Category: Survey
Survey 2026: The Joy of Walls
If you’re into landscape survey and later historical periods in the Scottish Highlands, you have to be very interested in walls. And fortunately – we are… One of the great things about doing the Glencoe survey as part of a field school is that there is always time to stop and talk about what you’re…
Achtriachtan and the Power of Walking
The 19th-century complex (students left), the excavated house (students centre) and the house on the knoll above (students right) (Photo: Michael Given) It’s a slightly depressing thought that so much of learning archaeology is done by sitting in a lecture room or in front of a computer. That’s certainly been the case with my course…
Oh Schist! A millstone quarry at 400m
Last week Derek Alexander (NTS) and I climbed up to Corrie na Cuilc to explore two sites recorded in the previous NTS survey of Glencoe (carried out in 1996 by Harden and Wordsworth). While we struggled to find the still site recorded by the previous survey, perhaps due to the low light (which never reached…
Glencoe 26/06/25
Within the legendary and imposing landscapes of Glencoe it is easy to miss the stories told by simply looking down at the land beneath your feet. Day 1 of survey taught us that observations of the smaller things are the building blocks of archaeology. For example a lot is revealed by plants within the landscape.…
Achnambeithach in the Rain
‘Welcome to Glencoe!’ we tell the students, on a brisk day in late October in the blustery remnants of Storm Ashley. The south-westerly gusts hurtle up the glen, funnelling neatly round An t-Sròn so there’s no shelter at all. The horizontal rain pelts our faces, needles into every crack and seam in our clothing, and…
Barriers and Boundaries
Kaitlyn Whitsitt During the 2024 Field School season, the survey team conducted walkover survey covering a great portion of the landscape surrounding the excavation site, neatly contextualising the Achnacon settlement in its environment. Wading through both bog and bog myrtle over these two weeks, two things about Achnacon became increasingly clear: the land usage and…
A week in the life of our Survey and Digital Media Assistants
Having loved participating in the project in 2023, we have been incredibly grateful for the opportunity to return to Glencoe this season! Assisting with survey and digital media, we’ve been happily diving into the exploration of the new excavation sites, surrounding landscape, and community engagement in further depth to 2023. The digital media strand over…
Field School 2024: 13/06/24
Today was our first day of fieldwork this season and we were busy! With the help of our partners from the NTS Archaeology team and volunteers we deturfed trenches over two of the three structures we will be investigating this season and began the process of cleaning these off to understand what archaeology we might…
Glencoe Field School 2024
In February Lizzie Robertson and I spent a week in Glencoe scoping out features and sites to excavate as part of our 2024 Glencoe field school (#Glencoe2024) as well areas of the landscape where survey would add to our understandings of land use in the glens post-medieval past. With the construction of the first stretch…
Field School 2023: 14/08/23
Our team began the first of three days in their ‘skill strand’ groups, dedicated to further exploration of the methods of their chosen area of practice – survey, excavation or digital and creative media. Our survey team went out to Rannoch Moor to carry out an auger survey around the River Etive to prospect for…
