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North East discovery hailed Scotland's most significant of 2020


By Alistair Whitfield

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The discovery in May of the largest Pictish site to date has been hailed as Scotland's most significant archaeological find of 2020.

A team from the University of Aberdeen uncovered evidence that up to 4000 people may have lived on the summit of Tap O’ Noth near Rhynie around 1700 to 1400 years ago.

The Tap O' Noth hillfort about eight miles south of Huntly.
The Tap O' Noth hillfort about eight miles south of Huntly.

The discovery was made after samples gathered last year were radiocarbon dated.

This information, combined with drone surveys and laser technology, later revealed as many as 800 huts within the fort.

The hillfort is the largest-known settlement yet to be found anywhere in post-Roman Britain.

Fieldwork had been conducted in the surrounding area since 2011.

However archaeologists had previously concentrated on the lower valley.

This was where the famous Rhynie Man standing stone, which belongs to the Pictish era, was found at Barflat farm.

Evidence was also found in the valley of a settlement with possible royal connections whose occupants used glass vessels made in France and may have also drank wine from the Mediterranean.

However, the general assumption had been that the hillfort dated from an earlier non-Pictish period.

The Aberdeen team's leader is Professor Gordon Noble.

Speaking in May at the time of the hillfort's discovery, he said: "Because of the sheer scale of the fort and its location clinging to the side of a hill at the edges of the Cairngorms, some scholars had suggested occupation dated from a time when the climate was warmer, possibly during the Bronze age.

"But the results of the dating were simply incredible.

"They show that the huge fort dated to the fifth to sixth centuries AD and that it was occupied at the same time as the elite complex in the valley at Barflat farm. "The size of the upper and lower forts together are around 16.75 hectares.

"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.

"While in England the famous post-Roman sites such as Cadbury Castle is seven hectares and Tintagel around five hectares.

"The Tap O’ Noth discovery shakes the narrative of this whole time period.

"We had previously assumed that you would need to get to around the 12th century in Scotland before settlements started to reach this size.

"It is truly mind blowing and demonstrates just how much we still have to learn."


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