News
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Tarradale Distillery Excavation. We intend to open a few trenches over the possible site of a distillery shown on the 1788 map (below), SW of Tarradale House. It is possible there may also previously have been a mill on this site. There are no obvious upstanding remains, so we can't be 100% certain of the location. However, if the trenches opened by mechanical digger reveal structures, we intend to have several days of excavation and recording from Friday 3rd May to Monday 6th May 2024, perhaps extending further into the week if necessary. All are welcome to volunteer, regardless of experience. We hope this will be a good opportunity to brush up on excavation skills, with less physically demanding roles available for those not wishing to dig.
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Cowrie Shell Bead. A cowrie shell which we think may have been used as a bead some 6000 years ago was discovered recently during finds sorting from last Autumn's Mesolithic shell midden excavations. There are 2 round holes in the shell, one of the holes becoming slightly enlarged, possibly through use such as rubbing on the suspension cord. Pictures of very similar cowrie beads from Mesolithic sites in England can be seen in this article.
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Shell Sorting Sundays. On Sunday mornings we are continuing to sort through sieved shells from the Tarradale shell midden to extract pieces of bone, antler, fishbone, small artefacts et cetera. Several interesting finds have been made already. The shell sorting is done in the comfortable surroundings of the library at Tarradale House. See Upcoming Events for further info.
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Tarradale Through Time may be officially finished, but we continue on a smaller scale as the Tarradale Archaeological Team (TAT)! Excavation took place in late Sept/ early Oct 2023 where we reopened a trench on the shell midden site that was first excavated in 2017 but not completed. Important antler artefacts dating from c 4000 BCE were found in 2017 and the excavation explored these contexts further. See the photo gallery here.
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Launch of our Publication. The Tarradale Through Time book is now available for 9.99 inc. UK p&p. Buy it now using Paypal from the Tarradale Through Time: Community Archaeology on the Black Isle page.
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End of Project Celebration The conclusion of the Tarradale Through Time project was celebrated on Sat 24th September 2022 with an exhibition of finds, poster displays and a lecture by Eric Grant. We had over a hundred visitors during the day. Check out our magnificent cake!
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The latest resistivity survey results from the site an excavation carried out by Barri Jones in the early 90s at Tarradale reveal the presence of what may have been a complex multi-vallate fort. The resitivity data, collated by Bob Jones, and various aerial photos have been combined to reveal details of this fort of probale early Iron Age date. Its connection to the Pictish Barrow cemetery remains unknown but could still have been in use at the same time. See more on Barri Jones' excavation here.
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Data Structure Reports for our 2017, 2018 and 2019 excavation seasons can now be found on the Project Areas page. See also the report for our Abandoned Settlement project. A video from the 2019 Pictish Barrow Cemetery excavations can be seen below.
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See also Eric Grant's Blog Post containing the radiocarbon dating results from the Mesolithic Shell Midden sites excavated in 2017. It also includes photos of the rare antler tools. The story has been featured in The Scotsman, BBC Online and in the national press.
