Bulletin
6, 2000
Introduction
The excavation programme at the early Pictish settlement at Portmahomack, Easter Ross began in 1997 (Bulletin 2) and was due to finish in 2000 after four seasons. This programme and the budget that supported it was estimated according to the results of evaluation exercises carried out in 1994-1996, which mapped the site as a settlement mainly consisting of buildings with shallow foundations and middens
Excavations since 1996 have shown that two extremely important assets of the settlement remained concealed during the evaluation phase: first the workshops which consist of numerous layers containing small fragments from many crafts; and second a mill complex which includes a pond and dam.
With hindsight we could have been cleverer about predicting these things and thus have produced a more realistic programme. But in another way, these are nice problems to have, if we can confront them successfully. In 2000, the aim was to complete the mapping of the whole excvavation sample and to see as much as possible of what is coming next. Accordingly the largest area yet opened was exposed and cleaned and excavated by a large work-force. The horizon mapping of the whole excavation was completed, sample excavation completed in Sector 1 and the south end of Sector 2, and the workshop area and the mill area were both better defined.
As a result of this work and the preliminary analyses of artefacts and the first suite of radiocarbon dates reported here, the interpretation of the Portmahomack as an early medieval monastery has become very plausible. It may well have begun at the time of St Columba's mission c565AD and continued up to the time of the Battle of Tarbat Ness in c1035.
At least three phases of monastery are now likely at Tarbat:
(1) The foundation of a Columban monastery in the mid-6th century. Apart from the cist-burial we have not seen this yet. It should lie under everything else and consist of timber buildings with numerous post-holes ( cf Adomnan's Life of Columba and Barber's excvations on Iona). The simple grave markers and the inner enclosure ditch may belong to this period.
(2) Alignment with Northumbria in the 8th century. This should be the context of the stone buildings and the craft activities (as it is at Whithorn). The architectural sculpture and the sarcophagus (" boar stone "), and the outer enclosure ditch may belong to this period.
(3) A new establishment of the 9-10th century. The period of the great cross-slabs and new intense workshop activity. The influence of the Norse is likely but as yet unknown. The bag-shaped building and the mill may belong to this period.
The definition of these three phases will be of immense historical value if we can refine them and can bring them to life. At the same time, the similarity of the stone monuments at Portmahomack, Nigg, Shanwick and Hilton of Cadboll suggest a strongly integrated community around 800. This integration could also have been true of earlier periods, implying that the 6th century community could have originally aquired the whole Tarbat peninsula. This has led to the idea that the Tarbat peninsula is the "Iona of the east."
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Last updated 10 October, 2003.
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