Uncovering the mysterious secrets hidden underneath Scottish cities

On the runway of Edinburgh Airport, you will find where our Pictish ancestors buried their dead. Or next time you’re at Ikea, study the car park – that’s the site of an Iron Age village. Beneath our feet, there is a web of lost worlds. From the depths of the Stone Age to rowdy medieval times, our modern Scottish towns and cities are filled with half-glimpsed clues and hidden signs of lives once lived.

Dr Kenneth Brophy, head of archaeology at Glasgow University, is Scotland’s “urban prehistorian” – the man uncovering the secrets of the ancient past lying right under our city streets. Let’s go exploring with him, and learn how to make the past materialise before our eyes.

Stone Age Glasgow

If you don’t know Glasgow, find Townhead, and you’ll soon be on Duke Street in the east end. Rewind the clock 8,000-10,000 years, says Brophy, and you would be standing in a bustling Stone Age community. How do we know? Well, huge “shell middens” were found here in the 1980s – massive piles of discarded oysters and mussels left behind by people from the Mesolithic, or Middle Stone Age, period.

Finding clues from the deep Stone Age is hard. “Traces of Mesolithic activity are incredibly ephemeral,” says Brophy. Imagine trying to find the charcoal from an 8,000-year-old fire? That’s how archaeologists piece together where our ancient ancestors lived.

The task was made easier in the 1980s when it became standard practice for developers to fund archaeological excavations before new houses or roads were built. That’s how the east end shell midden was discovered. “In London, there’s incredible stuff being found because of the Crossrail project,” Brophy says.

Before the 1980s, “archaeology could just be swept away and destroyed”. Brophy adds: “That’s why urbanisation was so damaging – it was a concentration of destruction. I’m absolutely sure that when people were building tenements in Glasgow in the 19th century – or even in medieval times – they were digging up and coming across oysters that had once been eaten by hunter-gatherers, or uncovering charcoal that was burned 7,000 years ago. But it would never have been recognised and identified.”

Near the east end shell midden, there is a site called Lady Well – once a holy place and natural spring. Hunter-gatherers probably settled here part of the year as it is a great source of fresh water. There’s a pub nearby called The Ladywell. The shell midden is close to the foot of the hill where the sprawling Necropolis graveyard sits – a place which would have provided shelter from cold winds.

Hunter-gatherers would have been moving through this area every year following game, generation after generation.

In Stone Age terms, Woodend Loch near Drumpellier Park on the outskirts of Coatbridge isn’t far from Glasgow’s east end. It is here that archaeologists found a massive Mesolithic “flint scatter” – debris left behind by Stone Age crafters making tools like axes and knives. Basically, the Woodend find is the remnants of a Stone Age factory. These areas of Scotland would have been heavily wooded at the time, providing plenty of resources for fuel and building.

Put together, the two sites provide a fascinating glimpse of Scottish Stone Age life. “There’s a site for cooking, eating and living in Duke Street, and then a more industrial site on the edge of Coatbridge,” says Brophy.

Standing stones

IF you want to see mysterious urban standing stones, erected by our ancestors during the Neolithic period – the late Stone Age which ended around 2500BC – then head to Edinburgh. There’s one at Liberton, and another called the Caiy Stane, near the city bypass. These solitary standing stones are different to stone circles, which were places of worship and feasting

It is hard, says Brophy, to work out what these standing stones were all about. “We imagine they’re prominent marking points in the landscape, probably a focal point for something.”

Perhaps they were there to “orientate journeys and pathways”. Whatever their purpose, “they were clearly significant because even small standing stones weigh many tonnes and it would have taken effort to source the stone, dig the hole and get the stone upright”.

Erecting the stones also meant clearing the landscape of trees. “They may have had territorial purposes,” Brophy adds. The stone might have signalled “this is my area, stay out”.

There are no standing stones in Glasgow. Well, that’s not quite right – there was one near Pollok Country Park but it was removed in the 1970s for road construction. Last seen, it was on its way to “Glasgow corporation stores”, says Brophy. “But they managed to lose a whole four-ton standing stone. It’s gone.” The only clue that it ever existed is now found in the street name Boydstone Road in the city’s southside.

Juniper Green man

ON the outskirts of Edinburgh sits Juniper Green, not far from the village of Currie. A remarkable Bronze Age burial site was found here with a man curled on his side, and interred with grave goods like pots. He was buried in what’s called a “cist”, a stone coffin, like an ancient sarcophagus.

Sites like Juniper Green tell us where our ancestors buried their dead – and that in itself may also hint at where Bronze Age people lived. Think of our cities – most big residential areas today have a graveyard nearby. Over in Morningside in Edinburgh, another burial site was found, this time containing a “triple cist”.

Bronze Age burial sites have also been discovered in Victoria Park, Mount Vernon and Langside in Glasgow. There’s a sense of almost creepy continuity – our ancient ancestors seemed to have lived and died in the same areas where modern Scots now live and die.

Many Bronze Age sites were first discovered in our major cities in the 19th century during rapid urbanisation, but there was little or no control in place back then when finds were made. “Not everything ended up in museums,” says Brophy. “A recurring phrase you read from excavation reports from those times is ‘turned to dust’, which really means ‘I’ve now got that on my mantlepiece’.” Upper class antiquarians would arrive at building sites where treasures had been found and often just take artefacts away.

Iron Age Ikea

IT IS fairly well known that if you look at the landscape and see some big mound, then an ancient fort was probably sited there millennia ago. However, archaeologists also use crop marks to work out where our ancestors once lived. If a field is looked at from the air and a line can be seen where crops grow more densely, then that’s a clue to the site of an ancient ditch, which probably means a settlement was once there.

That is exactly what developers noticed when they were surveying for Braehead shopping centre in Glasgow. It led to the discovery of an Iron Age settlement underneath what is now Ikea and Dobbies Garden Centre. “It’s from the first millennium BC. There were people living right down on the banks of the Clyde. Evidence of manufacturing processes, houses and crop processing was found,” says Brophy.

Another Iron Age discovery was made at Newbridge in Edinburgh. “A chariot burial was discovered,” says Brophy. The grave was of a “high-status male” interred with his most treasured possession. Imagine some flash tycoon today buried in his Ferrari. “It was only found because someone wanted to build an industrial unit next to a petrol station.” Today, the area nearby is called Chariot Drive.

Rather than cursing developers, archaeologists like Brophy see them as a boon. The way developers build on random sites means archaeologists are “finding amazing stuff” they’d never come across without construction work getting commissioned.

Suburban Romans

GLASGOW’S middle-class Bearsden suburb was once home to a major base of the Roman army in the second century AD. Many believe the Romans never made it into Scotland, thinking Hadrian’s Wall marks the empire’s furthest reach. However, it is the Antonine Wall, which cuts across the central belt, that is really the line where the Roman Empire stopped.

The Antonine Wall runs through northern Glasgow. Along the wall was a series of forts with all the accoutrements of Roman life, including bathhouses. Once again, says Brophy, it is “urbanisation” – the process of modern humans building our cities – which allowed for the excavation of the Bearsden bathhouse in the 1970s. Another Roman bathhouse near Bothwellhaugh was uncovered when Strathclyde Country Park was developed.

Brophy says the arrival of Roman occupiers must have “blown the minds” of local tribes in the early centuries of the first millennium AD. “They were living in round houses, probably dressed in animal skins, and suddenly this professional army arrives and they’ve hot running water,” he adds.

Tale of treachery?

ALTHOUGH locals would have eventually married Roman soldiers, at the start of the occupation the atmosphere would have been “alien, dramatic and scary”. Tensions would have meant Romans needed some friendly locals onside. And so we come to the Falkirk hoard.

In 1933, workmen discovered a jar containing around 2,000 silver Roman coins – that’s a fortune. A fragment of cloth was also found, which some claim is the earliest example of tartan. It is suspected the hoard, dating to sometime after 230AD, was once in the possession of local tribal leaders.

“Romans were very good at integrating with communities as they moved in,” says Brophy. The Falkirk hoard could be part of a “bargain struck with local tribes who were basically being bribed to be onside with the Romans. There was a lot of that kind of politicking going on back then”. Perhaps whichever tribal leader took the bribe buried it for safe keeping but lost their life and never returned to claim it.

Airport Picts

MOST evidence of the Picts is found in northern Scotland, but there is one fascinating site in Edinburgh. If the public was allowed through Edinburgh Airport’s perimeter and onto the runway, we would be standing at a Pictish cemetery, says Brophy. “Picts were much farther north, but this is probably the most southerly Pictish site in Scotland.”

There is a strange stone there called the Cat Stane. It bears the inscription: “In this tomb lies Vetta, daughter of Victricus”. The inscription is thought to have been written in the 5th or 6th century AD, when the area was controlled by the ancient Gododdin tribe, whose lands bordered with the Picts to the north. “You can see it from the plane as you’re landing and taking off,” says Brophy.

Medieval Govan

BY the time we reach the Middle Ages, sites and artefacts are much less hidden. Many medieval buildings still stand – just think of our castles and some of our most beautiful churches. Often modern churches are built on sites of medieval places of worship.

In Govan, you can still glimpse what was happening in the early medieval period - around the 8th to 10th centuries AD. Govan Old Parish Church is home to the Govan Stones, commemorating the rulers of the lost Kingdom of Strathclyde. One stone is thought to honour St Constantine, son of the Pictish king Kenneth MacAlpin, traditionally considered founder of Scotland. There was a church here from the 6th century.

Doomster Hill could also be found in Govan until its destruction in the 19th century to make way for a dye works. It was once a Bronze Age burial mound which was later used as a medieval court or “moot”. “This would have been a royal centre,” says Brophy. “It’s now under a car park.” If you want to look for it today head to Water Row in Govan. “This was once a major hub,” Brophy explains. “It was almost a competing power centre to early medieval Glasgow which would have been up at Townhead.”

History among us

SOMETIMES, though not often, ancient artefacts become incorporated into modern life. A good example is the Cochno Stone in Faifley, Clydebank. This weird object dates from maybe 3000BC and is probably the best example of Stone Age rock art in Scotland. It i covered in strange abstract designs known as “cup and ring marks”.

It is huge – about 100 square metres. When Faifley was built in the 1950s, new residents fell in love with the stone. They didn’t know much about it – most had no idea it was thousands of years old. But today you can see names scratched into it by local kids over the last seven decades, alongside the mysterious carvings made by people from 5,000 years ago.

“It’s a great survivor,” says Brophy, “and it still means something to people today, and that’s really important. It’s an interaction between our modern community and a very ancient time.”

Other – though far less impressive –Stone Age rock art can be found in places like Rouken Glen Park. So, what does the art mean? “It might represent maps, a language, family trees, stars, or something completely abstract. We’ve really no idea. But they’re important symbols found across a wide area of Britain, Ireland and into northern Spain. People were obsessively carving these circular symbols again and again.”

Sometimes the remarkable is found in the most mundane places. Brophy once discovered Stone Age art while eating an ice cream in Southerness in Dumfries and Galloway. He noticed a block, in a rough stone wall outside a public toilet, covered with those distinctive circular marks. “Someone had carved that 5,500 years ago,” he says, “and nobody had ever noticed before.”

Like the Cochno Stone, so much of our urban landscape is a “palimpsest”, says Brody – a piece of paper that’s written on over and over again. “You get sites where people have always lived. People were in Duke Street in 6000BC and they’re living there now.”

Street names

THERE’S a road in Glenrothes called The Henge for a reason – the site was once a prehistoric settlement. Cowie has a Flint Crescent and an Ochre Crescent (ochre is the red colouring used by our ancient ancestors as paint) as the Stirlingshire town was also home to Neolithic people.

Scotland’s towns are littered with Crannog street names. So, places like Crannog Way in Kilwinning or Crannog Road in Dumbarton show that back when they were being built, usually in the 19th century, architects knew they were developing in an area where a crannog was once located. Crannog Lane in Oban marks where a prehistoric island now lies under a car park.

“If you see these kinds of names, then it’s very likely signposting the fact that there was something deeply ancient once in that place,” Brophy says.

The future

WHAT will archaeologists discover of us thousands of years from now? Most likely, they’ll find plastic – tonnes of it. “In 10,000 years time, excavations will uncover all sorts of plastics,” says Brophy. “Our legacy might be a quite poisonous one. We’re creating plastic middens, not shell middens. We’re just repeating the same kind of processes as our ancestors, but with different materials and technologies.”

In terms of his own future, Brophy has got so much more of our urban landscape to explore for clues to the ancient past. His next project will see him excavating city parks. “They’re a wonderful snapshot of the past within an urban environment because they’re not developed – there’s not been the same level of destruction.”

Who knows what he will discover in the places where we now walk our dogs or jog, and what those finds will tell us about our ancient ancestors and ourselves.