Bulletin
5, 1999
Interpretation, 1999
Summary: The absence of prehistoric pottery has encouraged the view that the settlement at Portmahomack dates mainly to the first millennium AD and later. The rectangular buildings and its associated sculpture unearthed at the north end of Sector 2 suggest a monastery founded under Northumbrian influence in the early 8th century. By the late 8th century one or more large richly sculptured standing stone monuments had been erected.
The prominence of this centre ended suddenly at some date after the 8th century. It was burnt down, demolished and succeeded by timber structures supported by post-holes. Fragments of late 8th century sculpture were redeposited as hard-core or incorporated into the foundations of a rectangular east-west church, beneath the present St Colman's. These foundations should belong to a structure of the early 12th century at the latest. The monastic settlement was therefore been destroyed between the 8th and 12th centuries. Those responsible might have been the Vikings, the Norse earls of Orkney or ecclesiastical reformers under David I, but the exact date and agency remain to be determined.
At the south end of Sector 2 (Int 24, "C" on map), a wet patch with its rubble platforms is seen as a possible water-mill making use of a now buried stream running from the east.
To the south of the monastery (in Sector 1) was an agricultural establishment with querns, corn-driers and structures supposed to be barns ("E", "G"). These might belong to an early Pictish settlement preceding the monastery, or a farm serving the monastery in a traditional manner.
ArgumentIn Sector 1, ard-marks have been defined which are cut by the enclosure ditch, implying a pre-enclosure phase which should be prehistoric in date. There are other ephemeral structures in this Sector, which are formed by shallow sub-rectangular ditches (eg S2) which were once thought likely to be prehistoric. But S2 cuts S1, the bag-shaped building with an adjacent "souterrain", thought to be Pictish. And at the end of the 1999 season, we still had no certain assemblages of prehistoric date, and now have to accept this as significant.
There are other reasons for throwing doubt on the date of our earliest settlement. Beneath the stone buildings on Int 14, a silver-grey degenerate humic sand lies over 1 metre of sand on a bed of marine clay. During a visit on 23 Aug 1999, our soil consultant Stephen Carter lent his support to the identification of the greater part of this stratified sequence as being naturally formed. The deep stratification and long sequence expected in Int 14 has therefore generally shortened to a stratified deposit c250-300 mm deep. Since the stone buildings are cut into subsoil and no earlier system has yet been seen, they could represent the primary development of the site. These buildings are constructed in rubble bonded with clay and roofed with stone tiles, with pebble surfaces used for hard standing. Datable artifacts associated with the demolition of these buildings are generally of the 8th century.
The principal evidence for occupation earlier than the 8th century has been provided by Jill Harden's C14 dates for the enclosure ditch (centering on 2nd, 4th and 6th century AD, Int 1). The dates were obtained from organic debris in the fill. It was always odd that, although apparently from the same fill, these dates were widely spread, and this might be explained if the samples were in fact derived from redeposited peat, formed in the 2-6th century, and cut and discarded at a later date.. This would explain their date-range as well as the fact that they are too early for the artifact assemblage. These observations suggest that the earliest occupation at the Tarbat site need be no earlier than the 8th century AD.
If this is correct the most likely scheme for the "short chronology" would be:
Period 1, 8th to 9th or 11th century. A settlement is founded at Portmahomack in the 8th century. It has stone buildings, a stone church, produces sculpture and is most probably to be identified as a Pictish monastery. The church is on the hill, the residence is on the slope, and a farm is on the flat in the south field. The farm grows grain (querns), and has cattle (bones). There is extensive water management. One or more ditches collect water off the slope. A stream runs through the enclosure so formed, perhaps to drive a mill. We could perhaps anticipate that there will be two main phases in this period. In the first, represented by the grave-markers, the establishment is a monastery in the sense of a religious community. In the second, represented by the large memorial, TR20, it has become a secular (manorial) centre, matched by others at Hilton, Nigg, and Shandwick.
Period 2, 9th or 11th to 12th c: These buildings were burnt down, sculpture was broken up and a second settlement was founded on the ruins of the first. Its buildings were constructed with upright timber posts. Much broken-up sculpture was deposited as hard core. Metal-working (iron and bronze) commenced or continued. The putative "mill" area now becomes a pile of trodden stone, perhaps to serve a water-hole, or may have continued as a mill. The monastery church is replaced by an E-W church with a small square-ended chancel, perhaps in the context of David I's reforms (early 12th c). The ditches in the south field are back-filled and levelled. The settlement next to the church with its post-hole buildings and metal-working is presumably intended to serve a new manorial type of establishment.
Period 3, 12-15th c: The area remains an artisanal zone with metal-working and shell-middens. The church continues to develop. The south field is cultivated by rig and furrow.
The end of Period 1: The question of the transition from Period 1 to Period 2 and whether there is a hiatus between them is crucial. Period 1 can divide into two sub-periods on the basis of the sculpture: an early 8th century "devotional" phase and a late 8th century "lordship" phase, but there is no necessity to argue that it lasts longer than a century. There are pins, combs etc dated to 9-11th century from parallels from Orkney. If these are in primary contexts in the post-hole phase, then the monastic phase lasts only until the 9th century, when it is presumably terminated by the Vikings. If they belong to the monastic phase and have been found in residual contexts, then the monastic phase lasted until the 11th century. The monastery would then burn down in the context of the conflict between the Earls of Orkney and the men of Moray, culminating in the Battle of Tarbat Ness (1035). The presence of metal-working in all periods is in favour of continuity between them.
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