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People of the past: Building a future for Scotland’s archaeological human remains
National Museums Scotland holds one of the largest collections of archaeological human remains from Scotland. Following the creation of cutting-edge facilities to care for and study these remains, as well as the recruitment of Scotland’s first Curator of Osteoarchaeology, Jess Thompson, Matthew Knight, Kirsty Owen, Adrián Maldonado, Bethany Simpson, and Vesna Podržaj explore what excavated individuals can tell us about past populations, and consider the ethical issues surrounding such research.
Around 2450 BC, a young woman migrated across the North Sea and travelled through the landscape we now call Scotland. Isotopes – chemical clues captured in her teeth – tell us that she had travelled from an area of geology very different to that of the Isle of Coll, in the Inner Hebrides, where she ended her days. When the woman died, she was buried there in a wood-lined grave, accompanied by a small, cord-impressed Beaker vessel consistent with styles found in the Lower Rhine valley in mainland Europe. Recent analysis of the woman’s genetic ancestry confirmed that she had Continental origins, suggesting that she was a first-generation migrant into Bronze Age Britain.
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