13 October 2016, Starts: 19:00

Northern Picts: Fragments of Significance: Identifying high status settlement in northern Pictland

Talk by Daniel W. MacLean

Tarbat Discovery Centre, Portmahomack. Entry £3.

Sites like Rhynie and Portmahomack have provided spectacular insights into high status Northern Pictish settlement, yet other sites have proved more elusive to discover. This paper will look at the methodology behind identifying possible high status Pictish
settlement sites in the archaeological record.

The focus for the study was centred on the Beauly and Moray Firths, areas which have until recently suffered from a lack of archaeological study. Utilising three case studies it will
compare archaeological, cropmark, documentary and sculptural evidence at each site with the most recent scholarship to suggest the complex network of sites spanning prehistory to the eventual rise of the great Pictish kingdom of Fortriu.