The Picts: Tree rings shed new light on Pictish power centre in Scotland with incredible accuracy

Tree ring science is the latest tool unravelling the past at Scotland’s early historic sites.

The building of a power centre for Pictish elites has been dated with accuracy so fine that experts can now tell when the trees were felled for construction work within a couple of years.

The rocky knoll once home to Dundurn Fort near St Fillan's, a high status site during the Pictish period which dates to the early 7th Century. Fresh research has been cast on the early days of life at the fort, where a Pictish shoe (bottom left) and a glass bead (bottom right) were found during excavations in the early 1980s. The objects hint at the wealth and power within its walls. PICS: Dr Richard Murray/geograph.org/ The Hunterian/University of Glasgow. | Dr Richard Murray/geograph.org/ The Hunterian/University of Glasgow.

Dundurn Fort, near St Fillans, was a stronghold for high-status figures during the Pictish period and dates to the early seventh century. Earlier excavations found a leather shoe, a glass boss and E-ware pottery from France at the site, all which indicate the wealth and power within its walls.

Two mentions of the fort were made in separate and incredibly rare contemporary accounts of the period, with a siege at Dundurn in AD 682 recorded in the Annals of Ulster and a separate record of the death of a king at the site in the ninth century also made.

Now, re-examination of heavy timbers thought to have been used in the defensive part of the structure has found that felling of trees used to build the site took place circa AD 619 or AD 620 .

READ MORE: The origins of the mysterious Picts illuminated in new research

The dates come in a breakthrough use of dendrochronology - or tree ring science - to date early historic sites in the north of Scotland.

Gordon Noble, professor in archaeology at the University of Aberdeen, said: “It is amazing to get a date like that. It is the equivalent of having an entry in the Annals of Ulster or the like that says this site was under siege at this particular date. It is of that equivalent.”

Dr Anne Crone, consultant dendrochronologist and archaeologist, carried out the dating work on the timbers from Dundurn after funding was awarded from the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.

The site was earlier excavated in the 1980s with large quantities of wood recovered and several pieces sent to Queen’s University in Belfast, which has a growing database of tree science data amassed over 40 years.

Advances in the technology used in tree ring science have helped achieve the new results from Dundurn, which are the first from an early historic site outwith the south west of Scotland, Dr Crone said.

Dr Crone added: “It has been successful. I would have liked to have dated more, but it is really promising because up until now the only early historic sites that we have got dendro dated are from south-west Scotland.

“The reason it has been easier to date material from down there is that it is very close to Northern Ireland. We have a lot of tree ring chronologies from early historic sites in Northern Ireland because they are in the same geographic and climatic region. It has been possible for me to compare material with them.

“We have had real difficulties in trying to date material from this period as we go further north because it is a very different climatic region.

“As you go further into Scotland you get these lochs and there are micro-environments. So the signal from these oaks is very different than the wood from Northern Ireland. So this is very promising.“

Dr Crone said the results from Dundurn showed those building the fort had access to “very long lived oak woodland in the area”.

She said: “One of the timbers has got at least 300-plus growth rings in it. So we are talking about very old oak trees, so we are getting a few insights into what the environment was like.”

Dr Crone said the new results at Dundurn opened up an opportunity to date further early sites in the north of Scotland.

Professor Noble said the new findings at Dundurn “unlocked possibilities” of dating further Pictish sites using dendrochronology.

He said: “One of the most exciting things is not just dating this site, but the possibility that we might be able to do this at other sites across Scotland and the more northerly sites, where we definitely haven’t had the dendro evidence in the past.”