TARBAT DISCOVERY CENTRE Newsletter 2011112 F1 .00
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TARBAT DISCOVERY CENTRE Newsletter 2011112 f1 .00 From the Chairman Welcome to this addition of our newsletter. I hope that you will see from the other contributors that life continues apace although all visible signs of archaeology have for the time being disappeared. The investigations and analysis of the many finds continues under the guidance of world-wide experts and will continue to educate and shine a light on the lives of the inhabitants of Tarbat 1500 years ago. Thisyearfindsmeinabetterframeofmindthanayearago-foralongtimelfeltabitlikePrivateFraserofDad'sArmy(we'reall doomed)with my predictions of possible imminent closure of the Centre. Well, thanks to the individual generosity of many - and two families in particular, we have managed at the very least to postpone this event and during our 2010 appeal, a total of 30K was reached and that enables us to replace our re- serves. ln addition we were helped in the last financial year in that we had no real items of major expenditure. This combined with my reluctant decision not to employ a seasonal student (the downside was even more work for Michele!) meant an overall saving in expenditure of some 8K, meaning that the Centre more or less broke even that year. However, logic strates that we cannot be lucky all of the time and sooner or later we are going to have to spend money on something - already Historic Scotland are suggesting that we undertake an extemal refurbishment (at our expense of course) and my reply to them suggested that our annual insurance bill of over 2.5K for the building was enough of a liability to be going on with. All this meant that we entered 201 1 with our reserve fund substantially intact and the delaying of council cuts in our secto r until2Ol2means that we have at least bought ourselves some more time. lt is securing additional income that is the perennial problem - when I first became involved with the Centre ten years ago, our revenue support grant from the now defunct Ross & Cromarty District Council was 32K and next year that amount will have gradually reduced to 12K. So you don't have to have an economics degree to see where most of our problems come from. It was never anticipated that the Centre could survive on visitor generated income alone and I believe that the Cenhe still has a very uncertain future as a stand-alone organisation. Apart from forming closer relationships with other sites and promoting the Pictish theme, what we really need is a major partner with whom we can build a sustainability package. ln an ideal world that would be Historic Scotland and the National Museums, but I'm afraid that is not how the system works in this country and I am sure that the budgets of both are also under pressure. lf you look at our website or the visitors book, you will see that the comments about us are all positive and the spontianeous remarks in letters to us from local children are very revealing and I do genuinely believe that the'word is spreading'. 201 I has started off quietly as far as individual visitors are concemed but the numbers, particularly in June have been boosted by several diverse groups, all of whom have thoroughly enjoyed their visit here - to be told personally by an American visitor to Scotland, that in his travels over here, his visit to the Centre was the highlight was especially encouraging! I still feel that as the knowledge of the site expands, we need to do more to explain to the visitor just what is under their feet when they land in our car park. I am aware of some visitors who having read about the monastery and workshop site, have some pre-formed impression of being able to see something - okay maybe not along the lines of Pompeii, but rather more than the present sward of green grass! So we need to befter interpret that area (which by the way is now a fully Scheduled National Monument) and at the very least some signage and perhaps a site model would help -suggestions more than welcome. Work continues apace with local exhibitions, among which is one dedicated to the life of Professor Thomas Summers West CBE, FRS one of the most important analytical research chemists of his day - literally a legend everywhere but in his own home village - just how Scoftish is that? We opened this display along with a launch of his book "Family Fisherman and their Boats" on the evening of the 30th of July at which his son and two daughters and many of the local villagers were in attendance. -the Centre would like to place on record our thanks to the West family for their do- nation of all sales of the book to the Centre's fund appeal. Hopefully fate will continue to smile kindly on the Centre in the months and yearc ahead and we look forward to welcoming you here again - in the meantime, many thanks for your continuing interest and support. Best wishes, Tony Watson. Monasticism and the body: Diet, health and 7-10 years age at death). This child may have survived long enough for the bone to start the healing process but probably the injury disease in medieval monastic communities. died from a short while later due to the presence of active bone healing. Shirley Ann Curtis PhD Gandidate The University of Liverpool lntroduction ln 2009, I reported on the latest findings of my research on the skeletal remains from Portmahomack. This research was canied out at the Uni- versity of Bradford under the supervision of Dr Janet Montgomery. The burials provided a wonderful opportunity to leam more about the Pictish and Medieval inhabitants of Portmahomack directly through their bones and teeth. Update Stable carbon and nitrogen isotope research at the University of Brad- ford revealed wonderful results. Dietary reconstructions on the Pictish Fig.1. Blade wound on SK.65. Photo: Author's own. monks and medieval layfolk revealed a clear difference in what types of foods were consumed. The monks' diet included cereal foods (e.9. Results so far have suggested that Pictish-Medievat life Portma- wheat, barley) and meat from cattle and sheep, but no significant intake in homack was far from easy. Extreme wear, stress and severe trauma of fish. Conversely, the layfolk diets included cereal foods also, but a on the bones suggest hard labour, nutritional and environmental significant amount of fish consumption. This suggests a clear diachronic stresses and exposure to violence and disease. is anticipated that change in diet during these periods. However, this posed more ques- lt this research will contribute to a greater understanding of what life was tions. For example, what could be the reason for such an increase in fish like for people living in medieval monastic communities. There is much consumption in the later medieval period yet not in the earlier Pictish more of the story to tell, so watch this space! phase: population and/orfishing trade increase? Fasting practices, such as those set down in the Benedictine Rule, proscribed meat (but allowed Acknowledgements: fish) for three days of the week. Such fasting practices may not have Many thanks to Professor Martin Carver and the Tarbat Historic Trust been adhered to, or indeed heard of, by the Pictish monks at Portma- for granting me access to the skeletal collection and to Cecily Spall for homack, hence the lack of marine resources in their diet. her continued help and guidance. Thanks also to Michele Cadger for Current Research all her help and inviting me to write this article. Finally, thanks to my So, we know about the diet of some of the early inhabitants at Portma- supervisor at the University of Bradford, Dr Janet Montgoffiery, and to homack, but to learn more about the lives of these people and of me- my current supervisor Dr Jessica Pearson at the University of Liver- dieval monastic communities in general, a larger research project was pool. needed. In October 20'10, I began my PhD research, at the University e: [email protected] of Liverpool, which is based on the lifeways (diet, health, disease) of w: http ://l iverpool . acad em ia. ed u/S h i rl eyAn nC u rti s/Abou t two important medieval monastic communities: Portmahomack, Scot- land and Norton Priory, England. Stable carbon and nitrogen isotope (diet), osteological and palaeopathological (health and disease) analy- Tarbat Discovery Programme Update ses will be canied out to leam more about what life was like in medie- val monastic communities. Did religious (e.9. fasting practices), eco- Gecily Spall nomic (subsistence strategies) and/or cultural (status/labour division in Field Archaeology Specialists Ltd dieUhealth) influences leave a mark on the bones of these people? We are about to embark on the second year of specialist work on the Results so far Tarbat assemblages and we hope to build on the significant discoveries It's very early days but preliminary examinations on the Portmahomack made in the past year. With continuing and generous support from skeletons have yielded some very interesting results. Previous oste- Historic Scotland lots of new work is planned for the next 12 months or ological analysis (King 2000) reported evidence of trauma (e.9. frac- so. tures) and disease (e.9. osteoarthritis). New examinations suggest Animal bone additional palaeopathological evidence, including an adult male who The results of the Tarbat animal bone analysis have been received and had possible treponemal disease (e.9. syphilis); another adult male give us an important view on how the monastery farmed its livestock and with a pulmonary infec{ion (possibly Tuberculosis) and a young adult what wild animals were exploited.