Rhynie, A Powerful Place of Pictland

Rhynie, A Powerful Place of Pictland presents the results of three major excavations in the Upper Strathbogie Valley, Aberdeenshire: the Craw Stane elite complex and the hillforts of Tap o’ Noth and Cairn More. Offering a transformative reassessment of power, settlement and material culture in Late Roman Iron Age and early medieval northern Britain, this volume provides the first comprehensive analysis of a Pictish central place complex. Integrating artefactual, environmental, stratigraphic and scientific datasets, it explores themes of rulership, cult and connectivity between northern Pictland and the wider European world. It establishes Rhynie as a key locus for understanding sociopolitical formation in early medieval Scotland and suggests new models for the emergence of polity, economy and identity in Late Roman and post-Roman northern Europe. 
Gordon Noble is Professor of Archaeology at the University of Aberdeen. He has undertaken landscape research and fieldwork projects on sites in Scotland from the Mesolithic to medieval periods. For more than a decade, Gordon and an extensive team of archaeologists and specialists from across Scotland have been conducting award-winning research at Rhynie and a host of other Pictish era sites through the ‘Northern Picts’ and ‘Comparative Kingship’ projects at the University of Aberdeen.

Ethnogenesis and Kingship AD 300-900
Professor Noble delivered a free public lecture on his work on Thursday 13 March 2025. You can watch this lecture here on our YouTube channel.

This book is also available as an open access e-book.

The Society of Antiquaries of Scotland gratefully acknowledges funding towards the publication of this volume from Historic Environment Scotland, the Hunter Archaeological and Historical Trust, the Pictish Arts Society and all our Kickstarter backers.

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