An imagined dialogue with Mann through art, conversation and letters. It explores the struggle to make sense of a world that flings events so large, and at times perhaps overwhelming, it is difficult for people to remain anchored.

At North Barr River, Morvern (NGR: NM 61430 57082), inspection of forestry planting mounds on a raised beach terrace identified a chipped stone assemblage associated with upcast deposits containing charcoal. An archaeological evaluation of the site, funded by Forestry Commission Scotland, sought to better understand the extent and character of this Mesolithic and later prehistoric lithic scatter. The lithic assemblage is predominantly debitage with some microliths and scrapers. The range of raw materials including flint, Rùm bloodstone and baked mudstone highlights wider regional networks. Other elements, including a barbed and tanged arrowhead, belong to later depositional episodes. Two mid-2nd millennium BC radiocarbon dates were obtained from soil associated with some lithics recovered from a mixed soil beneath colluvial deposits. The chronology of a putative stone bank or revetment is uncertain but the arrangement of stone may also date to the 2nd millennium BC.

Scotland, like many other countries, is undergoing a transition to renewable energy. This paper discusses the social context within which this transition is taking place and which is conditioning the possibilities for energy development and its effects on people. In particular, the paper explores historically-rooted conflicts relating to land rights and wild land protection, considering these issues and their relationship to energy development in terms of landscape justice (i.e. the principle of fairness in the ways people relate to the landscape and to each other through the landscape). Pursuing a more just settlement between people and landscape is often a matter of understanding problematic pasts and working to overcome their harmful legacies. It is argued that there is an important role for heritage practice in helping to deliver energy development which takes the historical, social and cultural context more fully into account and thereby helps to bring about a more just settlement between people and the landscape.

The visceral nature of fire was exploited in the Neolithic and Bronze Age periods in Britain by the burning down of timber buildings and monuments, as well as the cremation of the dead. These big fires would have created memories, perhaps even ‘flashbulb memories’, and this powerful mnemonic aspect of fire was likely of significance to the social and religious lives of individuals, families and communities. This article introduces the Build N Burn concept, where fires are recreated and deployed alongside public talks, performances, experimental archaeology activities and demonstrations by craft specialists to create memorable and informative public events. Three public engagements to date, two on the island of Arran and one in Caithness, both Scotland, are described here. In each case, we constructed replica timber structures inspired by local prehistoric sites, and then burned these down in a free-to-attend public event at dusk, evoking the culmination of a prehistoric festival. Build N Burn has, at its core, the principle of delivering memorable experiences for the public inspired by prehistory, underpinned by research and experiment, using events which draw on cross-sectoral collaboration and working with local communities. This article offers a critical reflection on work to date, and discusses future potential for such activities, utilizing the mnemonic power and transformational potential of fire for public engagement and experimental archaeology.

The Mesolithic site of Nethermills Farm, Crathes, Banchory, was identified from fieldwalking that took place between 1973 and 1977 and it was excavated between 1978 and 1981 under the direction of James Kenworthy. Kenworthy interpreted the site as a ‘hunter-gatherer camp’ with probable evidence for a circular structure, but publication of the excavation was never completed. This paper draws on specialist work undertaken immediately after excavation, together with new analyses and radiocarbon determinations from original samples. It focuses on the results of excavation: material from the fieldwalking is briefly considered towards the end of the discussion, but detailed analysis of the lithics from fieldwalking is left for future research. A number of stratified features were excavated and recorded, together with a lithic assemblage of over 30,000 pieces, which includes many narrow blade microliths. It is not possible to uphold the interpretation that the cut features represent the remains of a specific structure but it is clear that Mesolithic activity took place here, probably comprising repeated visits over a considerable period of time. The radiocarbon determinations cover a wide spread of activity from the Mesolithic to the Bronze Age – though there are no clear chronological indicators of later prehistoric activity in the finds from the site. Kenworthy chose to excavate only a tiny proportion of the site at Nethermills, which extends some 2km along the River Dee. The likelihood that stratified features may survive elsewhere makes this a Mesolithic site of considerable significance – especially when considered in the context of the many other Mesolithic sites along the River Dee, from its source to the sea.

What was life like in Scotland between 4000 and 2000BC? Where were people living? How did they treat their dead? Why did they spend so much time building extravagant ritual monuments? What was special about the relationship people had with trees and holes in the ground? What can we say about how people lived in the Neolithic and early Bronze Age of mainland Scotland where much of the evidence we have lies beneath the ploughsoil, or survives as slumped banks and ditches, or ruinous megaliths? Each contribution to this volume presents fresh research and radical new interpretations of the pits, postholes, ditches, rubbish dumps, human remains and broken potsherds left behind by our Neolithic forebears.

This volume presents the results of archaeological investigations between 1996 and 2005, carried out as part of the Ben Lawers Historic Landscape Project, a multi-disciplinary project based on north Loch Tayside in the Central Highlands of Scotland (NGR: NN 63763 41298). Archaeological surveys and excavations formed the core of the Ben Lawers Project, but many other disciplines also contributed to researching this landscape. Some of these partner projects are reported here, while others have been presented elsewhere (Tipping et al 2009), and some have formed part of doctoral research projects (Watters 2007). The results of the 13 field seasons, particularly the nine evaluation and excavation seasons, together with the results of the partner projects, specialist studies and scientific analyses, have provided a body of evidence which permits the story of the land of Lawers to be told. The historical continuum in that story can be used to curate and manage this landscape for generations to come.

"Stages and Screens. An Investigation of Four Henge Monuments in Northern and North-Eastern Scotland. By Richard Bradley." Archaeological Journal, 168(1), pp. 412–413

Study has established that sources of evidence (local traditions, documentary, cartographic, archaeological) of the burning of a settlement at Bunrannoch during the 1745/6 Jacobite uprising are contradictory. Some contradictions may result from conflation of long term social memories of earlier events during the late first millennium CE and the way in which the events surrounding the uprising were subsequently remembered. Such conflation may stem from the way identities of local communities were conceived during the late eighteenth century. Some members of local communities would have grounded themselves in traditional life ways, which were being actively transformed during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In contrast, sponsors of change, or improvement, viewed such communities as largely criminal and impoverished.

A group of Early Neolithic features probably relating to the cooking of food was excavated. Several of these features contained considerable amounts of carbonised botanical remains, providing a broader insight into the landscape where these features were found. Analysis of the remains suggests that there has been a short phase of occupation, radiocarbon dated to 3780-3650 cal BC.

In 2002 human remains were reported eroding from a section of sandy cliff on the eastern side of the island of Pabay Mor, Isle of Lewis (NGR: NB 1048 3795). Subsequent excavation of the site was undertaken by GUARD, as part of the Historic Scotland Human Remains Call-off Contract. This revealed a burial of a mature male of approximately 50–59 years of age, placed in a grave adjacent to a marker stone. The burial was crouched and aligned north–south and accompanied by a small undecorated pot, a polished stone and a pumice polisher. A radiocarbon date of 1450–1290 cal BC (GU-13838) was obtained from human bone from the burial. A second, infant, individual, represented only by a fragment of mandible, was identified from disarticulated remains found at the burial.

From 2001 to 2004, a programme of archaeological work was conducted during upgrading of the A1 road to dual carriageway between Haddington and Dunbar in East Lothian. The work involved trial trenching, monitoring of topsoil stripping and excavation of 11 archaeological sites, carried out by Glasgow University Archaeological Research Division (GUARD). The sites ranged chronologically over a period of 5,000 years, from the early fourth millennium BC to the early first millennium AD. The work was funded by the Scottish Executive Trunk Roads Design and Construction Division and monitored by Historic Scotland.