They Wanted to Build a Neighborhood. Instead, They Dug Up 12,000 Years of History.

Here’s what you’ll learn when you read this story:

• Archaeologists preparing for construction of a new housing development in Scotland uncovered nearly 12,000 years of history.

• Discoveries ranged from Late Upper Paleolithic flint to Mesolithic campsites and Neolithic farms to a Late Bronze Age fort.

• The vast range of history surprised archaeologists, who wrote that they felt like they found “the whole prehistory of Fife in one field.”

An open field in Scotland was set to be dotted with the homes of a fresh new subdivision. But right as the project was getting underway, archaeologists studying the area uncovered nearly 12,000 years of history on the site, with finds hitting nearly every major period all the way back to the Late Upper Paleolithic time.

“Indeed,” the archaeologists from Guard Archaeology wrote in a Facebook post, they had found what was functionally “the whole prehistory of Fife in one field.”

The new houses in Guardbridge, within the Fife council area, stand overtop an exhaustive list of history’s remains: flint from the Late Upper Paleolithic period, campsites of Mesolithic hunters camped, Neolithic farmland, swords made by Bronze Age metalworkers, an Iron Age fort, and medieval kilns.

“What was really surprising about this site was all the other archaeology found with the fort, not just Iron Age, but much earlier too,” the archaeologists wrote in a statement on their website. The details from the entire multi-year excavation were published in Archaeology Reports Online.

The Fife Council required the Persimmon Homes North Scotland development to conduct archaeological work before the new homes could be built. Guard Archaeology was called in, already knowing ditches in the northeast corner of the one-time village (not far from St. Andrew) were linked to a historic fort.

Excavation revealed that the Iron Age fort was most likely actually built during the Late Bronze Age, and continued to be in use into the Iron Age. “Spindle whorls and loom weights attest to the weaving of woolen cloth by the fort’s inhabitants while fragments of shale bracelets demonstrate personal adornment,” the team wrote.

The fort, though, wasn’t the most fascinating find.

In the bottom layers of the excavation soil, the team found a scatter of flints where the very earliest inhabitants of the site worked in around 10,000 B.C. They also uncovered traces of temporary Mesolithic campsites, with a fire pit radiocarbon dated to around 4320 to 4051 B.C. that was located near burnt lithics arranged in a star-shaped pattern. This is indicative of a tent or shelter used by small groups of hunter-gatherers when they were hunting and fishing in the nearby estuary.

Not to be outdone, the Neolithic period made an appearance too. The team found what they believe are remnants of the first farming communities of the Fife area, in the form of multiple pits across the field containing burnt cereal grains, saddle querns, and pottery shards.

The first sign of a home came from the Bronze Age—the excavation revealed “substantial roundhouses” filled with pottery shards and animal bones. There was also metalworking from late Bronze Age, including rare casting molds for a sword blade and a socketed gouge (a tool common in carpentry at the time). “From the porch of one of the roundhouses was found evidence that one of its occupants had once sat there knapping flint for tools,” the team wrote.

Further evidence indicated the presence of medieval corn-drying kilns. So, by the time the Iron Age came around with its fort, the Guardbridge location was evidently well-heeled in uses.

You Might Also Like