Over two weeks in October 2022, a team of volunteers led by GUARD Archaeologists excavated the Thirlestane Barrows, just to the south of Broughton in the Scottish Borders. This site was only discovered in the summer of 2018 when cropmarks were spotted from a nearby hillside by a local resident.

An aerial photographic survey further revealed that these cropmarks included at least four barrows, split between two fields. Three of these barrow cropmarks comprise circular ditches enclosing a small area with a central feature. The fourth barrow cropmark comprises a square shaped ditch enclosing a small area containing a central feature. Where sites such as this have been excavated, the central feature is a grave, which was originally buried beneath a small mound of earth cast from the enclosing ditch. However, ploughing over the subsequent centuries has removed the mound, leaving only the buried archaeological remains, which are often only visible from the air.

Initiated by the Arthur Trail Association, this is the second site to be investigated in the Drumelzier’s Hidden Heritage project looking at the Dark Age landscape of Upper Tweeddale. The Thirlestane investigation got underway with a geophysics survey led by Magnitude Surveys, which revealed two round barrows in one field but not in the other field.

The volunteers, drawn from Peeblesshire, Biggar, Midlothian, Glasgow, Inverclyde and Perth, then began their excavation revealing the remains of the square barrow, the first such barrow to be excavated in southern Scotland. The square barrow contained at least two graves, though no skeletal remains survived. The graves were aligned east/west, which adheres to early Christian customs. These types of barrow graves are more common north of the Forth where they have been dated to the early medieval period and it may be that the Thirlestane square barrow is early medieval too, perhaps the graves of some of the inhabitants of Tinnis Castle Fort, which they excavated earlier this summer.

But that’s not all the secrets that the Thirlestane Barrows have given up. After completing the excavation of the square barrow, the team moved on to investigating one of the round barrows in the other field. This revealed a small grave containing multiple cremation burial, dating to the Bronze Age. One of the cremations was laid to rest in a bucket urn, which was lifted in its entirety and taken back to GUARD Archaeology’s Finds Lab for delicate excavation. It may turn out during post-excavation analyses that the square barrow was a later addition to an existing cluster of prehistoric barrows that perhaps had stories of their own.

Check out the project’s fieldwork and post-excavation progress: dark-age-digs.com

For more information: www.facebook.com/groups/darkagedigs                                                                                                

The project is funded by:

Over two weeks in August 2022, a team of volunteers led by GUARD Archaeologists will be excavating Tinnis Castle Fort, a prominent rocky hill that overlooks the village of Drumelzier in Peeblesshire.

Initiated by the Arthur Trail Association in collaboration with GUARD Archaeology, the excavation will be focussed not on the ruins of Tinnis Castle itself but the underlying hillfort. Traces of vitrified stone from the ramparts that encircle the hill suggests that this fort was deliberately burnt to the ground, causing the rubble to melt. This phenomenon is apparent on over 100 hillforts across Scotland but is quite rare in the Scottish Borders. The nucleated layout of the fort, comprising a fortified summit and non-concentric enclosures around lower-lying parts of the hill, is similar to other early medieval forts in Scotland. Indeed, the name itself, Tinnis, derives from dinas, meaning fortress in the ancient Cumbric language that was once spoken across southern Scotland at this time.

This isn’t the only Dark Age connection with this part of the Scottish Borders. Since the twelfth century, Drumelzier has been associated with the Merlin legend. The original story was nothing to do with King Arthur but told the story of a man called Lailoken (his name was changed to Merlin after the story was transposed to Wales many centuries later), driven mad by the slaughter of the battle of Arthuret, his encounters with St Kentigirn, his gift of prophecy and his threefold death. What is key to the story is not only its association with real events and real people of the late sixth century AD but its unique association with Drumelzier and Tinnis Castle Fort.

But the excavation at Tinnis Castle is not looking for evidence for Merlin. Nor looking to see if the story was true. What the project is investigating is if there are any archaeological roots to the legend, examining if the archaeology is contemporary with the late sixth century AD when the story is set and therefore if the origins of the Merlin legend, not is historical veracity, lie in Drumelzier.

The excavation at Tinnis Castle will be undertaken in August 2022. And what’s more, the project will be investigating other nearby sites later in the year, that may reveal more of the Dark Age landscape of Upper Tweeddale. Check out the project’s fieldwork and post-excavation progress: dark-age-digs.com

For more information:

www.facebook.com/groups/darkagedigs                                                        Merlintrail.com                                                       

The project is funded by: