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At Ancrum & District Heritage Society, we have always been driven by the passion of local people and a community spirit that has seen us achieve some great things. The North of Scotland Archaeological Society (NOSAS) is a fantastic example of what community-led projects can grow to become…
NOSAS was formed in the Autumn of 1998 by a group of students who had completed a three-year course leading to the certificate in Archaeology. This was through Aberdeen University’s Centre for Further Education. Their aim was to further the study or archaeology in the North of Scotland, as well as to promote that interest to a wider audience. The membership extends across Ross-shire, Sutherland, Caithness, Aberdeenshire, Inverness-shire and Argyll. There are organised field walking trips, site prospection, recording and surveying, digs and meetings. A perfect example of a barbed and tanged arrowhead was found on one of the first field walking outings and was thus adopted as the society’s logo.
The society has a comprehensive range of equipment for recording, surveying and excavation which the members can use as well as a library of books to borrow. One of the society’s founding members has, over the years, flown all over Scotland taking photographs of what he saw, with a focus on interesting shapes, crop marks and upstanding archaeology. This entire collection was gifted to the society just before his death. These have been scanned by Historic Environment Scotland into digital images and are now on the Canmore website. Along with this, NOSAS is running a project to geo-reference each image so that the entire collection of around 6000 images can be searched for particular locations or archaeological sites.
NOSAS has been involved in quite a few projects over the years including
Scotland’s Rock Art project (ScRAP). This is a five-year project led by Dr Tertia Barnett started on the 1St January 2017, the aim is to record the rock art across the whole of Scotland in a consistent and useful way. NOSAS undertook the pilot field work before the project was rolled out across Scotland and has continued to record many panels in the Highlands and beyond as the project has progressed. See the ScRAP website at https://www.rockart.scot/.
For some years they have also been involved with the Tarradale archaeological project, this included field walking after the fields were ploughed in the winter. Important sites dating from Mesolithic to post-medieval have been identified, as well as fascinating finds of worked flint, pottery and coins. This led to the commencement of the Tarradale Through Time project, supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund and Historic Environment Scotland. The project has now undertaken three seasons of excavation. It found particular success with the discovery of rare Mesolithic antler tools associated with shell middens in 2017, and with the excavation of the second largest known Pictish barrow cemetery in 2019. See http://www.tarradalethroughtime.co.uk/ for more information.
The Conan Pictish stone is another project which the North of Scotland Archaeological Society has led. NOSAS, together with Pictish Arts Society, initially used their own funds before raising the money for the conservation and management of a Pictish cross slab stone that was discovered in 2019 near Conan Bridge in Easter Ross. The stone had lain on the ground for some time, at least since the 18th century, it had suffered some damage which needed repair. It was cleaned and conserved by Graciela Ainsworth in Edinburgh and in December 2020 it was installed and unveiled at its final resting place in the Dingwall museum. See https://www.nosas.co.uk/sponsorapictishstone.asp for more information.
In the early days of the society several old routes were walked by some members, so as part of the 20 - year celebrations it was felt appropriate that a project to promote these ancient routes - “Historical Routes through the Highlands” - should be included. The walks are all aimed at local people as well as visitors, anyone with an interest in the heritage of the highlands and outdoors. The routes are varied and have sites of archaeological and historical interest along the way, some sites mentioned are not necessarily connected with the route.
The walks are all scenic, attractive and the information sheets have all been carefully researched and written by NOSAS members and friends of the society. See https://www.nosas.co.uk/historicalroutes.asp.
If you're heading up to the Highlands Post-lockdown, maybe plan to include a day walking one of the routes? Although we're spoilt with heritage and scenery around Ancrum, the Highlands are just as worth exploring.
NOSAS website: www.nosas.co.uk.
NOSAS Blog: https://nosasblog.wordpress.com/.
NOSAS survey reports can be viewed at https://www.nosas.co.uk/siterecords.asp.
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