An ancient rubbish dump uncovered by chance has helped boost understanding of Scotland's past.
Archaeologists from the National Trust for Scotland have recorded a mass of 2000-year-old domestic refuse at the site on the island of Iona. The rubbish includes limpet and whelk shells along with bones from sheep, goats and a grey seal.
Shards of pottery thought to date from the late Bronze Age or Iron Age, plus flint and a large cobble stone tool were also found during the excavation last month.
National Trust archaeologist Derek Alexander stumbled upon the rubbish pit earlier in the summer after erosion revealed its existence.
Mr Alexander said: "Although this is only a small site, the finds are quite exciting as they suggest a settlement close by. Despite the obvious early Christian history of Iona, very little is known of its prehistoric settlement."
Iona is most famous as the island where St Columba is said to have landed in Scotland in the Dark Ages to spread Christianity.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article