Between the 30th July and 1st August I was joined by Nicholas Cullen, Sabrina Ross, Cole Juckette and Nicky Juckette, for a series of site visits to our excavations across Glencoe, and some areas we would like to investigate around Rannoch Moor. Nick is our projects archaeo-botanist, based at Stanford University and a specialist in foodways in pre-Roman Italy, Sabrina is a charcoals specialist, and Cole is our projects digital recording specialist. The aim of these sessions was to contextualise for our specialists the landscapes and periods the materials they explore with us come from, and to think about how we might represent their data within complex and multidisiplinary landscape narratives.
We started off with a trip out onto Rannoch Moor leading our bog-novices into this unique landscape with equal parts anticipation and excitement. Certainly for a first experience of this landscape for Nick and Sabrina were not disappointed: we had glorious sunshire, dramatic clouds and sunbeams, and a rolling stormy squal, we hopped on quaking bogs, circumvented bottomless pools, and in Nick’s case fell into the bog not once, not twice but three times, truely an authentic experience of this wonderful place.
We set out first West from Loch Bà along the 19th century estate path before turning South beside a large esker. From here we wound a path along ridges of dry-ish ground until we reached the River Bà, where we found the site of two shielings and a possible bog-iron quarry surveyed by myself and Ally Parker Banks in March. Here we stopped to sup from the rivers cool waters as they rushed towards a lochan and stared around at the fading horizons to the East and the vast dark hollows of Corrie Bà and Blackmount to the West. These shielings are just a few of the complex network of dwellings across this landscape. While exploring these structures Nick created a record of the botanical species he could find in their surroundings today including wildflowers, mosses, lichens, grasses, shrubs and herbs. When a bird would swoop overhead we would glance up to see if it was of interest, on previous visits Eagles have circled or watched us from distant drumlins.
After this visit we headed West along the river, upstream, towards the farmstead surveyed by Michael’s team in 2023. On route we had to traverse not one, but two, deep rivers of inky black mud. Hopping from islands of floating grass to solid-ish tuft we made these crossings mostly successfully (only loosing Nick to the knees twice) before we were back on solid ground. At the farmstead I narrated our current thoughts on the sites chronology, and the features we have identified so far. We considered the extended landscape of a site like this, what connections it required beyond the head dykes, kailyards and pens of the farmstead.
We returned to the A82 via the estate track again, passing as we did bleached stumps of ancient pine trees eroding from within drying hags of peat, the desicating peat here washing out like ashy rivers. Many of these stumps, often used to ‘evidence’ a ‘great forest of Caledon’, likely died as a result of the wettting of this landscape and the growth of the blanket bog at some point in the Early Iron Age.
We continued along the estate track East towards the lochs. The day ended with a sweaty march home and so we took a brief detour to a secluded pool on the River Etive for a dip as the sky greyed and the tourists scattered. Being immersed in the waters running off Rannoch Moor was another experience with this landscape, our varying modes of entry to the water, slow steps, staggering, sliping, sliding, slithering, and rapid inhilations once into the icy current quickly passing from memory as we dove into the blackness of the Etive’s gorge-like pools. An invigorating end to the day.
On the 31st we set off to visit the sites of our excavations in 2023 and 2024, as well as the shielings excavated as part of my PhD in 2021 and 2022. At the Summerhouse of MacIain we explored the expression of chiefly status and resource within the architecture and material from this site, and wondered how these might appear in the archaeo-botanical record. Nick is currently processing phytolith samples from this site in Stanford and so to be able to engage with the site and its flora was a useful entryway into discussions of formation processes, resource use and residuality in the record. How can we differentiate grass seeds carried in on muddy boots and sodden trews from a thatched roof or rush floor? We wandered with a bit of fording across to the shielings after this and, after a brief flight from some tick-ridden bracken, explored these structures. The shielings here form one part of a diverse range of features which tell of intensive resource management in these uplands, including charcoal burning platforms, peat cutting banks, a whisky bothy and stances. You can find out more about these in a 2023 article in the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.
We then headed down to the settlement of Achnacon, to explore the byrehouses, platforms, corn-drying kiln, kailyards and rig and furrow excavated in 2024 and 2025. These samples are still in our labs in Glasgow ready to be floated and sorted before we send the sorts and flots to Nick.
Following this we headed down the road to Oban, via Dunstaffnage Castle, here we discussed the comparisons between MacIain’s summerhouse and the architecture of 16th, 17th and 18th Lordship, and the material culture from these excavations. Having had our fill of archaeology for the day we tooted into Oban, checked into a guest house and proceeded to Ee-usk to gorge ourselves on seafood and wine before ending the night in Markie Dan’s.
On the last day of this trip we stopped of at Carnasserie Castle to explore again the expression of 16th and 17th lordship in this region, and Kilmartin Museum to see how they told stories in the landscape, before taking Nick, Sabrina and Nicky on a tour of the areas prehistoric sites.
Before and after our ‘highland tour’ I was able to take Nick and the team around the National Museum of Scotland, National Gallery and National Portrait Gallery, and the Kelvingrove, to contextualise some of our discussions. Key to our work in Glencoe are a few key themes:
What was it like to live in a Glencoe in the turmultous 17th and 18th centuries?
How did people make sense of events ranging from the climax of the ‘Little Ice Age’ to the Reformation, Cromwellian Wars and Restoration, Williamite and Jacobite Wars, and the ensuing geo-political changes, the changing relationship between tenants and their chiefs, and coming to live in an increasingly global world?
How can we (re)present the landscapes of Glencoe and Rannoch through lenses which challenge the Romantic myth of ‘wildness’?
Discussing these themes with Nick, Sabrina and Cole was a great way to generate new ways of approaching these questions, from Cole’s interest in representing archaeology to Nick and Sabrina’s interests on the plant-economies, interactions and dependencies between people, plants, soils and climate. From visiting Horatio McCulloch’s ‘Glencoe’ and James Hamilton’s ‘The massacre of Glencoe’ at the Kelvingrove, and Edwin Landseer’s ‘Monarch of the Glen’ at the National Gallery, we could discuss how the Highlands are traditionally romanticised, as ’empty’, ‘wild’ wastes, savage landscapes occupied by primative people and savage events, or as a sublime extention of the timeless rural idyll. By taking these representations out into the landscape and exploring the archaeology of Rannoch Moor and Glencoe we discussed how we could create new narratives to challenge this perception.
Keep an eye out for future blog posts from Nick as he progresses with the archaeo-botany from our sites!
– By Dr Edward Stewart
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