Cist burials and an Iron Age settlement at Dryburn Bridge, Innerwick, East Lothian

Abstract

This report provides an account of the excavations of a cropmark enclosure and other prehistoric remains at Dryburn Bridge, near Innerwick in East Lothian. The excavations were directed over two seasons in 1978 and 1979 by Jon Triscott and David Pollock, and were funded by the Ancient Monuments Branch, Scottish Development Department. Features and artefacts of various periods were discovered during the excavations, including a Mesolithic chipped stone assemblage and pits associated with Impressed Ware pottery. A pair of distinctive burial cists dating to c2300-2000 cal BC was discovered, each containing two inhumations, one articulated and the other disarticulated; a Beaker vessel was found directly above one of the cists. By the mid first millennium cal BC a settlement had been founded on the site. Three successive settlement layouts can be interpreted from the excavated structures. The first two phases represent continuous occupation, dating to before 400 cal BC, and consisted of timber roundhouses, other rectangular structures and a small cemetery of pit graves located within a palisaded enclosure. The final occupation phase, which extended into the Roman Iron Age and may have occurred after a break in occupation, consisted of an unenclosed settlement of ring-ditch houses. Historic Scotland and predecessor bodies funded the post-excavation studies and publication of this report.

Predicting skeletal stature using ancient DNA

“…ros Damgaard et al, 2018;Mittnik et al, 2018;Fu et al, 2016;Schiffels et al, 2016;Narasimhan et al, 2019;Lipson et al, 2017;Olalde et al, 2018;Brace et al, 2019;González-Fortes et al, 2017;Furtwängler et al, 2020;Fernandes et al, 2018;Antonio et al, 2019;Sikora et al, 2017;Krzewińska et al, 2018;Margaryan et al, 2020;Mathieson et al, 2015;Schroeder et al, 2019), we compiled metric data for 167 individuals (Caffell & Holst, 2012;Tebelškis & Jankauskas, 2002;Alpaslan-Roodenberg, 2001;Dunwell, 2007;Andrews & Thompson, 2016;Köhler et al, 2017;Fokkens et al, 2017;Boroneant, 2010;Pardini, 1977;Frei et al, 2019;Kjellström, 2005;Cairns, 2015;Price et al, 2016;Szczepanek, 2013;Alciati, 1967;Massy, 2018;Malmström et al, 2019;Berthold et al, 2008;Kitti, 2008;Saag et al, 2020;Auerbach & Ruff, 2004;Auerbach, 2004;Schiffels et al, 2016;Rosenstock et al, 2019). We removed 28 sam...…”

“…Climate variables of mean daily temperature and annual precipitation were obtained from the 5min (medium resolution, data points every 10km) paleoclimate dataset available at PaleoClim.org (Brown et al, 2018). We extracted the relevant data using the raster package (Hijmans & van Etten, 2012) these data were only published for about half the individuals (n=66) (Price et al, 2016;Antanaitis-Jacobs et al, 2009;Stockhammer et al, 2015;Scheibner, 2016;Antanaitis-Jacobs & Ogrinc, 2000;Lehuray et al, 2006;Afshar et al, 2019;Waterman et al, 2016;Weber et al, 2011Weber et al, , 2016Müldner et al, 2011;Antonio et al, 2019;Szczepanek, 2013;Olalde et al, 2018;Andrews & Thompson, 2016;Dunwell, 2007;Mathieson et al, 2018;Berthold et al, 2008;Malmström et al, 2019;Kjellström, 2005;Kjellström et al, 2009;Scheibner, 2016).…”

The Ins and Outs of Death in the Iron Age: Complex Funerary Treatments atBroxmouth Hillfort, East Lothian

“…). Ten flexed inhumations, dating to between 800–400 cal BC, were discovered at Dryburn, in simple unlined pits spread across the settlement (Dunwell , 67). Once again both men and women were present, though burial here seems to have been restricted to adults.…”

A Later Prehistoric Settlement and Metalworking Site at Seafield West, near Inverness, Highland

“…24), at Ironshill, near Inverkeilor, Angus (Pollock 1997, fig. 16) and Houses 3 and 8 at Dryburn Bridge (Dunwell 2007). A line of post-holes may represent part of a stockade fence (represented by, from north-west to south-east, 521, 513, 508, 507, 505, 503, 502, 144, 276, 338).…”