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Now published: Culduthel

30th September 2021 | Categories: Publications

We are pleased to announce the publication of the Society’s latest book, Culduthel: An Iron Age Craftworking Centre in North-East Scotland by Candy Hatherley and Ross Murray, available now from our online shop!

The Iron Age settlement at Culduthel on the southern outskirts of Inverness is one of the most significant later prehistoric sites identified in mainland Scotland.

Combining illustrated catalogues of finds with expert analyses, this volume offers a unique insight into the manufacture, trade and exchange of an Iron Age community in north-east Scotland. The authors discuss the significance of the extensive artefactual assemblage which contained a rich range of material including craftworking tools, working waste and finished items. The excavation was initially a small-scale investigation of a palisaded enclosure but became a major discovery when the works revealed a well-preserved craft production centre with large-scale roundhouses, multiple workshops containing iron smelting furnaces and glass and bronze-working hearths.

Archaeological analysis of the site informs wider research topics for the Iron Age in Scotland, illuminating the contact between Scotland and Rome in the early 1st Millennium AD and adding to our knowledge of how status was defined and displayed at this time. The site is highly significant for the study of the Scottish Iron Age and paints a detailed picture of the craft processes at play in the community, their contacts and networks for the procurement of raw materials and exchange of utilitarian and exotic objects.

The Society of Antiquaries of Scotland gratefully acknowledges funding towards the publication of this volume from Historic Environment Scotland.

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