The Ancients - Iron Age Scotland: Clachtoll Broch

Episode Date: April 16, 2023

Across northern Scotland, you can still see the skeletal remains of prehistoric skyscrapers known as brochs. These enigmatic drystone towers dominated the landscape 2,500 years ago - yet so much of their story remains shrouded in mystery. One of the most incredible structures still visible today is Clachtoll Broch, home to a family of Iron Age farmers before tragedy struck. With a fire ravaging the country side and home, it's a site of incredible devastation. So what can we learn about it today?In this episode, Tristan travels to northern Scotland to meet archaeologists Gordon Sleight and Dawn McLaren, whose incredible discoveries at Clachtoll have shed new light on the brochs and the people who built these extraordinary ancient skyscrapers. Looking at the archaeology, architecture, and the landscape - they help build a picture of what life was like over two millennia ago.The Senior Producer was Elena GuthrieThe Assistant Producer was Annie ColoeMixed & edited by Aidan LonerganFor more Ancients content, subscribe to our Ancients newsletter here. If you'd like to learn even more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - enter promo code ANCIENTS for a free trial, plus 50% off your first three months' subscription. To download, go to Android > or Apple store >

Hi, I'm Tristan Hughes, and if you would like the Ancient ad-free, get early access and bonus episodes, sign up to History Hit. With a History Hit subscription, you can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries, including my recent documentary all about Petra and the Nabataeans, and enjoy a new release every week. Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com slash subscribe. 2,500 years ago, a new type of megastructure was spreading across the north of the British Isles. Giant drystone towers, the Brochs. They are the pinnacle of Scotland's prehistoric architecture. Absolutely stunning structures that have fascinated archaeologists and enthusiasts for centuries. Much about these Iron Age skyscrapers remains shrouded in uncertainty, in debate, but more information

has started to emerge about Brochs in recent years thanks to a series of excavations. We're learning more about their function, their construction and what life would have been like for those prehistoric people who called these towers home during Scotland's Iron Age. And recent work at one particular Brough site, very close to my heart, where it has a truly fascinating and fiery story. There was a fire and everything began to burn very, very quickly. And that's helped to preserve a whole array of materials,

some of which we don't normally see within archaeological assemblages. What we found were all things to do with farming. Basically we think this is a farm. This gives us a fantastic insight into the kind of economy of the broch and what people were eating. We so rarely ever see the textile itself, so this just gives us a fantastic insight into some of the craft processes that we know are going on but we so

rarely see. We got this sudden picture of the whole of the interior at one phase in its life and that is more or less unique. That is all to come in today's very special episode. So without further ado, let's brock and roll. Let's Brock and Roll. What is a broch? A broch is a circular drystone tower. It's a roundhouse, unique to present-day Scotland. And although they do at first glance look quite similar to the massive drystone towers that dominated Bronze Age Sardinia, the Nuraghi of the second millennium BC, well they don't seem to have been connected. The dates just don't add up. Scotland's Iron Age

brochs are unique, constructed largely between 500 BC and 0 BC. There are roughly 600 brochs all across Scotland, although naturally that number is up for debate as archaeologists mull over certain examples and whether we can really define them as brachs or not. But 600, that's the rough estimate number often given. Now brachs weren't all exactly the same in their design, but they do seem to have been multi-purpose structures that would have towered, quite literally, over the surrounding landscape. They could be homes, they could be granaries, they could be smithies, they could be centres of communities, they could be symbols of power. But where did they come from? What preceded these massive towers? The origins of rocks

are debated, but it likely goes back to the end of the preceding Bronze Age, at the beginning of the first millennium BC, when climatic deterioration forced communities to adapt and to start constructing new types of houses to live in. These included Atlantic roundhouses, circular dry stone structures that may have evolved from preceding Bronze Age hut circles. But over time, these Atlantic roundhouses became more and more complex. They got bigger, they got grander, ultimately resulting in the pinnacle of Scotland's prehistoric architecture, the brochs.

Today we only have skeletal remains of these brochs surviving, and only one that basically stands to its full height, its roof excluded, but there are certainly some that have been better preserved than others. As mentioned, no two brochs were exactly the same. But there are some regular features you may be able to point out when looking around one of these sites on your travels around the north of Scotland, the Highlands and the Islands. Let's take one iconic broch as an example. It's called Dun Telf at Glanelg,

just south of Skye. It's one of the most impressive broch still standing in Scotland, nestled away in a lush, green, hilly landscape a few miles from the coast. At some places, Dun Telv still reaches a height of some 10 metres. As you approach Dun Telv, you can't help but see the receding slope, or batter, of the Broch's outer wall. But further up, if you look up, you'll notice that this wall becomes vertical, giving the Broch its iconic cooling tower shape. Moving closer, you soon arrive at the sole entrance and exit to the prehistoric tower, a door-shaped entrance roughly a metre in width.

Above this entranceway is a large slab of stone called the lintelstone. This lintelstone is massive, it's rectangular and it's an iconic feature of Broch's all across Scotland. But they are not always rectangular. Sometimes above a Broch's entrance you will see a massive lintel stone shaped as a triangle. But regardless, whether it's triangular shaped or rectangular shaped, you will always have a huge slab of stone above the entranceway to help distribute the weight to improve the stability of this massive dry stone structure.

As you enter the entranceway itself, it becomes slightly thinner. On either side of the entrance, a slab of stone protrudes roughly a metre into the entranceway. This was where a wooden door would have rested during the Iron Age, and these small protruding slabs are called jams. Behind these slabs, in many brachs, would be a deep socket on one side of the entrance and a shallower one on the other. This deep socket would have been where the Iron Age residents would have housed a timber drawbar, which they would have dragged across the entrance behind the door, sealing the

door in place and resting the far end of the bar in the shallow socket the other side of the entranceway all designed to secure the door to secure the sole entranceway in and out of the brough naturally the timber drawbar doesn't survive down to the present day but you can still see where it would have been housed more than 2,000 years ago. Once you emerge out of the entranceway, you would find yourself in the heart of the broch. Imagine a wide open inside area. This would have been where the hearth was, the central fire. This would be the centre of the broch with human activity happening all around, centre of the broch with human activity happening all around, animals placed in the lower levels. And that's right, I mean lower levels, because these brochs were multi-storey and we have evidence for that surviving down to the present day in the archaeology. Because in many brochs

you might be able to notice as you walk around a protruding set of stones coming out of the inner wall. This is what archaeologists call a scarcement and it indicates where a floor level would have been in this broch more than 2000 years ago. To reach these higher levels well you won't be surprised that many Brochs had staircases. And this is a really interesting part of Broch architecture because these stairs were placed between the Broch walls themselves. Because most Brochs in fact had two drystone wall layers, an inner wall and an outer wall. It was within these two walls that the Iron Age residents

of Brochs placed their stone stairs to the higher levels. And it was also in this intramural space that they made extra rooms. They used every available space they could. These extra rooms are called galleries, each separated by a horizontal slab of stone and were probably used for storage. As to was another type of room, infamously called today guard cells. Now guard cells are quite similar to galleries. They were placed between the two wall layers,

but the guard cells were located on the main floor and you usually see one guard cell or two in the entranceway itself behind the door. Now despite their infamous name it's unlikely that these chambers served as prison cells for naughty individuals. More likely they too were places of storage. One final feature to point out before we move on because at several brochs across Scotland, if you look up when you're in the centre of the broch, particularly at Dun Telv, you will notice a hollow vertical gap in the inner wall at one or two places. vertical gap in the inner wall at one or two places. These were called voids. They look quite weird today, this hollow bit in the drystone inner wall, but the Iron Age stonemasons

knew what they were doing, because the voids were almost certainly built with weight distribution in mind. These hollow gaps allowed less pressure to be put on individual drystones and thus improved the overall stability of the structure. It is no coincidence that the best preserved bruchs today featured architectural designs like these voids. The building quality of brochs varied across Scotland. Some were built well and are still standing to a degree, others weren't built so well and most of them have collapsed. Of all the brochs, Dun Telv is certainly one of the finest built. The people who constructed

this broch were expert Iron Age stonemasons who worked wonders with local drystone, building this massive skyscraper with no mortar whatsoever. It's an incredible feat of ancient engineering. Before I forget, yes, these towers would have had roofs. They weren't open air. At Dun Telv you can actually see really high up another scarcements level, not indicating another floor level, but instead where the roof would have originally rested. Naturally, being organic like the door, probably made out of thatch or turf, where the roof has not survived. the door, probably made out of thatch or turf, where the roof has not survived. A big question is, what were Brochs used for? These massive towers with thick drystone walls,

infamously named guard cells and reinforced entranceways scream defensive structures, don't they? And yes, in some places across Scotland during the Iron Age, they may well have served as prehistoric forts, deterring those wanting to raid and steal cattle from that Broch surrounding community. But what I really want to stress with these Brochs is that they seem to have served a variety of functions. At some places in Scotland, they seem to have served primarily as farmhouses. At others, we have evidence that metalworking was happening within. They were homes, the elite multi-storey mansions of the day. They were granaries. They were centres of storage and production. They were centres of communities, centres of storage and production. They were centres of communities, symbols of power for those living within. They were defensive bastions if the need arose.

Brachs can be found all across Scotland today. In the Highlands, on both the west and east coasts, you find the remains of these more than 2,000-year-old towers, and you can even find some further inland too, next to rivers. Such as Dundornagel, one of the most beautifully positioned brochs in the whole of Scotland. To reach Dundornagel, you have to travel down what is potentially the remotest public road in the whole country. On our venture down to this broch last year, we only passed one car in some 20 miles, and all of the passing places

were covered in grass. But the rewards were worth it. Reaching Dundornagel, you find yourself just south of a large sea loch, with the river Strathmore meandering its way south deeper into the highlands. The river flows down a picturesque valley, with highland hills visible in the distance. In its prime more than 2,000 years ago, Dandornagel would have dominated this idyllic valley, an Iron Age symbol of power and authority. If you're touring the very northern reaches of the Scottish mainland, then Dundornagel is a sight to see. The detour off the larger routes to reach it is well worth it, trust me. Further east you have Caithness, home to the largest concentration of brachs in the whole of Scotland. The proud people of Caithness, championed by the brilliant

volunteers working at the Caithness Brach Project, laud this county as the home of the brach. Some brachs you find commanding strong, natural defensive positions atop rocky promontories, such as at Knibster, just south of John O'Groats. Others, you once again find further inland, next to watercourses. A quick further word on the Caithness Brough project. Do check them out on what they're doing.

What they're doing is incredible they are actively promoting and conserving the remains of iron age brocks in caithness and they're also in the process of rebuilding one of these iron age megastructures in the present day that's right they're building a brock in 21st century britain so do definitely go and check out the Caithness Brough project and their mission if you get the chance. But moving away from Caithness, it's even further north that you find arguably the most striking remains of Brough's today. Orkney is rightly famed for its extraordinary Stone Age remains, as we've already covered in a previous Prehistoric Scotland episode. But this land's prominence and its extraordinary

architecture didn't stop with the end of the Stone Age, because its Iron Age is also defined by monumental structures, this time in the form of brachs and their surrounding villages. Although settlements were attached to many brachs on the mainland, it's on Orkney that these brach villages went to another level entirely and are remarkably well preserved. The best example today is at Guernesse. You can see the remains of streets, of houses, metalworking, a mysterious underground system, hearths, walls, ditches, and even potentially Iron Age toilets.

It's another stunning sight, one of many Iron Age Brachs that have been found on Orkney's islands. But even this, even Orkney, isn't the edge of the Brach world. You can go even further north to Shetland. Here we have more extraordinary brachs, from Jarlshof at Shetland's southern tip that was later converted into a Viking settlement, to the best preserved brach in the world, the Brach of Musa on the island of Musa. Now given its long prehistory of building in stone, we have stone structures dating

back to the Stone Age in Shetland, it has led some archaeologists to suggest, to argue, that the true home of the broch wasn't Caithness but was in fact Shetland, and that it was from here that the idea of Brochs spread out across northern Scotland. The debate rumbles on. Across the highlands and islands of Scotland today, you can find the remains of Iron Age Brochs if you know where to look. Some are in better condition than others, and there are even a few further south in Scotland. Brochs built later in the Iron Age such as Edens Hall Broch in the Scottish Borders and Leckie Broch in the Central Belt near Stirling.

Now a good friend of mine grew up right next to Leckiebroch and apparently archaeologists uncovered a ballista bolt, a Roman artillery bolt amongst the ruins, suggesting potentially that this particular tower had been taken by force by the Romans. But of all the brochs in Scotland, there is one that holds a special place in my heart. One that I've been visiting since I was around eight years old, and one that was recently subject to an excavation that revealed so much incredible information about what life was like for those Iron Age people who lived in one of these towers more than two millennia ago. If you follow me on social media, you know what broch I am

talking about. This broch is situated in the far northwest reaches of the Scottish Highlands, precariously positioned on top of uneven bedrock right by the coast in one of the most picturesque areas in the whole of Britain. Now I am slightly biased, I will admit. It's called Clachtola Broch, nestled in an area of Sutherland called Assent, and it has an extraordinary story. In 2017, a team of archaeologists led an excavation of this broch, working closely with a local heritage group, Historic Assent. On my travels across the highlands last year for History Hit, I met up with Gordon Sleight, the project lead of the historic Ascent-Claxtorlebroch project, at the site itself to find out more.

Gordon talk to me about what this whole area of the Broch looked like when excavations began back in 2017. Well we certainly wouldn't have been here because we'd have been under a couple of hundred tons of rubble. A couple of hundred tons? Yeah there was rubble right up to within inches of the top of the wall. Wow! Right the way down here you could come into the entrance from the outside but you then hit a wall of rubble. The rubble was up to the level of that ledge on that side and then sort of tumbled down through the broken area and down to the sea.

So it was completely chock-a-block full. I'm guessing it took a lot of hours, a lot of power to get through that huge layer of rubble to then start finding these artifacts? It did. We had anticipated that it might take the whole of the first month of the three months to remove the rubble because we had to do it by hand and yes you could create various kinds of cradles for two or three people to carry but every single stone had to be taken out through that side and round, which was heavy going. But we were lucky in having the best part of 50 volunteers in the course of that season. And so very gradually we got it done, but it took a lot longer. And that's why we needed to come back in 2018 to complete the work, which we hadn't been able to do. So we removed everything and then we came

down on a layer of very very charcoal rich loose deposits, sandy, lots of fragmented stone but lots and lots and lots of signs of blackening and then we began eventually, I think the first find was in about six weeks in but it would be in nearly another week or so before we began to really discover things. And then we began to find things like charred grain, signs of either, well, it was sort of interwoven materials, could be grass, could be bracken, not quite sure what it was, but all these signs of burning. As Gordon and his team uncovered more of the broch, it soon became apparent that this structure

had met a devastating fiery end. We've no idea what caused that fire. It could just have been an accidental fire. It could have been a raid of some kind. But whatever it was, there was a fire and everything began to burn very, very quickly. You're in something rather like a chimney. So once you have set fire to your timber structures inside, which have been really dry, we did some experiments with creating platforms a few meters above the ground and

then putting a small fire underneath to see how long it would take for them to burn down. And it took between seven and nine minutes. Wow, so really, really quick. It could have been very, very quick. And the wood that we were using and the wattle floors that we had created were three months old, whereas the timber structures in here could have been much older than that, and so they'd have been a lot drier, so it might have burnt even more quickly. Everybody got out, but they left everything where it was, which is why

we were so lucky with things like the toolkit and the knocking stone with the grain in it. And after that, parts of the upper walling fell in. The original brock may well have been 12 to 14 meters high, but by the time of this final occupation we suspect it was just a little higher than it is now, and the upper walls began to fall in after the fire because of the damage and people never came back and it just continued to fall in on itself. Gordon it's absolutely extraordinary I hesitate to call it the Pompeii of Broch but it does you can kind of understand can't you, it kind of gives you that snapshot into the final moments of this Broch and is that why it's so

significant and excavating this Broch is that it does give us this real interesting insight into life in one of these prehistoric towers yes i mean with most other broch excavations what you come down on when you get to the occupation layers and what we expected to come down on was two to three hundred years worth of material all muddled up instead of which we came down on fifty years worth all pretty much laying where it had been put. And so we got this sudden picture of the whole of the interior at one phase in its life and that is more or less unique on any excavation site of this age and certainly on Brock's side. Klagtol seems to have experienced several different phases of occupation in its Iron Age lifetime. But what this picture of the interior revealed to Gordon and his colleagues

was that before it burned down, Klagtolbroch had an agricultural purpose. Basically, we think this is a farm, presumably with something like an extended family, and what we found were all things to do with farming. One or two items that would be outwith that, but most of the things were to do with farming. Here we have the knocking stone, a term I'd never come across until we excavated it.

But it is a large beech boulder that has had a hollow carved into it. And you put your unprocessed grain into there and bash it with a large stick or stone to break the husks. You then take it out and transfer it to a quern stone to actually then create your flower. The scatter of grain all over the area that we found suggests that it may have been stored in part on the Scarcement Ledge so that there would have been galleries, wooden galleries, coming out from that ledge, creating a gallery all the way around with an open centre. And they may have stored it up there and then when the fire came it all sort of fell in. So that's one part of the process and in that chamber there we found evidence of grain that had been harvested

but had not even gone as far as the knocking stone. So you've got the full process going on. Over here, we had lots and lots of farming tools. Sickles, scythes, adzes, a whole range of them, and most of them were there. At the time that we excavated them, it was impossible to identify what most of them were. It was just a mass of rusty iron, and we were very surprised to find it, because given the fact that it's had the sea breaking over it for 2,000 years we didn't expect to find any iron at all but it come out as quite an interesting collection I think it's 40 separate implements that we've discovered eventually.

It's amazing to think that this huge tower could have been its function as you say could have been its function, as you say, could have been one associated largely with agriculture. Among the other things that we found which suggest the same, in the chamber on to the right of the entrance, as we're looking out, was being used as a midden. So it was a rubbish dump. It almost certainly wasn't built to be a rubbish dump, but by the time this final occupation is taking place, that's what it was used for. And there were the remains of a dead sheep in there. And it was an Iron Age sheep, we think, rather than a more recent one. And we also found what may well be wool and suggesting something more like cattle and wood, suggesting that there were sort of wooden artefacts in there. So that was all, again, part and parcel of the farming side of it.

And also by the hearth, there were three hearths that we found. So every few years, they just brushed it around and put a new hearth on top. So what is a hearth and where would it have been? Right, OK, a hearth is the central area where you've got a fire which you use for cooking and possibly also some sorts of crafts, depending on if you needed heat, then this is where you would get it from. The first hearth, again we're dealing with the final occupation, we don't know what the original thing was, but round about, let's say 50 BC or thereabouts, let's say 50 BC or thereabouts, a hearth was laid out here consisting of a series of slabs to create a level surface and then you'd have your fire on top of that and your cooking equipment on

top again. After a few years that was getting so shattered by heat that they gave up but instead of removing it they just put another one on top. That was a bit further over this way but it was similar in its structure. And then we found a third one which was up here on the slightly higher level again and that one had a perimeter around it with a sort of curb if you like and a few large stones and a water tank, which was probably used for, you could use it just for water, but it could also have been used for keeping fish alive, for instance. So the hearth was set up as a cooking area, then you've got your processing area with

the grain over there, you've got your tool shed arrangement here. You've got grain possibly stored upstairs that once it's been processed. So quite a complex picture that you're getting overall. On Gone Medieval from History Hit, we set out to solve the biggest mysteries of the Middle Ages. So many of these travellers who went out looking for Prestor John,

what did they think they were hearing? We explore cutting-edge research. Genetic signatures found in present-day Jewish populations were shared by the genetic ancestries we found. From everyday life to dynasty-shattering events. It's a time when all the major Viking raids have started, which as Christians they think of as vengeance from heaven. And reveal the answers to centuries-old riddles.

I stand up straight in a bed, I'm hairy at my base and I make the ladies cry. The solution is an onion. I'm Dr Kat Jarman. And I'm Matt Lewis. Every Tuesday and Saturday, we'll explore some of the biggest stories, the greatest mysteries and latest research. Listen and follow on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. The work that Gordon and his colleagues did at Clachtole in 2017 and 2018 was incredible,

unearthing an extraordinary range of artefacts that have given archaeologists a rare insight into life inside one of these prehistoric towers more than 2,000 years ago, an insight into how these Iron Age people survived in the northwest highlands of Scotland at the same time that the Roman Empire was expanding across the Mediterranean and beyond much further south. Today many of these Iron Age treasures are stored in Edinburgh, at the headquarters of the AOC Archaeology Group that oversaw the excavation at Klagtol and I caught up with Dr. Dawn McLaren in one of their labs to have a look at some of these artefacts.

Dawn, we've got this fantastic array of artefacts in front of us now but I mean first of all why have so many artefacts been preserved from Klagtolbroch? Klagtolbroch has presented a really unique opportunity for us to investigate simply because of the evidence of its catching fire and collapsing during the Iron Age. So there's a very short window of occupation prior to the fire engulfing the structure and that's helped preserve a whole array of materials, some of which we don't normally see within archaeological assemblages. And what sorts of materials, some of which we don't normally see within archaeological

assemblages. And what sorts of materials? Is there a great variety? There is a great variety. The added advantage of clactol is that some of the areas in the brook were actually waterlogged, so we have organic survivants such as wood and textile that we wouldn't normally see. Well let's have a look at some of these artefacts now and let's start with these ones over here. First of all what are these round stone bowl shaped objects we've got here? So these objects here are what we think are steatite lamps. They've been made from a type of quite soft talc rich stone which is easy to carve but it's also very good at

withstanding a lot of heat so they make perfect containers for holding oils or fats that could be burnt to provide lighting. There's been a bit of ambiguity over the years about what these type of objects actually were used for. But the fact that we've got burning inside, we've got sooting around the edges, and we actually got some residue analysis to help us understand what kind of fuels they were using.

These bowl-shaped lamps are quite small. They can fit in the palm of your hand quite easily but they differ in their detail. Well you've got the gloves so let's have a look at the detail of one of these. So this has been hand-carved from a of um this steatite or soapstone they were carving there as well isn't it's like a cross it is and and then also around the exterior surfaces here and this would probably have been made with metal tools like a little chisel or gouge and this one here if i can show you actually has a lot of detail in the interior from the gouge and chisel marks from its production. So you can see the tool marks in the inside from when it was

well I guess the hole was created in the middle. Absolutely and you can see that they're all slightly different so they're all unique but there are similarities in terms of their form, which suggests that they would have shared a similar purpose. And a lot of these were found in evidence that they might have actually been used in the upper floors of the brock and fell during the collapse of the structure, because a number of them were actually very damaged and the damage radiates up from the base of the vessel. And so how many of these, I guess, can we almost call them ancient candle holders? Yeah. How many of these have been found from Klaktol? Klaktol has 10 examples, which is, again, unique.

You tend to find a couple of examples of these amongst broch assemblages or even simpler examples. So finding those on a broch isn't unique, but the quantity is quite outstanding. More than 2,000 years ago, you can imagine these small lamps being all across the broch, illuminating areas of the farmhouse where light from the central half didn't quite reach. And so what do we know, therefore, about how these lamps were lit? from the central hearth didn't quite reach. And so what do we know, therefore, about how these lamps were lit? Well, we found other objects which can help us

to tell the story of these lamps in the form of these little wooden splinters. Although they're a little abraded now just through the passage of time, these are what we think are fur candles, which are types of basically prehistoric matches. They're made of a very resinous wood, so they would have caught fire very quickly, and you could light one end, and that would have helped you to be able to transfer your fire

either to the central hearth or into your little lamps. And the actual spark itself to start the fire could have been produced on this tool here, which is a little strike light. And it's just a quartz-rich cobble. But I don't know if you can see the little groove. You can see a little indent, yes. And that's from a hard material

being scuffed across the surfaces repeatedly. And we think that this would have been used by striking the surface with a piece of iron being scuffed across the surfaces repeatedly and we think that this would have been used by striking the surface with a piece of iron or an iron pyrite to create a spark and that spark could then be transferred to lighting flames from hearths or lamps such as those. Of course because you also mentioned of course the hearth there so that's the central heating part of the brock isn it? So that would be where they would normally collect the fire with these little splinters? Absolutely. This Iron Age lighting set, particularly the small matchsticks,

are brilliant examples of how even the smallest artefacts can reveal so much. And within these illuminated parts of Klajtolbroch, one activity that we know would have been going on here in Iron Age times was the production of textiles – the making of warm clothes. What's also really interesting is this antler comb. You can see that it's got this long handle which would have helped during use. And these little teeth here – I don't know if you can just see, there's lots of little indents in the teeth there. And that's handle which would have helped during use and these little teeth here I don't know if you can just see there's lots of little indents in the teeth there and that's

from it being used and there's a lot of ideas about what these combs might have been used for most of them are textile themed the possibilities are that they were used for something like carding when you're working with wool or that they're used in braiding and all of these little indentations that you can see are actually from where the strands of the wool have rubbed consequently on the teeth and it's created these little grooves so it gives us a lovely insight into how these were being used. I guess what's also really interesting there is that we've had a look at Neolithic Orkney and the strong use of bone at Scarra Bray. Does this give an insight into how in Iron Age times in Broch's, antler was an important material that was also used?

Absolutely. Antler was sort of like the plastic of the Iron Age. It was naturally shed by the deer. So if you knew the migration patterns and the seasons, then you would know where to go and have a look for shed antlers. And this would have been a material that was collected, probably saved up until a new object like this comb was needed, and then it could be worked into whatever tool or ornament was required. Sounds extraordinary. And what is that hole, do we think? What was that hole used for? Well, we think that this has probably been used to suspend the comb from a belt or similar.

So you can imagine it was being worn by someone on their day-to-day around the broch. And what we've been able to do is look very closely at the edges of the perforation itself and able to see the edges being softened as the result of wear. And it gives such an extraordinary insight, isn't it, into the everyday lives of these people who lived at Clachtal Broch. And if we're keeping on clothing for a bit longer, are there any other particular artefacts that can really give us more of an insight into this? Sure. We've also got a number of pins from the site so I'd like to show you one that's probably best preserved. Oh look at that, wow! It's this little example here. So this has been made from

copper alloy, it's been made from bronze and that's why it's got this sort of green patina on the surfaces and we're very lucky to have this surviving in such good condition because metals often don't survive well in archaeological soils. But you can see here this lovely ring headed feature of the pin and that this would have gone through fabric to fasten a cloak or a tunic or another piece of clothing. And is that what we're kind of envisaging now these people would have been wearing up in the North West Highlands? Would it have been some sort of cloak tied together with one of these

pins do we think? Sure yeah there can be lots of variation we don't see an awful lot of textiles or pieces of garments surviving so it is very much conjecture but the dress accessories that we have do give us little insights as to how things might have been fastened or worn. As Dawn mentioned, normally the textiles themselves don't survive, but at Clactole, well the team uncovered something really special. And moving on to some slightly different objects, what do we have in front of us here, this collection of artefacts? Well, these are fascinating because these are examples of spindle whorls and these were weights that were essentially put at the end of a wooden spindle and this would have helped give a bit of weight so that you could spin wool into yarn. And we even have a fragment

of the yarn surviving. So this is amazing because this is like ancient textiles, this is clothing and this is something that normally we don't have that much evidence surviving of. Absolutely and this has only been preserved due to the waterlogged conditions in one area of the broch so we're very lucky to have found it for our colleagues in our excavation team to have actually spotted it and for conservators to have been able to preserve it as beautifully as this. And what can this one small strand which looks so

insignificant at first glance, what can this tell us about the people who lived at Clactalbroch? Well we quite regularly find the spindle whorls surviving which tell us that there's textile production going on at these sites but we so rarely ever see the textile itself or the yarn in the process of being produced so this just gives us a fantastic insight into some of the craft processes that we know are going on but we so rarely see. It's the survival of small organic objects like this fragment of yarn that makes the Clactol Brock excavation so extraordinary. We can see what these prehistoric people were crafting there and we can also see what they were eating.

We know from our work on site that there were a variety of different areas around the Brock. We know that some areas were quite wet and probably would have remained unused. But we also have fantastic evidence from within the brock itself of charred cereal grains. And the collection I'm holding here are charred barley grains which have been processed. So we know that they must have been growing crops in the vicinity of the brock.

We're not entirely sure exactly where their fields were, but this gives us a fantastic insight into the kind of economy of the broch and what people were eating. Well, that's so fascinating. So these charred remains here that I'm guessing you don't get from many sites, but they reveal, it said, they're not taking everything from the sea, although they're right on the sea. Absolutely.

They've got crops, they're eating lots of land-based agricultural foods. Yeah, yeah, a really mixed diet. It is astonishing how an infamous destructive end to Klagtshulebroch has resulted in so much remarkable archaeology being preserved. From farming tools to textiles. Giving us this rare insight into what life was like in an Iron Age tower like this more than 2,000 years ago. But it's also astonishing for me because of Klaaktol's transformation in recent history. How a dream by the local community,

by Gordon and his colleagues, set in motion a series of events that ultimately resulted in this groundbreaking excavation. An excavation that transformed Clactol from a collapsing set of stones into one of the most informative broch sites in the whole of Scotland. Now the excavation wasn't the end of Clactol's story. The team have recently published a popular guidebook all about the broch and what they discovered within it. You can go and see the broch today on your travels through Northwest Scotland, parking at the nearby campsite

where the community have also installed a small exhibition complete with replica artifacts. So if you're ever venturing up the Northwest Highlands of Scotland in Sutherland in Ascent, if you're passing Clactol, do make sure to go and visit Clactol Broch. It is well worth the trek, especially now you know the story behind it.

Well, there you go there was our very special episode all about the brooks about prehistoric scotland and of course the story behind clacktoll brock i'm delighted that we've now released the episode it was such a pleasure to interview both gordon and Dawn about this very special prehistoric structure. I hope you enjoyed the episode. If you have enjoyed the episode and you want to help us out where you know what you can do, you can leave us a lovely rating on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, wherever you get your podcasts from. It greatly helps us as we continue our infinite mission to share these extraordinary stories from our distant past with you and with as many people as possible. But that's enough from me and I will see you in the next episode. Whether you're in your running era, Pilates era or yoga era, Thank you. and classes to strengthen who you are. So no matter your era, make it your best with Peloton.

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