Thank you to members of the public, Historic Scotland stewards, school children, students and academic colleagues whose use of the book and repeated queries about its future availability persuaded me there was still a value in summoning the time and energy to produce a new edition of something first crafted in what now seems the first flush of youth. Hugh Andrew, your bullying also worked. Thank you too, Hugh, for your dogged persistence in finding a way forward with Historic Scotland after a changed management dropped the Historic Scotland Batsford series. Financing the illustrations for a book, without institutional funding and support, is a major obstacle for any author because of the enormity of the cost of purchasing and reproducing images from copyright holders. I am therefore exceedingly grateful to those individuals and institutions that cheered me up with their prompt, pragmatic and selfless responses to my requests for images and other advice.
This book weaves the works and words of numerous others. I only hope I have done you reasonable justice. As previously, there is the inevitable risk of turning cautious agreement between disciplines into incautious fact through the inevitable inability of one person to master the ins and outs of all specialisms (see Clancy 2001a). While I have had to limit in-text citation, the last publishers allowed me to add some in the 2nd edition and my expanded Further Reading includes the most important current sources.
At the time of writing, I am coming to the end of a three-year temporary lectureship at the University of Aberdeen, where a dynamic new archaeology ‘department’ specialises in the Archaeology of the North. It is with particular pleasure that I therefore acknowledge the help I have received for this book from David Dumville, Jane Geddes, Laura McHardie, Tim Mighall, Gordon Noble and Paul Taylor, and I thank all my Aberdeen colleagues and students for providing such a friendly, stimulating and supportive environment to live and work in. I also thank Ewan Campbell, Nick Evans, Katherine Forsyth and Graeme Wilson, and the many acknowledged in the earlier editions on which this builds.
I have added new, revised and refreshed images. The distribution maps in 60, 63 and 83 are correct only to 2004, but the changes are not major. Ewan Campbell generously prepared Plate 10 and 50, with help from Lorraine McEwan and Kathy MacIver. Martin Carver and his colleagues at FAS-Heritage & University of York, Justin Lahire-Garner and Cecily Spall, very kindly allowed me to use 3, 4 and 6 in advance of their eagerly awaited Portmahomack monograph, while Jane Geddes gave me access to her forthcoming St Vigeans monograph. In addition to those just mentioned, or cited in Image credits below, I thank Michelle Andersson, Kyle Armstrong, David Clarke, Anne Crone, Neil Curtis, John R. Davies, Steve Dockrill, Kim Downie, Ellen Ellingsen, Vasiliki Koutrafouri, Chris Lowe, David Mackie, Bruce Mann, Hazel Moore, Graham Nisbet, Gordon Noble, Caroline Norman, Caroline Palmer, Doug Simpson, Sharon Sutton, Graeme Wilson and Maggie Wilson.
Quotations from Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People, translated by Leo Sherley-Price and revised by R.E. Latham (Penguin Classics, 2nd revised edition, 1990) are produced by kind permission of Penguin Books. The Goddodin quote is to be found in The Triumph Tree edited by Thomas Clancy, first published in Great Britain by Canongate Books, Edinburgh.
The long-drawn-out, behind-the-scenes history of this new edition contributed to my mid-life decision to change career, and I must thank friends and colleagues in the University of Glasgow, particularly Professor Stephen Driscoll, for setting me off on a new trail, and Professor Martin Carver for his much-valued advice and friendship. Last but by no means least are the thanks reserved for Rod McCullagh, the very best of critical friends.
Image credits
Illustrations are reproduced by permission as follows: Alan Lane 53; Aberdeenshire Council Archaeology Service, https://www.aberdeenshire.gov.uk/smrpub/ 77; Doug Simpson, with kind permission of Hamish Torrie of The Glenmorangie Company front cover, 24, 40; EASE Archaeology 1; Edwina Proudfoot 65; Ewan Campbell 50, 53; Reproduced by kind permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library Plate 4; Crown copyright Historic Scotland opposite title page, 12, 13, 14, 15, 19, 21, 22, 23, 25, 27, 29, 30, 34, 37, 38, 42, Plate 11, 47, 52, 54, 56, 57, 58, 62, 66, 67, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 81, 82, Plate 16, 84, 87, Plate 17, 92, 93, 95; © Courtesy of RCAHMS (Photographer: Trevor Cowie). Licensor www.rcahms.gov.uk 64; © Crown Copyright: RCAHMS. Licensor www.rcahms.gov.uk 2, 11, 16, 32 (left), 33, 43, 44, 68, 69, 85, 86, 94; Headland Archaeology Ltd 5, 9; Photographer R. Gourlay, Highland Council Plate 14; History Scotland Plate 8; Jan Henrik Fallgren Plate 9; Jill Harden 31; Leslie and Elizabeth Alcock (deceased)/ Society of Antiquaries of Scotland 26; Mark A. Hall 80; Martin Carver FAS-Heritage & University of York 3, 4, 6, 78; Photographer Per E. Fredriksen, © NTNU, Museum of Natural History and Archaeology, Trondheim, Norway 20; Orkney Library and Archive Plate 5; Rhynie Environs Archaeology Project per Gordon Noble Plate 2, 32 (right); Scottish Catholic Historical Association 76; Simon Taylor Plate 8, 76; I am grateful to the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland for permission to reproduce 5, 9, 26, 55, 65, 75; Stephen J. Dockrill 17, 45; Tom and Sybil Gray Collection per RCAHMS 18, 59, 89, 90; the Board of Trinity College Dublin Plate 3, Plate 7; the Hunterian, University of Glasgow 2014 Plate 13; Trustees of the National Museums Scotland 18, Plate 6, 35, 39, 46, Plate 12, 48, 49, 51, Plate 15, 88, 91; University of Aberdeen 41; University of Glasgow Plate 10. Several of the images are the author’s own copyright: 7, 10 (the Anderson Dunlop Fund of the Scottish Medievalists grant-aided its production), 28, 61, 96.
Where known, the illustrators are Alan Braby 42; Christina Unwin 7, 10, 14, 15, 19, 25, 36, 54, 60, 63, 67, 71, 79, 83, 92, 96; Dave Pollock 29, 37; James Renny 76; Lorraine McEwen Plate 10; Ian G Scott Plate 11, 87. Several maps are based upon Ordnance Survey material with the permission of Ordnance Survey on behalf of the Controller of Her Majesty’s Stationery Office © Crown copyright. Unauthorised reproduction infringes Crown copyright and may lead to prosecution or civil proceedings. Historic Scotland Licence No. 100017509 2004: 36, 60, 63, 79, 83.
Tom Gray’s pictures (8, 89) were first published in E. Sutherland In Search of the Picts (London, 1994). 15 is based on C. Thomas And Shall These Mute Stones Speak? (Cardiff, 1994), with amendments; 63 on Barrow 1983, Thomas 1981 and A.S. Henshall ‘A long cist cemetery at Parkburn Sandpit…’, Proc. Soc. Antiq. Scot. 89 (1955–6), with additions; 67and 71 mainly derive from Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historic Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS) Argyll vols 2–5 (Edinburgh, 1975–84) and C. Thomas The Early Christianity of North Britain (Glasgow 1971).