Archaeological research has just been published which reveals new evidence for vitrified hillforts and warfare in early medieval Scotland. The excavation of Trusty’s Hill, which lies in Galloway in south-west Scotland, revealed that in the early seventh century AD this hillfort was deliberately destroyed and subjected to such sustained burning that the timber-laced stone rampart circling its summit was vitrified.
Nucleated Fort layout of Trusty’s Hill.
‘Our excavation of Trusty’s Hill revealed all the hallmarks of an early medieval royal site,’ said Ronan Toolis of GUARD Archaeology, who led the 2012 excavation. ‘The layout of this hillfort, comprising a fortified summit with supplementary defences and enclosures along its lower-lying slopes, is recognisable as a nucleated fort, a type of fort that has been recognised in Scotland as a form of high status secular settlement of the early medieval period. E-ware pottery indicates that the household here were part of a trade network that linked western Britain with Ireland and Continental Europe. The household were also patrons of a workshop within a part of the site here that was producing high status metalwork of gold, silver, bronze and iron. And the summit was approached via a ritualised entranceway defined by Pictish carvings on one side and a large rock-cut basin on the other. The material culture and layout of Trusty’s Hill is so closely similar to other early medieval royal sites in Scotland that there is little doubt now that Trusty’s Hill was once a royal stronghold of the Britons of south-west Scotland. The vitrification of the ramparts coincides with the destruction of the interior of the site and the end of the occupation of this hillfort.’
IMPORTANT - The distribution of E ware pottery imports from France, including that found at Trusty’s Hill (size of symbol proportional to number of vessels) demonstrate that Gaulish merchants were making a beeline for the Galloway coast during the sixth and early seventh centuries AD.
[Yep - straight from BAZAS. Let's see 2018-2003 = a mere 15 years]
Experiments have shown that vitrification – the melting and fusing together – of stone ramparts took substantial man-power, timber resources for added fuel, experience, skill, and a great deal of time to accomplish. The evidence from empirical experiments and from a range of archaeological sites demonstrates that this was a destructive not a creative process, and deliberate not accidental. Often it was incomplete and coincided with the abandonment of a site, but crucially it always coincides with the burning of a timber-laced rampart core. The act of vitrification depended on pulling down the stone facing of a rampart to expose the core, continually piling a considerable amount of timber and brushwood against individual timbers of the internal framework, and setting fire to these with a favourable wind. Assuming the burning of ramparts was symbolically hostile destruction, the implication is that a fort had to be overrun by an invading force to allow sufficient access and time to achieve a fully vitrified rampart. Indeed, the high visibility of this act may have been more important than the actual destruction of the ramparts themselves. It has been observed during modern experimentation that the sight of a timber-laced rampart in the process of vitrification ‘edged by flames and glowing red in the night’ for weeks or even months was a spectacular advertisement of aggressive power.
The evidence from Trusty’s Hill consistently upholds these previous observations. The excavation revealed that the unheated outer and inner stone faces of the summit rampart were toppled separately prior to the burning of the rubble core. The likeliest explanation is that these were intentionally pulled down in order to expose the rampart core and its timber sub-structure for ease of access and to allow oxygen to fan the flames. Moreover, the entire circuit of the summit rampart was vitrified. The rampart core was not reduced to a single fused mass however but rather discontinuous concentrations of vitrified stone indicating individual fires around timber uprights. Given the substantial number of timbers within the rampart core, it is likely that each upright may have required individual attention in order to fully destroy the fortification. Where the rampart core was exposed, the position of the upright timbers was marked by post-voids ringed by a concentration of vitrified stone, which mirrors the negative timber slots encountered in other vitrified forts in Scotland and providing evidence for in situ burning rather than the incorporation of vitrified material from elsewhere.
Anglo-saxon style bronze jewellery from Trusty’s Hill. Analysis showed that this was originally gilded and silvered and made of leaded brass quite distinct to the leaded bronze objects being made at the workshop here. It was probably brought to this site as loot.
It was also evident that dark soil deposits, that abutted the interior edge of the rampart and which contained an abundance of occupation material, sealed the collapsed unburnt stone interior face of the rampart but were themselves sealed by the collapsed vitrified rubble core of the rampart. Stratigraphically this must represent the accumulation of occupation detritus during the destruction of the summit and its enclosing ramparts. This is borne out by the soil micromorphology analysis that indicated the dark soil resulted from a wet, actively churned, trampled and lightly vegetated occupation deposit. The occurrence of similarly composed dark soil deposits on each side of the summit indicates a prolonged phase of destruction across the entire site.
Reconstruction of the royal stronghold atop Trusty’s Hill as it may have appeared c. AD 600. © DGNHAS / GUARD Archaeology Ltd.
The evidence from Trusty’s Hill points to a sustained and co-ordinated effort to eradicate the fort. While it is beyond reasonable dispute that vitrified ramparts are the result of deliberate arson, there is some debate about whether this deliberate destruction simply marks the self-inflicted ritualised abandonment of a site. However, there are repeated references to the besieging and destruction of forts by fire in Scotland in a variety of annals from the seventh century AD onwards. The consensus is that vitrified ramparts are the result of punitive destruction after the capture and pillaging of a hillfort, in order to permanently raze it in a spectacular exhibition of power. This process of violent destruction serves to underline the defensive character of the ramparts enclosing Trusty’s Hill and which, together with the numerous slingstones recovered from the site, testifies that there was a tangible threat to defend against.
It is doubtful, however, that the destruction of Trusty’s Hill was merely the consequence of a local neighbourly dispute. The magnitude of resources required to achieve such destruction is such that vitrified ramparts are one of the most compelling forms of evidence for warfare during this period in Scotland. The level of co-ordinated and prolonged destruction to raze Trusty’s Hill intrinsically reflects the status that the fort and its household once held. It was clearly important to devote substantial and valuable resources to its destruction in order to present a fiery spectacle that lasted days if not weeks and was visible for miles around. This was not just destruction but a menacing political statement.
Redrawing the map of Dark Age Britain. The discovery of a royal stronghold at Trusty’s Hill suggests that the core of the kingdom of Rheged lay within Galloway.
For it is possible that the destruction of Trusty’s Hill was not an isolated affair. The destruction of Trusty’s Hill in the early seventh century AD is comparatively close chronologically to the destruction of the Mote of Mark, another vitrified fort further along the Galloway coast, where occupation was also abruptly curtailed. Given their morphological similarity to Trusty’s Hill, it is entirely plausible that the remaining cluster of vitrified forts in central Galloway were also destroyed around this same period. This raises the distinct possibility that their destruction resulted from a prolonged campaign or series of campaigns of violent subjugation of the region rather than entirely unrelated incidents.
While Pictish raiders have been previously suggested as responsible for the destruction of Trusty’s Hill, as well as for the Pictish symbols at the site, the identification of local Britons as the principal hand behind the carvings similarly removes any particular focus on the Picts having any compelling relationship to the site’s demise. There is plenty of evidence for other likely parties. Aggression by various groups in northern Britain is certainly attested during this period. However, it was over the course of the seventh century AD that the kings of Northumbria conquered and made tributary the British kingdoms of the north, including Galloway. Interestingly, all of the vitrified forts in central Galloway lie within or very close to parishes where clusters of early Anglian settlement can be discerned from place-name evidence indicating not only a political, but also an attempted cultural purge around the middle of the seventh century AD.
While there is some evidence that the Northumbrian possession of Galloway was at least in part a relatively peaceable affair, such as the Northumbrian appropriation of the early Christian monastic sites at Whithorn and Ardwall Isle, the vitrified ramparts of Trusty’s Hill and the Mote of Mark corroborate the testimonies of the Historia Ecclesiastica and the Life of Wilfrid in demonstrating that the dominance of Northumbria was also achieved in no small measure through the violent overthrow and subjugation of the native British ruling elite. It is worth noting that one Anglian noble, perhaps King Ida of Bernicia, was known to his British enemies as Fflamddwyn, meaning ‘the Flame-Bearer’.
The deliberate and spectacular destruction of Trusty’s Hill is a visceral reminder that its demise came with sword and flame.
The Lost Dark Age Kingdom of Rheged: the Discovery of a Royal Stronghold at Trusty’s Hill, Galloway by Ronan Toolis and Christopher Bowles is published by Oxbow Books.
The Galloway Picts Project was supported by the Dumfriesshire and Galloway Natural History and Antiquarian Society, the Heritage Lottery Fund, the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, GUARD Archaeology Ltd, the Mouswald Trust, the Hunter Archaeological & Historical Trust, the Strathmartine Trust, the Gatehouse Development Initiative, the John Younger Trust, the Galloway Preservation Society and Historic Environment Scotland.