to the east of Cramond House. The low resistance, measured with our TR/CIA area equipment, along the edge of the raised beach was confirmed to look, in section, very like the Roman fort ditch surveyed some years ago beside the Cramond Estate north walled garden. Edinburgh University made three linear array measurements spaced 5m apart over the edge of the raised beach and all sections looked remarkably similar. This “low” along the raised beach was traced westwards curving through the grounds of Cramond Tower and linking to the pond, which has been shown by Nicholas Holmes’ excavation in 1981 (Site VII) to be a Roman ditch. This looks convincing evidence for the whole ditch to be Roman stretching over 170m east from the ditch alongside the fort, then curving south at the point where the geological map shows the raised beach turning. This turn to the south takes it in the direction of, and roughly collinear with, the Roman ditches found by AOC on the Moray House College site. This area to the east of Cramond House shows some apparently Roman features but confusingly overlain by the parterre garden of the 1680 house. The northwest vicus area of the Roman fort is large and very little is known about it – yet!
Ground Resistance Survey at Lauriston
The survey that we have conducted so far extends 60m east from Cramond Road South and north for 160m from the wall of Lauriston Castle grounds. The area covered, entailing 9600 readings, is expected to have covered the position of the possible Roman cemetery, postulated by Collard and Hunter (PSAS Volume 130). The survey has been made with our TR/CIA area resistance measuring equipment which indicates ground resistance to a depth of about 0.75m. At Cramond in late 2004, with the cooperation of the University of Edinburgh Dept of Geosciences using their resistive linear array equipment, we were able to demonstrate that, where our equipment showed a linear low resistance, the linear array clearly showed a ditch in section. Beside the road at Lauriston we have detected some clear linear low resistances but a question mark currently hangs over what they might look like in section as the earliest that the Dept of Geosciences will be able to help us this year is September or October. The resistive printout also shows some circular high resistance spots surrounded by annulate low resistances. Fraser Hunter has commented that these are “interesting features” but is not prepared to speculate further. In the absence of a linear array or magnetometry survey we are limited in what we can presently do; a survey over the high resistance spots to see whether there is a change in the magnetic susceptibility could be useful but this equipment only detects to shallow depths. This has both pros and cons; if cremation burials are present they may be too deep to be detected, but on the other hand, although the field is now in pasture, aerial photographs show it under cultivation and thus ploughing could have brought higher susceptibility soils from lower levels up to where they can be detected – we will try! It would be encouraging to think that the high spots with low resistance round them and possibly other, quite contrasting but less well defined in shape, features had something to do with the “sepulchre” that John Wood refers to as being on the site on his 1790 book on Cramond. The report of our survey of this site must be with Historic Scotland, as supporters of the project, by March 2006, but we will be able to draw fewer conclusions than we would have hoped. If we can return to Lauriston with Edinburgh University to make linear array surveys later in 2006 an addendum to the March report will need to be published with comment on what the features look like in depth.
Castlehill, Penicuik
The survey that we have conducted so far extends 60m east from Cramond Road South and north for 160m from the wall of Lauriston Castle grounds. The area covered, entailing 9600 readings, is expected to have covered the position of the possible Roman cemetery, postulated by Collard and Hunter (PSAS Volume 130). The survey has been made with our TR/CIA area resistance measuring equipment which indicates ground resistance to a depth of about 0.75m.
At Cramond in late 2004, with the cooperation of the University of Edinburgh Dept of Geosciences using their resistive linear array equipment, we were able to demonstrate that, where our equipment showed a linear low resistance, the linear array clearly showed a ditch in section. Beside the road at Lauriston we have detected some clear linear low resistances but a question mark currently hangs over what they might look like in section as the earliest that the Dept of Geosciences will be able to help us this year is September or October. The resistive printout also shows some circular high resistance spots surrounded by annulate low resistances. Fraser Hunter has commented that these are “interesting features” but is not prepared to speculate further. In the absence of a linear array or magnetometry survey we are limited in what we can presently do; a survey over the high resistance spots to see whether there is a change in the magnetic susceptibility could be useful but this equipment only detects to shallow depths. This has both pros and cons; if cremation burials are present they may be too deep to be detected, but on the other hand, although the field is now in pasture, aerial photographs show it under cultivation and thus ploughing could have brought higher susceptibility soils from lower levels up to where they can be detected – we will try!
It would be encouraging to think that the high spots with low resistance round them and possibly other, quite contrasting but less well defined in shape, features had something to do with the “sepulchre” that John Wood refers to as being on the site on his 1790 book on Cramond.
The report of our survey of this site must be with Historic Scotland, as supporters of the project, by March 2006, but we will be able to draw fewer conclusions than we would have hoped. If we can return to Lauriston with Edinburgh University to make linear array surveys later in 2006 an addendum to the March report will need to be published with comment on what the features look like in depth.