Field Trip

As part of my Archaeology of Scotland class, we had a field trip to two sites. One, for the first half of the course, was an Iron Age hillfort, and the other, for the second half of the course, was a Roman fort.

We headed off at 10 AM for Castle Law, a hillfort outside of Edinburgh. I think everyone expected it to rain, but it was actually a beautiful morning. We took a coach bus, and gradually left the city behind, passing fields and sheep until we ended up in the driveway of a farm. The bus looked quite out of place, but as it turns out, the farm was our destination.

We made our way up a hill, past some more sheep, until we reached Castle Law. The fort was rather smaller than I had expected, but the earthen ramparts were still clearly visible, and it was a dramatic site in the sun and shadows. We had been given a sheet of questions to help us explore the site, so I set about approximating the length of the fort, the height of the walls and so forth. There was also a souterrain, which is an underground passage and chamber used for storing food, which was open to the public, and was very cool. We were also able to hike up the hill next to the fort in order to see it from above. The hilltop also provided a very nice view of the surrounding countryside, which is the first time I had really seen it from such a vantage point.


After about an hour at Castle Law, we moved on to Falkirk for lunch at the Falkirk Wheel. The Falkirk Wheel is an impressive structure built to link two canals in town. It was nice to see a more modern piece of history in between our ancient visits. There was also a swan in the lower canal, with whom I spent much of my lunch hour with.


After lunch, we took a short walk up behind the Wheel to the Antonine Wall. The Roman fort of Roughcastle is along the wall in Falkirk, and we once again spread out to explore the site. The wall was quite impressive; although it was built of turf and earth, it was still very visible in the landscape. The fort itself was also quite nice. It had originally been left open after the excavation there, but they covered it up eventually. The foundations of the buildings were still visible though. There was also a civilian settlement outside Roughcastle, the remains of which were also visible, and I took a short walk into the woods beyond where the field system had been. The weather held, and all in all it was a very nice day.



In other news, a couple of weeks later, I went to see Sonata Arctica in Glasgow. It's hard to believe it's the fifth time I've seen them live, but they were still as good as they always have been, so that was a lot of fun!