 yw'n gweld i eich bydd Ynod i'n ddweud'r cyhoeddfa. Rwy'n ddod i'n gweithio mewn gwirioneddau i chi i'w ddweud o'r drefnol yn y cwmdr, rydyn ni'n pwysig i'w ddweud o'r unrhyw gweithio'r projegau sy'n gwneud o'r pwysig i'w ddwylo, oedd yn y Hoeddaeth Cyngor, mawr o'r projeg Cynwysu Cyngor, felly yna'r cwmniadu ei fawr o'r unrhyw gofynbwysig. The Comparative Kingship Project was a lever-human-funded project, it began in 2016, a five-year project, and it's really looking at this formative period in European history in terms of the development of their medieval kingdoms of Northern Europe. The project has different case studies in Ireland and Scotland, and is a comparative project looking at notions of rulership and the archaeological and historical records of those case studies. So there's different elements to the project, there's bringing together all the archaeological and historical evidence, and we have a historian on the project, Dr Mick Evans, who's a leading medieval historian, and looking at rulership in the different case studies and comparing that to broader European traditions. The element of the project we're going to focus on tonight is looking at central places of Northern Europe, and particular case studies have been funded through the lever-human project, particularly our work in Scotland. But there's also other elements to the project that I won't really touch upon tonight, so there's an environmental element to that, looking at the environmental signatures of some of the central places within the landscape. And also a big element of our project is really trying to provide a much firmer chronological basis for looking at particular areas of our medieval Europe, particularly in Scotland, where there's been a very poor chronology over the years. So harnessing the possibilities of Bayesian modelling and the use of radiocarbon on a much larger scale than has been possible in the past. So as I say, the focus tonight is looking at central places, and through the project so far we've realised, I guess, both the possibilities and the challenges of a comparative context. So if we look at Ireland with this incredible wealth of settlement evidence, 47,000 ring forts and hundreds of these excavated. If we compare that to Scotland, we realise some of the challenges in that comparative context. So we have 1,694 hill forts in Scotland documented, only 27 of these have early medieval dates post 400 AD. So if you compare that to 47,000 ring forts in Ireland, then you realise the difficulties. But one obvious thing to say about this is that that comparative context also leads us to believe that elements like enclosure is actually quite specialised in the early medieval scot. There is something different to what was found elsewhere. So one element of our project in Scotland over the last five, six years has been trying to increase the data set of early medieval enclosures across Scotland. But that's not always been successful. You could call our project the 400 to 200 cal BC project at times. When we look at these fortified settlements, that tends to be the dating for these sites. And it's only perhaps as few as one in ten that actually have early medieval occupation. So that really leads us to believe that what we're doing within Scotland is a different character of enclosure. Early medieval enclosure settlement wasn't much rarer in Scotland than it was in Ireland. And that really makes sense of some of the documentary evidence, the slim documentary evidence that we have for this period in Scotland, where fortifications, fortified settlement actually appears a lot more commonly than in Irish sources. And what we also get from the historical sources is that kingship itself was also perhaps more restricted in early medieval Scotland than it was in Ireland. So we can see successful over kingships of the Picts and of Dalreida from the 7th century. And we can compare that to the multitude of kings known in early Irish sources in the same period. So it looks like in Scotland the traditions were falling more continental than it was with Saxon partners of having more limited kingship. And forts I think are really crucial to that in terms of being really key elements of early medieval society. So on that basis, as we've been trying to increase the data set in Scotland, trying to understand the broad patterns, how it develops through time. But again, we're dealing with a very, very slim archaeological record. So this is a distribution map in our two case studies of Dalreida and Pictland of the elite fortified settlements based on the historical sources, archaeology and place names. Round about 30 sites in each case study or less than. And if you look at the historical sources alone this is the kind of pattern you get. So a multitude of sites in central Scotland, how we tend to see it as being the traditional cradle of the later medieval kingdom of Scotland. But you can see how late a lot of the sources are for these sites. Some of the earlier sites are actually only a periphery of these areas. And it's also true that the archaeological investigation in these sites has been pretty slim in the past. So I kid you not, this is I think the only or one of maybe two or three structures known from an early medieval fortified, developed nuclear fort in Scotland. So really a lot of our previous work has been keyhole in nature and very limited in extent. So for the rest of the lecture I really want to focus on one particular element of the project. That's been a work in North East Scotland, in Pictland. So Pict's one of a number of different kingdoms in early medieval Scotland. And perhaps the most extensive. Extending from the 1st to 4th up to the Northern Isles probably to Shetland as well and across to the Western Isles. So a very extensive kingdom and an over-kingship of the Picts known from the 7th century onwards. This is clearly a puzzle to some scholars, some historians. A kingdom as Chris Wickham says that sometimes operates on a larger scale and clearly puzzle by this. How the Picts manage this with no visible infrastructure in one of the most unpromising terrains in Europe remains a mystery. But at least show it as possible. So this is a nice foil to a project I guess. In terms of historical sources it's certainly true that these are very limited. We have some notion of the territories of the Picts through things like the Pictish Kingless. Which has an origin myth about Crustini, the father of the Picts who has seven sons. And those sons are clearly acclaimed to territory with names like Kate for a feth nes and a feth for feth. So we have a broad understanding of where the Picts occupied. In terms of finer grained analysis of the political and social makeup of the Picts is very limited from historical sources. And that's obviously where archaeology comes in. The Picts are first mentioned in late Roman sources in 297 AD. As these troublesome travel groups who live north of the frontier. And they go on to become these powerful kingdoms in northeast Scotland. So again part of our project is really been trying to look at some of these elite centres. And trying to understand A what they contained, what their character was and how they developed through time. So we know that these are important sites. They are a reference in our sources for this time period. And often in relation to important battles. The place where kings are residing. And actually in some cases kings actually named after these fortified sites in northern Britain. The other iconic element of the archaeological record of the Picts are the symbol stones. Fast one symbol stones and then also cross labs from a later period. And these have always been a fascination to scholars and Picts. Again very limited dating evidence for these and very limited contextual evidence. So again part of our project is being trying to put these two elements of the archaeological record in a wider context. So I just want to highlight four or five sites tonight. Just really to take you through the story of the big themes. The big developments that seem to characterize the evolution of these fortified settlements through time. From in this case from the late Roman period through to about 1880. So the first site is this site of Dunker, which is not this, it's here. This little promen trade here. This is what it looks like on the ground today. Why on earth were we interested in this site? Well it was again looking at the context of the fine spot of symbol stones. So there were five symbol stones known from the site. It includes some fairly standard symbols from the Pictish repertoire. You can see these are quite rough and ready examples. And they've often thought to be early examples in the tradition. And these were found on the sea stack in the 19th century. By a bunch of use from the nearby village just in the next bay along here. We got talking to a local grave digger who says that they should go and look on the sea stack. Because there was gold buried on top. So they went for a frolic, they walked along the coast. A great danger to themselves it says in the report. They got on top, started digging and they didn't find any gold. But they found these stones and they threw them into the sea. And it was only a year later that people recognized what these were and went back and collected them. Once people began to understand what Pictish symbols were. First there was a value to these monuments. But really very few people had actually been to visit the site since the 19th century. And again you can see why. This was our access route on the site where a professional climber gets up here. What did we find? Well basically we found what the use found in the 19th century. We found evidence for a low stone wall around the edge of the stack. Which is the context used to record of finding stones. Basically what we've got here is the remains of a timber-framed rampart of a promontary fort. Incredibly eroded to a promontary fort due to the geology of the site. Which is veined with sandstone. Which is a catastrophic destruction. Elements of the facing wall, very little stone left. I believe or not this site was actually robbed for stone in the 19th century and before. Inside the rampart evidence for buildings, structures, hearths. From some very rare architectural remains from this time period. So there's almost, in terms of Pictish settlements from this time period. We have a handful, literally a handful of sites now. It's very rare architectural traces from this time period. Hearths, floor layers of the buildings. And then evidence for people living on the site. Grining stones from rotary querns, spindle whirls. And also very unusual Roman imports for this time period. We have a Hoffenheim glass cup with bits of saemian. And at this far north, this is incredibly unusual. There's maybe like 10 sherds of saemian going from our ancient. Also evidence for metalworking with burnishing stones. And this is what we think the site would look like. A kind of blue peach of revealment here. So again it's basically a promontary fort, highly eroded. And this is what remains of the site. Perhaps the most surprising elements of our work if any care has been the dating of this site. There's very few fortified settlements known in Scotland after the last century BC. There's very few sites during the Roman army. But this site occupies the third and fourth centuries AD. Exactly the time period in which the Picts are first mentioned in the Roman sources. And so this has put the site in a firm chronology. And also suggests that these Pictish stones from the site are indeed early examples of that tradition. And in a recent plan to take the paper we've argued with the origins of that symbolic system, is through contact with the Roman world. And again this is an important site for that argument. So moving on. We're now going to move slightly inland to Rhiney, which is west of Aberdeen. And this is a site long known for its amazing group of Pictish stones located here. It's also got a very interesting place name. So it comes from the early Celtic work Reef for King. But it's not a documented place like many places in Northern Pict. So it's got this group of stones, eight Pictish stones now. It's the biggest concentration of these class one stones now. And it includes the cross stain, which has got a salmon and a Pictish piece carved on it. A warrior figure having a doorknob butted spear here. And a shield quite eroded. And the most famous monument from Rhiney is this character here, and Rhiney Mann in his big haunted teeth and carrying his axe over his shoulder. So again we wanted to understand more about the context of the stone. So the Rhiney Mann was plowed up right next to the cross stain here. It was very unusual because it still stands in its original position just to the south of the village of Rhiney. And the year after the Rhiney Mann was found, Ero photograph was taken showing this complex series of enclosures around the stone. In 2011, 2012, we managed to get some funding together to actually investigate these enclosures. And this is what we found. This is the standing stone across stain here. Standing next to a building here. More buildings next to it. And then ditched enclosures. And also hard to see this one, but a large wooden wall or a palisaded enclosure around the site. On a little knoll just to the site of the modern village. And again quite an unusual landscape location compared to the kind of classic sites we think of from Pictons. So over five seasons of excavation, this is the ground plan we produced, showing the cross stain. And we also found a socket which we think is probably for the Rhiney Mann or for another one of the stones that came from the site. Actually stand at the entranceway into these enclosures with a building standing next to the cross stain. Other buildings in sight. So again, repressed to what we think it would look like with the last phase of the site. This very complex oak plank palisade or box rampart here with buildings inside. Sitting in the shadow of Tappanorth, which is an Iron Age hill fort, one of the most impressive known in Scotland. And not only do we have a fortified settlement here at Rhiney, we also have a contemporary cemetery. So it's down by the modern village, a few hundred metres away. There's another group of stones, including the warrior figure that was found within Cairn. And big square enclosures and very characteristic square baros, which is the kind of stereotypical Pictish burial type of the Bubless period. And we have dates from the baros showing that these were contemporary with the settlement nearby. In terms of finds, we've got evidence for high status elite activity. We've got Lake Roman Amphora turning up at Rhiney in the 6th century. This is the only find spot really so far in eastern Britain and by far the furthest north identified so far. Some evidence for nice metalwork, toilet accessories, broach pins, glass coming from western France, and also some more unusual metalwork as well. And the beauty of the site of Rhiney is that we're beginning to find objects that you can see represented on Pictish stones again, beginning to link the chronology of the stones and their iconography more clearly to what we're actually finding at the settlement. So this is a little iron painting here with a serpent, you can see the eye here, a tail biting onto the end of the axe. So very similar to the axe that the Rhiney man carries here. And we think this is a form of sacrificial axe like the one Axhamer found in the Sardin ship volume. Clear evidence for production, I think it's probably one of the largest early medieval metalworking assemblages now known, including evidence for production of banana broaches, axe-shaped objects, handpins, and a whole range of different metalwork finds. We have ingot moulds from the site and also, I think perhaps most excitingly, a range, we've got about 12 or 13 of these moulds for making little animal figures. So this is a hound or a wolf, you maybe just make out his head here to tail and the legs of the animal. And we have different animals represented within the moulds. It's incredibly exciting. Again, they look very similar to the types of animal carvings you see represented on Pictish stones. They've been found about 10, 15 miles from the site. We also have bits of weaponry and this is all from midden deposits thrown into the ditch. It's a plow-truncated site so we've only got a very partial picture of what was here, but even so it's still incredibly rich assemblage. And in terms of radiocarbon dates, we now have something like 60 radiocarbon dates and it's an incredibly boring oxculclot. Basically it looks like the site emerges in the late Roman period in the 4th century and it's out of use by the mid 6th century. So it's quite a restricted chronology for the site. So it's going out of use by 5, 550, 560 indeed. Right, so that's some work that we've largely completed. We've published a few interim reports on both of those sites now, working on the full publications. The rest of the lecture is going to be work that we've done more recently and some caught-off-the-press information as well. So this summer's adventures to really cold, wet, high places. How is this site? Which is called Benahee in Aberdeenshire. It's a really iconic hill. It's one of the most notable landmarks in Aberdeenshire and North East Scotland. Again, it's got a really interesting place name. It seems to mean the mountain of the people of Cain, Cain being one of the seven suns of Crusny. And it's got a spectacular fort, one of the highest forts in Scotland, known, which has long been, again, a chronic element of North East archaeology, but very poorly understood. There are two lost Gaelic sagas of 10th century date or earlier, which seem to refer to Benahee or the area around the bank. One is called the ravaging of Benahee, which suggests the site was destroyed or the area was destroyed. And the ravaging of the plain of Cain, again, suggesting a major social and political upheaval and events in this region, in their medieval period. It's more akin to some of the classic sites of Arling in Scotland, very similar to the ground plant of places like Dynad and Dundarn, with a summit granite tour, an upper rampart and a lower rampart here. Quite small. It has been investigated in the past by Christian Mephagan, who was an early associate of the Society of Antiquities of Scotland, who investigated the site in the 1880s. And this is the plan that Christian produced, which shows the lower rampart here, one of the entranceways, the upper rampart, and also a rampart up by the granite tour. And in that, combined with the way that the stonework is filled down from what appears to become the tour, suggests that the tour itself was actually enclosed and had structures or buildings on top of that as well. So it would have been a three-tiered enclosure, really very impressive. Christian Mephagan also recorded a well in the site, which did not appear on any of the recent plans, including the Royal Commission for Scotland's plan as well. Which would be a great pleasure to tell you when you find it. So this is the site here. This is the Royal Commission plan. In July this year, we investigated with a series of trenches here. This is the lower Citadel rampart here, actually built on huge granite blocks, each of these probably about a ton weight. So it's quite incredible, they've actually landscaped this hill in order to actually create the rampart here. They've created a more level platforming site. So a huge investment in labour in order to build the ramparts in the fort. And we surprisingly, Christian Mephagan reported very extensive excavations of the fort in the 19th century. We actually found very good preservation, including deep midden deposits, full of animal bone, fish bone, and also some small finds as well. And we also rediscovered the well that Christian had recorded in the 19th century. With very elaborate steps down the well and a small well cavity here, which would soon be empty in the 19th century, backfill began to function again. So it's a little well that holds about 60 litres of water. It's really quite a remarkable construction. Basically, wherever we excavate on the site, we found evidence for settlements. So this is up by the rampartor. This is a small test bit here showing occupation deposit extending downslope from there, including some quite unusual finds, pottery, almost unknown in mainland Pictish sites, gaming pieces, crucibles, crucible sherds, and really exciting evidence for actual buildings and structures inside the fort. And hot of press, we've just got these dates this week. These are the dates for the fort so far, all centering on the 8th century IET. So it gives you an example of the kind of forts that were being developed by the 17th to the 8th century. Larger sites, more complex, and at least higher hilltop settlements. As I said, in introduction to another part of our project, it's not just doing excavations, but also trying to date archive material. So this was a quarry site for us into southern Pictland, and this was one of the vector investigate sites dug in the 1950s in vats of complete destruction by quarrys, such a crate in five. And this is the site that I've shown in the beginning with one of the few actually previously documented buildings within one of these forts. And the important metalworking assemblage from Clatcher of Craig as well, which the chronology for has been debated. So we've redated archive material from the site, and what's really fascinating about the site is that the radiocardinates from the three inner ramparts, the settlement features and what looks like an abandoned phase, are very, very close. If you look at the span of the site, at most 90 years, and it could be as short as 40 years. So it looks like some of these sites, rather than being long term central places, are actually boom and bust sites that emerge very rapidly and they go out of use very rapidly. And there's clear evidence for the destruction of the site with all the inner ramparts destroyed by fire. And this dating site is around about 600 to 670 AD, so 7th century AD in date. Right, so just one last site to introduce you to, and this is probably our largest project at the moment, and one we're hoping to do more work with in the coming years. Basically, because of this very troublesome coastal erosion happening at this site, undermining the seaward rampart, which is just here. It's a site that's been long in the popular imagination about the PICS, but very little, again, modern archaeological work on the site. So it's a promosary fork, light done a curve on a whole different scale. This is the upper citadel of the port. You can just see the ramparts here. The ramparts on this site are entirely removed in the 19th century to build a harbour here, and this is the lower citadel of the port and extended into the town before the town was built in the early 1800s. At times of scale, it's by far the largest early medieval site known in northern Britain. So this is Danad, which is a very famous site from the Scots and the Dalryada kingdom in the west. This is Dundarn, and you can see the scale of Boracad. About five hectares, including the fences, which doesn't sound huge, but for an early medieval site in the north, it's very extensive indeed. It also has a really interesting structural component. It's got a number of bull carvings. Six survived, but there were many. There are 30 of these reported in the 19th century. Again, they were found during the development of modern town when they basically destroyed the landward defences and part of the inner defences as well. These came from round-bed engines into the upper forks, a marking-up transition into the upper centre. These might date to the sixth-seventh century based on our historical parallels. We also have an assemblage of later sculpture, early Christian sculpture, from the site including fragments of a box shrine and cross-slabs as well, including the pictures of warriors, mighted warriors on the stones. Clearly, there was an important early Christian site within the forks, and these came from the modern graveyard, which is dedicated to Sinidon, an abbot of Linda's farm. It's a really interesting angle of sex in connection to that. In terms of welds, it's got the most elaborate example known. This was discovered in 1889 when they were trying to find a water source for the modern village. They found a green patch in the upper fort, and they dug down and discovered barrel-vaulted enclosure with a rock-cut well ear, the little walkway around the bed. They blasted the bottom of it with dynamite, trying to increase the water flow into this system. It's not been well treated like many of these monuments, but again, a really elaborate feature of this form. This is how it survives today. Most of the land where the fence is destroyed, this site also destroyed, and then all that's remaining is the ramparts of the upper citadel here, and part of the ramparts of the lower citadel, and the interior areas as well. There have been previous investigations, some really important antiquary investigations, for example, James and Donald in the 1860s, who actually excavated through the lower rampart, which I don't think would be allowed in the modern health and safety context today. They were about eight metres wide and more than six weeks just high in these ramparts, but this is the section that he produced, showing that there was timber framing, timber lacing within a midden layer surviving in the lower citadel here. Beautiful watercolours by James McDonald. And then Hugh Young in the 1890s, it was his grandfather who led the development of modern town, who destroyed the site. Hugh Young excavated the site and then an ancestor of the youngs in the 1990s gave a site to the Burkhead to Heritage Trust. The youngs have been involved in the site for a long time. He also showed the complexity of the ramparts, the huge pieces of sandstone that have been used to create the pacing of the rampart. Again, accorded really complex timber elements to this wall, and this is his work. Maybe you see these shadowy figures in the background showing their excavations, looking at the wall face here. Hugh Young discovers some interesting artefacts from the site, evidence for the co-lacing of cattle, hangar moulds, a rhyni-manspan axe, and a spearhead here, and also retains an animal boom collection which we've been looking at, which is stored in the National Museum of Scotland, which also includes a human skull and a human leg bone which we've dated very recently to that medieval period. The only modern work really was Alan Small's excavations in the 1960s, who showed again complex timber lacing or timber framing within the rampart, but unfortunately never published his excavations and suggested that the whole of the interior of the fort was very badly disturbed and there wasn't really anything remaining to investigate. That's really when we came in in 2015, was the picture that we had, was that we might find some evidence of the rampart but the interior of the fort was going to be heavily disturbed. Indeed, various archaeologists told us not to bother working a barricade because we wouldn't find any. We initially worked in the gardens of the Coast Guard Station, mainly because it's an unusual part in monuments that gives a bit more freedom to test bits and the like. Very quickly, we actually found very well-preserved archaeology. Under about a metre of disturbance, 19th century, we come down straight down onto floor layers, postals of buildings. This is within the gardens here, showing floor layers, a hearth here, an outer wall of an 8th to 10th century building, so towards the end of the first line of AD. On the floor of this building, it looks like it's been destroyed by fire. We have some really unusual finds, fittings from a chest or a shield, bits of weaponry again, sword held here and also two coins of King Alfred which have been pierced for wearing here. This is just one building, there's another building here and also walls going across the structure here as well. From that initial test fitting, we got a basic chronology of the site suggesting that it was in use from the 6th century AD through to the 10th century. That formed a foundation for our recent work, which is our Weaverhoom Fund work, trying to build on that initial test fitting at Burkhead. So in 2018, we opened test pits down in the Lower Sitville and also looked at the seaward rampart. Very quickly, we found more building plans. This is going under someone's house again. This is a sunken floor building about five, six metres across and got a plank construction to it. This is the Lower Sitville Rampart, which was more like a civil engineering project than an excavation project. It was very challenging in terms of the overflowing years, about two metres of rampart collapse over the top of midden layers. These are the same midden layers that McDonald and Young record in the 1800s. Again, really good preservation, including both things here, and dates from the 7th and 8th century through to the 1th and 10th century dates from the top of the midden layer underneath all the collapse. So a very secure chronology for that. The more excitingly is the seaward rampart. This, unfortunately, is the one right on the edge of the erosion. It's about half a metre away from an active erosion edge at the moment. But it survived about two and a half, three metres high, originally six metres high, reckon based on the antiquated excavations, ensuring exceptional preservation of timber framing years. You can maybe just make out these burnt layers here, which are actually the horizontal beams and the transverse beams of timber lacing. It must be some of the best preserved of this period in January. Then this year we went back. Again, there's real logistical challenges in excavating sections of the wall because of the overburden. This is the kind of evidence we're getting. Oak beams preserved through charring for the upper couple of metres of wall and the lower part of wall seems to be buried in there, I mean, in that period, with uncharred beams here and sitting directly on top of occupation surfaces. Up against the ramparts we have buildings preserved with burnstones and other everyday evidence within these buildings, although we really only scratched the surface here. Essentially, wherever we've dug in the last two years, within the fort, underneath the modern overburden we come down to very well-preserved, early medieval structures, which, as it says, is incredibly unusual for this part of the world. This is another building. These are the two walls here with floor layers here. Again, really well-preserved by the 19th century overburden, but also because essentially this is a big signage from tree sticking out to the Murray Firth and there's been lots of sand deposition through the centuries covering over and preserving very, very fragile floor layers in a couple inches thick in some cases. Then down in the lower set del, this year, evidence for even larger structures is a huge wall extending here. We think it covers round and we think this is part of a massive building within the lower set del, with the floor layers preserved inside. We have at least half a metre of stratigraphy within this structure, which is absolutely jam-packed full of animal bone, environmental evidence, small finds and the like. This is the kind of archaeology that we're really hoping to get our teeth into over the next few years, particularly in the upper set del where the coastal erosion site is worse. In terms of chronology, we're pulling from one of the most poorly understood sites. Already we now have, I think, 50 reilig carbonates from the site which allows us to model on a really detailed level. So we have a start date at the moment for the site in the 6th century, 540 to 595 AD and it ends in 910 to 965 AD so in the 10th century. That's a really, really interesting time period for the PICs. It's the time when references to the PICs actually disappear from the historical sources and we have to emerging or take over bygales of the kingdoms of the PICs and the creation of a new kingdom called the Kingdom of Alba, which is essentially the forerunner of the medieval state of Scotland. This happens in the late 9th century, into the early 10th century and one strong factor may well be the presence of Vikings in the north taking over big areas all north of the PICs and there's a strong suspicion that they may well be involved in the destruction of the site in the 10th century with clear evidence of the ramparts being destroyed by fire and the building's sequence ending quite abruptly in that 10th century period. So, just to sum up, we can see, I think, from our early comparative approaches to looking at fortify settlement in Scotland and Ireland, this is something that is quite distinctive in Scotland in terms of the rarity of sites and how often these are a reference in sources. So clearly fortify centres were a major element of kingship in Scotland in this time period. We can now see that some of these are emerging as early as the late Roman period, exactly the time period in which the PICs are first mentioned in Roman sources and they go through, certainly to the 10th century and in some cases they'll probably continue to with later medieval castles and defended sites in some cases. But we can also see that some sites, like that you created, some of these actually had very short chronologies and were boom and bust sites. They were perhaps created by powerful leaders and these were overthrown, or the lineage was overthrown and some of these sites got used quite rapidly. From the 6th century, 7th century onwards, we get more complex sites, the so-called nuclear force developing, and that maps on quite well to the first reference to an over kingship of PICs from the 7th century onwards. And we can embrace the Wiccan critique of the PICs, but I think we can also see that one of the reasons that the PICs perhaps had this very extensive kingdom or series of kingdoms was that things like a force were clearly one way in which rulership was extended over an extensive territory. Now what we also see at the PICs, I think that unlike some sites, is a very clear investment in the kind of sacral elements of power with an iconography of power, very obvious through things like the PICs stones, of individuals like the Rhine man, clearly underpinning notions of power and governance at these sites. Finally, these forts remained important until the late 1st line in the AD, unlike previous research that suggested they might have gone out of use. And its destruction of sites, like for example in the 10th century, may well have led to fundamental shifts that ultimately led to the demise of the PICs as a social, political and language group in this part of the world. So I'll end there, other than to say, we have a book out, so please buy it. Thank you very much. Thank you very much for bringing the PICs so clearly into focus for us. Thank you. Now, responses, questions. Thank you. What is it that comets this sort of social reformulation at that particular time in place, unlike something that we've got no notion of understanding of, there being some sort of comment out of a simple form of society. The PICs has understood that CNAs, the PICtish quality of CNAs in emerging developing authority there previously, what was that previous saying, and what prompted this change? You mean in the 9th century, or in the early period? In the early period. Well, it's a difficult question to start with. Well, I think what you see from the Roman sources is that in the 1st and 2nd century you get multiple tribal identities referred to. And as you go through the Roman publication, those identities north of the frontier become fewer and fewer, resulting in the PICs being really the only major identity referred to in the 4th century. So it looks very much like you've got some sort of social and political amalgamation of groups north of the frontier in the face of the empire on the doorstep. And you can see that, you know, they're involved in things like the barbarian conspiracy in the 4th century. They're communicating with other barbarian groups across Northern Europe in this time period. So you certainly seem to have some sort of amalgamation of different groups. And it's simply a nickname, a Roman nickname, the PICs, but it's clearly an identity that sticks and tracks that anti-Roman identity that's very key to their identity going forward. So it seems to be the presence of the empire on the doorstep is creating this social and political PICs in the groups farther north. But what happened to PICs? Because they were so close to Roman and set them back on it, that maybe they just had to learn. Yeah, well, they did have to learn. They did have to learn. Yeah, so we have organ inscriptions on PICtis stones. So they're writing in Gallic. Also, the best interpretation of PICtis symbols are some sort of naming tradition. Also, there's a form of writing with a very limited syntax. So that's another form of writing. We also get lateral inscriptions on PICtis stones as well. And another major discovery of recent years has been Mark Parra for a book on it. A major PICtis monastery in the north where he has clear evidence for the production of bells that are clearly making books and that we need to manuscripts. For whatever reason, we just don't have any of those surviving. So I think it's very, very likely that there was a much more extensive written tradition in England. But for whatever reason, we don't have the survival of the documents in time. Perhaps because the PICtis adensin and the PICtis elite culture was ultimately surpassed. So we hadn't had these objects in the books and were themed into the next generation. I think it's really important because in the last, when you talk to a metaphor, training is really important. They're training about what are they training for these mad-training imports at places like Rhine. It's a major guess as good as mine. It might be one of these elements in terms of huge amounts of production at sites including Inca boards. But other possibilities are things like Llanar. If you listen to people who have killed us, or slaves, things that we'd be training with these mad-training traders. So we don't really know what's going in another direction in the next, I guess. Mining, not that we know of, all the silver is seriously late rolling so right through at the PICtis street. It's only in 5G that you can get new sources per year. So as far as we know, we don't really know what sources are to the slaves. To mention that you're asking a good question about the PICtis. The nine-year question that took in other occasions that seemed to have an association between what we use as barriers to the good ones. Yes. So the burial traditions of the PICtis. In 1955, there were no PICtis burials known whatsoever. But in the last 20, 30 years, certainly through the aerial elements, we can see that the classic PICtis cemetery is a square barosentri, but much later than they could come into the orchard and work. And they seem to be from the 4th, certainly the 5th centuries through to the 7th centuries and they enclose long-case variants for the old-scale long-case cemeteries by themselves or the company square barosentries as well. For those, probably about 60 of these cemeteries went across PICtlans and today, when the PICtis was finished up, a thesis on this question and she is basically a reviewer on this. There are lots of very few four or five examples that are still outstanding of these barosentries that you can still visit them on your own today. But there are quite a few in number generally. There are less than 10 barosentries per century, as many as 30 would probably be the biggest so they seem to be quite, again, restricted in numbers. But there are quite one way that some of them, so some of the barosentries up to 25 would go across. There are no great leads so they are not investing in terms of great leads but they are investing in these quite a number of baro variants and you also, really interesting, you get some of them can join it so it looks like one is creating a lineage of a student architecture of these variants. So they are fascinating, by again, if I had very few representations of these signatures but at least the thing is a very interesting. Do they extend up to the square barosentries? Do they extend outside? Longest barosentries, yes. But the square barosentries themselves, apart from some possible examples then of using all your or largely as far as they are in England, so they do seem to be largely restricted. Really wonderful sites. Is it slightly surprising that there is no evidence of any use of them at all? Following on from that, once you get past the year of the thousand, what is the argument of evidence for the distribution of a new society, a new power that is essentially a centre from a distribution that they have shown us? No, there are sites that are reused in the castle on the 7th at a dark beach site underneath, apart from the castle up here in Loch Ness where there are many sites on the region. So you do get continuity at least in terms of location of the sites. But those are not the sites we tend to investigate because the presence of a castle on top of the sites is really severely restricted. So we have generally targeted the level of the use of a new period. So there is some continuity of the fortified settlement of the use of a new period. But generally things like modern buildings are quite different landscape locations to some of these restricted forts. So the accent of any use is really interesting because it's so marginal today. It's one of the first places for the fortified settlement of the fortified settlement. So there is some unusual landscape choices about some of these sites. It seems to be a mix between being a defensive location and also a highly visible location in the last year. I guess a symbol of quite extensive ownership of the fortified these sites are seven times in a year. We have very little understanding of the Pictish language or of our place names. We know this epitomic language so it's very different to most of the place names that we're talking today in Easter or Gallup. You have seven place name elements that are thought to be Pictish things like pet names pet names but they're almost always coined with a Gallup element to it. So it seems to me again that Gallup becomes the major language in Scotland including in East and even in the quite important and wealthy farm names pet names ultimately become Gallup in form. So there's very little survival of the Pictish names but where they do survive you can generally map and monitor where we know the pics of what the lines are. So pet names for example will extend from five up to more of Stifnes and a few restaurants so they generally map on to where we think the Pictish names are extended to. Please be arrived called each of the stone stones. Each Is that right? It means grace. Right. I actually don't know what it means I'm not a place name expert. It could be. It could be, isn't it? I'd have to ask Simon Taylor because I'm just a place name expert or a pro name. Generally the names look really well mapped to Pictish stone locations in any specific form but there are a clue but limited clues of what my name is and it has to be clear to the ports of that site in terms of the place name. Done a care and the place name on the island of Southern America done a care of a fort. So it's a fort of a fort. It's helpful. Any sign of paraphernalia or these are neat sites or objects? Yeah The only real site so far is the evidence for the Elychysyn sculpture from Burkhead where you have fragments of shrines fragments of crosslives. That's really unusual in these fort sites. Generally they have very little in-wave sculpture of where we do because it tends to be part of the Christian character. So that's a really interesting claim. Some of the other forts places like Dunedarn they have are the churches nearby within a couple of kilometres of site that are actually within enclosures and cells. But from the 9th century and the 7th century perhaps you'd get some of the lowland complex in places like Crotegiant and Scun, in places like Neagle and Syngvigions which creatively are part of the royal states that clearly have important churches there as well. So we have fragments of Crotegiant because I'm one of the fantastic arch from the church around Christian Handel and again the three standard crosses. But we don't tend to have this fortified on the superior hands by the usual in that respect. Thank you very much.