2025/10/30 by Gordon Noble, David Griffiths, Charlotta Hillerdal +3 · 1 voice
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Arts and Humanities · Social Sciences · #Archaeology and ancient environmental studies #Historical Studies of British Isles #Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology
paper · pdf · doi:10.15184/aqy.2025.10231
An increase in knowledge is usually beneficial but can also highlight misapprehensions of existing data. Such is the case for the Pictish-Norse transition in Northern Scotland in the later first millennium AD. New radiocarbon dates from the key ‘transitional’ settlement of Buckquoy, Orkney, reveal that traits previously published as indicative of incoming Norse influence pre-date the start of the Viking Age, suggesting a greater level of endogenous change than hitherto has been appreciated. Here, the authors underscore the need for a re-evaluation of other settlement sequences across the later Pictish and early Norse periods, reopening many questions about the transition.