C.I.L.P
Clunie - Perthshire:
Publication submitted - coming soon 2026 :)
Clunie is the site of a crannog and early Medieval hill fort. The area 1st appears in historical records from AD 858 - in the reign of Cinaed mac Ailpın, whose lands were ravaged by Norsemen as far as Clunie and Dunkeld.
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Surveys have been undertaken by the University of Aberdeen but as yet the timings of occupation on the hill fort and crannog remain unknown.
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A royal hunting lodge is known to have existed close to the shore from at least 1141, which was occupied by King Edward I of England in 1276 and remained in royal hands until the 1430's and at some point there was a move to the island.
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By the 1500's the island became an ecclesiastical residence and is closely associatedwith the bishops of Dunkeld in the sixteenth century.
Drone photos of Clunie hill fort and crannog - by James O'Driscoll - University of Aberdeen
14C results
Methods & results so far
Originally sediments were extracted as part of the Comparative Kingship project led by Gordon Noble, but this has rolled over into the current project
The coring team included myself, Gordon, James O'Driscoll & Edouard Masson-Maclean
Location of the core site
The aim was to investigate evidence of social change in the environmental record and to help identify the timings of occupation and land-use, particularly focussing on the Roman Iron age.
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I completed the, LOI, pollen and NPP analysis is complete - Antonio MC undertook the geochemical analysis, Olalla Lopez-Costas conducted colour and FTIR-ATR analysis, Maarten Blaauw helped with the chronology, particularly with the Bacon-age-depth model, Fraser Hunter and Gordon Noble assisted with the archaeological and historical integrations and Tim assisted with the edits and added a little section on lead. The paper will be out soon, fingers crossed as I have submitted this month (Feb, 2026) to the Journal of Quaternary Science. This has been a good team effort - even if it has taken 3 years to integrate all of the data sets and passing the paper back and forth to co-authors - but hopefully a better paper for it :).
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Drone photos of Clunie hill fort and crannog - by James O'Driscoll - University of Aberdeen
Most exciting results so far is what appears to be happening to the cereals during the Late Roman period beginning ~AD 200-300 and lasting until roughly AD 690 - Why - potentially linked to rising wetness rather than social change?
The early Medieval period is dominated by Barley cultivation
The middle ages from the 1200's-1500's represents a more mixed arable economy, perhaps linked to the the hillfort becoming a Royal Seat and later ecclesiastical residence between the 12th-16th centuries.