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Full Description
It is remarkable, given Dunkeld's importance in medieval Scotland, that so little was known of King's Seat fort until the 1950s. While proposed as a royal Pictish 'nuclear' fort in the 1980s, it was so heavily overgrown as to be effectively lost to archaeology until 2015, when the local history society instigated a programme of community archaeology to explore its story. Led by Perth and Kinross Heritage Trust, working with AOC Archaeology Group, this included excavation that revealed a high-status Pictish fort complex. Like the classic sites Dundurn and Clatchard Craig, it had a high-status summit citadel surrounded by a hierarchy of connected out-works on lower terraces. LiDAR data revealed a previously unknown south enclosure, more than doubling its total footprint and raising questions about the role of such sites and the nature of Pictish settlement.
Controlling important routes from the north and west into the lower Tay region, King's Seat was a Pictish 'royal' stronghold, estate, and production centre which was to attract an important early monastic foundation. While relatively short-lived, it produced evidence of elite metalworking and trade and was the venue for feasting that saw the consumption of exotic luxuries such as Continental imports and glass vessels from Anglo-Saxon England. It was abandoned, rather than destroyed, perhaps as power passed to a lower site in a new architectural form, associated with the increasing power of the church and as larger polities developed. The relics of Columba were brought to Dunkeld in the 9th century, probably as much a result of tensions between Pictish royalty and the Gaelic church as the threat of Viking raids, before its ecclesiastical importance was eclipsed by St Andrews. Dunkeld takes its name from the Gaelic dùn Cailleann or 'fort of the Caledonians' which undoubtedly refers to King's Seat fort. It is apt that retention of this pre-Pictish name celebrates the link between later prehistory and medieval Scotland that is so well represented by the site itself.
Contents
List of Figures
List of Tables
Acknowledgements
List of Contributors
Notes
Introduction - David Strachan with a contribution by Łukasz Banaszek
Background to the project
Location: geology, topography and rivers
King's Seat fort
New discoveries: the southern enclosure and other information from airborne LiDAR data
Project aims and research agenda
The excavation results - Cathy MacIver with a contribution by Derek Hamilton
Introduction
The site and excavation methodology
The excavation results
Conclusions
The small finds and animal bone - Ewan Campbell, Andy Heald, Andrew Morrison, Derek Hall, Dawn McLaren, Rob Engl, Daniel Bateman, Amy Halliday, and Lore Troalen
Introduction
E ware
Later Medieval and later pottery
Money-box
Glass
Copper alloy
Lead
Iron objects
Non-ferrous metalworking
Iron-working evidence
Worked antler
Chipped stone
The coarse stone
Unworked animal none
Conclusions
King's Seat in context: the early medieval of the area small - David Strachan with contributions by Richard Tipping, Mark A. Hall, and Oisín Plumb
Introduction
Land use and land use change in the early medieval period
Prehistoric and early medieval sites in the landscape
Early medieval sculpture and portable antiquities in and around Dunkeld
The historical background of King's Seat
Discussion and conclusions - David Strachan, Cathy MacIver, and Andy Heald
Introduction
Upland and lowland relationships: defining the nature of settlements, buildings, royal sites and their locations, and the relationships between them
Routeways: contact, communication, and control
High-status sites
Economic networks
Material culture
Periods of transition
Conclusions: a royal seat and the capital of Atholl
References
Appendices
Appendix A: Archaeological sites in the environs of Dunkeld and the wider area
Appendix B: Early medieval sculpture from Dunkeld and its environs
Index
