RCAHMS 2007 “In the Shadow of Bennachie: a field archaeology of Donside, Aberdeenshire” Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. ISBN 978-0-903903-46-2, 306 pp, numerous full-colour illus. £30; Fellows £27 +p&p. Reviewed by Ian Shepherd, Aberdeenshire Council

RCAHMS 2007 “In the Shadow of Bennachie: a field archaeology of Donside, Aberdeenshire”

A full-colour production, between hard covers and with a fine dust-jacket, this is arguably the most sumptuous of the Society’s Monographs yet. This report-of-survey volume has been 12 years in preparation and now makes a welcome appearance. It retails at a very reasonable cost, considering what is being made available.

The reader is presented with much more than the valley of the Don. The volume includes not only Formartine up to the Ythan and the northern part of the Howe of Cromar, but also far-flung individual features such as Balfour at Birse on south Deeside. The illustrations embrace useful one-page collections of single monument types at common scales (eg hut circles, enclosures and collections of Pictish stones – all the Rhynie stones are depicted. A fascinating collection of recumbents and flankers from the eponymous sites whet the appetite for a future monograph on this important local type.

Synoptic chapters (eg the Antiquarian Tradition, Neolithic and Bronze Age landscape) by named Commission authors (Richard Tipping apart who provides an important narrative on environmental history) are a welcome innovation, However, these are not always without controversy (eg re Pictish stones in the Early Medieval one). The volume ends with an admirable recognition of the limits of field survey, with reference to the developer-funded excavations at Kintore.

This is a typical Royal Commission production, studying an area from afar, with (arguably justified) little reference to local perspectives. This is possibly a good approach, if locally provoking (eg, four conventionally-defined henges are reduced by half – from 4 to 2 – but with the addition of two or four new possibilities, some previously unknown (eg Nether Towie p 58). Altogether this is an important contribution to Scottish landscape history – one that is long awaited and very welcome.

Ian AG Shepherd
Aberdeenshire Archaeology Service, Aberdeenshire Council