SERF blog: Welcome to the 2013 SERF Fieldschool!

Monday 17 June 2013

Welcome to the 2013 SERF Fieldschool!

After our successful dig at Castle Law Forgandenny hillfort earlier this spring, the SERF fieldschool is back for the 2013 season! This year (15 June - 5 July) we have three main sites in the Dunning area of Perthshire, continuing the work we started last year. Our excavations this year cover the Neolithic straight to the modern day. Alongside that we'll be doing lots of surveys and other activities in the Dunning area; read on or follow us on Twitter for regular updates @SERFProject. Let's introduce this year's sites!

Leadketty Farm

Dene at the opening of the Leadketty trench last week.

This year's prehistoric excavation is truly massive, at 50x20m. We are investigating the site of a possibly Neolithic causewayed enclosure, seen only as a cropmark from aerial photography. The topsoil is all cleared off now and there's plenty of features appearing already, so stay tuned for more details.

St Serf's, Dunning


Our students opening one of the trenches outside St Serf's Parish Church, Dunning.

We are also continuing our exploration of the medieval church of St Serf's, which is famous for its 12th-century Romanesque tower and now houses the 9th-century Dupplin Cross (originally from Forteviot). Our excavation in this area last year turned up a fragment of another Pictish cross slab reused in a post-medieval context, as well as lots of evidence for the weaving industry that made Dunning an important market town. So far this year we have been busy sorting through loads of modern midden material (see below), but with the odd fragment of 16/17th-century ceramic appearing here and there.

Just some of the many modern finds found today in Trench 04 outside St Serf's!

Kay Craig

Neil starts digging through the rubble at Kay Craig.

Our last main site is at Kay Craig, a possible hillfort directly across from the broch we discovered at Castle Craig. That site was had evidence of occupation from the Iron Age down to the 11th century, so the aim at Kay Craig is to see when this site was used and how it related to the occupation on the broch site. But there's still lots of rubble to clear off!

And much more...

Alongside our main excavations at these sites, we're also running a fantastic series of events in and around Dunning this month, including the second annual Big Dig all around the village, and the Wee Big Dig at Dunning Primary School. For more information, visit our outreach events page or follow the Big Dig on Facebook!

For more on previous seasons of SERF, including excavation reports and photo galleries, head to our project website.

1 comment:

Unknown22 June 2013 at 22:16
Wish I was there again this year!
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2015 SERF Field School

The Strathearn Environs and Royal Forteviot (SERF) project field school for archaeology students will takes place 20 June - 10 July 2015 in and around the village of Dunning in Perthshire.

We will be posting updates of the excavations here and you are welcome to follow along and make comments. To find out more background information about SERF please visit our webpage.

Follow us on Twitter: SERFProject

We would like to thank local landowners and farmers for their support of our project.

Events in the Local Community
As part of the current phase of the SERF project which is based around Dunning, we will be continuing our community archaeology programme. This is intended to involve participation of local community through a range of activities including a Big Dig, a programme of schools outreach and public lectures.

Previous Seasons

2013 Season
In 2013 we excavated a prehistoric enclosure at Baldinnies, St Serfs church in Dunning, an Iron Age site at Kay Craig.

2012 Season
In 2012 we began the second half of the SERF project, or the first half of our acronym, moving out from Royal Forteviot into the Strathearn Environs! Work now shifted to the Dunning area, focusing on the prehistoric cropmarks at Leadketty Farm. A few trenches were opened around the medieval church of St Serf's in Dunning, which revealed a fragment of a Pictish cross amongst other things. Work also continued on Castle Craig Broch, turning up important evidence for the use and re-use of Roman material culture on an Iron Age settlement site.

2011 Season
In 2011 excavation began on new sites across Strathearn. A new hillfort with three visible ramparts was excavated at Ben Effrey while just down the hill a possible hillfort at Castle Craig turned out to be a broch! The topographic survey of this site shows the ramparts of an earlier enclosure on the site. Digging at Haly Hill in Forteviot uncovered the remains of a post-medieval structure and roadway and produced a lot of interesting finds.

2010 Season
In 2010 further excavations of the Forteviot monument complex were undertaken. We excavated trenches over a henge monument with a large central pit and a double ditched enclosure with a central 'triple cist'. Meanwhile the palisaded enclosure was revisited which enabled us to further record the nature of the postholes outwith the avenue. Also, in the same field, another Pictich square barrow was excavated.

2009 Season
In 2009 we continued our investigations of a Neolithic henge which has been extensively reworked in later prehistory/Early Medieval period. We also dug at a Pictish cemetery - focusing on a large enigmatic square enclosure.

Exploration of the wider context of the complex archaeology of Forteviot will continued with walkover and topographic surveys and a small excavation of a nearby river terrace fort.

2008 Season
In 2008 we opened a trench over a Neolithic henge monument within the large palisaded enclosure. Trenches at the Dunknock hillfort were also opened and aimed to ascertain the location of the rampart and ditch system.

Meanwhile the wider context of Strathearn was explored with standing building survey at Muckersie, topographic survey at various sites including Exmagirdle, Forteviot Churchyard and Muckersie Chapel and a geophysical survey at Blackford near the Pictish symbol stone. Walkover survey took place on the high ground above Forteviot aiming to record cultivation remains, enclosure boundaries and past routeways.

2007 Season

The first season of excavation at Forteviot focussed on the avenue of a large Neolithic palisaded enclosure. This site is full of interesting monuments and features such as a large henge monument within the enclosure.

Elsewhere a large trench was opened at Jackschairs hillfort to investigate the rampart and ditch system. In conjunction with this a topographic survey of the hillfort was performed, with the aim of recording the extent of the ramparts remaining under thick vegetation.

Walkover survey took place at the Black Hill of Kippen, geophysics was taking place in and around Forteviot and a standing building survey was done of Exmagirdle Chapel.

Over several weeks after the fieldschool a Pictish square barrow with several graves was also excavated by a group of keen students.

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