Unexpected discoveries of human remains in Scotland

In March 2004, a partially exposed stone cist was spotted during agricultural works at Harray in Orkney. The Orkney Archaeologist was informed, but unable to excavate it herself, asked Historic Scotland to arrange for its excavation through its human remains call-off contract with AOC Archaeology Group. AOC Archaeology Group promptly sent up two archaeologists to carry out an emergency excavation, which revealed cremated bones within an unusually well-made Bronze Age burial cist now displayed at the Orkney Museum in Kirkwall.

This was just one occasion when AOC Archaeology Group was asked to respond to the accidental discovery of human remains in Scotland. Historic Scotland’s Human Remains contract with AOC Archaeology Group is designed to enable archaeologists to deal with unexpected finds of human bones, or in the case of the Harray cist, an archaeological feature likely to hold human remains, before they are further damaged or lost.

Every year, such archaeological remains, whether graves or human bones, are discovered by chance through agricultural works, quarrying, building or coastal erosion. With no-one else able to pay for the proper excavation and recording of these finds, Historic Scotland steps in to ensure that these remains are properly and respectfully recovered and recorded. Since 2003, AOC Archaeology Group has been called out on over 29 occasions to recover a variety of archaeological funerary remains from around Scotland. The call-outs have included other prehistoric cists similar to the Orkney example, an early Christian Pictish cemetery spotted by machine drivers at a quarry outside Forfar; and the remains of an earl medieval chapel and graveyard in East Lothian.
 
In every case, where human remains are first encountered, the police are informed before any archaeological excavation of the remains begins, in accordance with the law. Even where a grave has been badly disturbed, the archaeologists can recover sufficient evidence to shed light on such things as funerary practices, the number, age and sex of the deceased and the dates of the burials. Although a large amount of topsoil had fallen into the cist at Harray, Orkney, for instance, the AOC archaeologists found a neat heap of burnt bone fragments lying on stone slabs across the centre of the cist floor. The deposits within and around the cist were comprehensively sampled for further analysis. Sometimes, when this has been done for other cists there have been great surprises. For instance one cist in Southern Scotland was shown to contain lead beads. Other cists have been shown to contain large amounts of plant pollen such as meadowsweet, perhaps indicating that flowers were strewn over the burial.

All the finds and human remains recovered from the excavations are collected and stored at AOC Archaeology Group’s laboratory, until their analysis is complete. With an in-house Osteoarchaeologist, based at its London Office, AOC Archaeology Group has the expertise to complete the analysis of human remains. Once this work has been done, the remains may be allocated to a museum or in the case of Christian burials, re-interred in a cemetery.

AOC Project Manager: John Gooder
Client: Historic Scotland