More than 3,000 years ago, a community lived, worked and raised families on land that is now being transformed into a modern Scottish suburb. Archaeologists excavating at Northbar, on the south-eastern outskirts of Erskine in Renfrewshire, discovered the remains of 12 Bronze Age roundhouses dating between 1500 and 1100 BC. The settlement contained evidence of farming, animal keeping, pottery production and weaving, and nearby graves revealed that the site had been used for burial centuries before the houses appeared. The excavation also uncovered charred crops, animal bones and large quantities of hazelnut shells, hinting at concerns over food shortages. Although the settlement eventually disappeared without obvious destruction, its remains provide a detailed glimpse into everyday life, work and hardship in Bronze Age Scotland.
Discovery beneath the modern housing development in Scotland
The archaeological remains were discovered by GUARD Archaeology(an independent commercial archaeological organisation based in Glasgow, Scotland) during excavations carried out during 2018-19. The work was commissioned by CALA Homes (a major British housebuilding company that designs and builds new residential properties across the UK) before construction began at Northbar, with the investigation required as part of the planning process. According to GUARD Archaeology, the site was occupied between 1500 and 1100 BC. Archaeologists identified 12 roundhouses spread across the area, showing that people returned to and developed the settlement over several centuries.The houses themselves had largely disappeared. Time, weather and later activity had destroyed the timber structures, leaving behind features such as post-holes and trenches. But those surviving marks were enough to reveal the scale of some buildings. GUARD Archaeology reported that several had been extremely large timber structures, capable of housing large groups of people. The discovery is significant because it does more than show where people lived. The remains also preserve clues about how those communities survived.
GUARD Archaeologists by the excavated remains of one of the Bronze Age roundhouses at Northbar. Image Credit: GUARD Archaeology
Occupation of the Bronze Age people living at Northbar
The people who lived at Northbar were closely connected to the surrounding landscape. Burnt animal bones and charred grains of barley and wheat found inside the roundhouses indicate that farming was an important part of life. Animal dung discovered in two of the houses provides another personal detail. According to GUARD Archaeology, people and animals may have shared the same buildings at certain times of the year. That arrangement would have been practical for a farming community. Keeping animals close could have provided warmth and made it easier to protect valuable livestock, although it would also have made daily life considerably less comfortable by modern standards.The discovery of large quantities of hazelnut shells adds another dimension to the story. GUARD Archaeology suggests that the nuts may have been collected and stored during autumn as a reserve food supply for the winter. Such preparation could have become particularly important if the grain harvest failed. The archaeologists point to evidence of famine and catastrophe at other Bronze Age communities in south-west Scotland, suggesting that the threat of food shortages was a genuine concern for people living at the time.
Evidence of pottery and clothing at this Scottish site
The settlement was not simply a farming community. Archaeologists found evidence that people produced some of the everyday objects they needed themselves. Several kiln pits were discovered inside one of the roundhouses. GUARD Archaeology describes these as rare evidence for pottery manufacture during this period. The kilns indicate that people at Northbar were making ceramic vessels, which could then be used for cooking and storing food. The discovery of numerous ‘clay loom weights’ provides evidence of weaving. Loom weights were used to keep the threads of a vertical loom under tension. Their presence at Northbar suggests that wool was being turned into cloth, probably for clothing and other household purposes. Together, they show a community capable of producing basic necessities rather than relying entirely on goods brought in from elsewhere. GUARD Archaeology notes that Bronze Age communities were connected to one another, but the evidence from Northbar demonstrates a considerable degree of self-sufficiency.
One of the clay loom weights recovered during the Northbar excavation. Image Credit: GUARD Archaeology
Mystery behind the burials at Northbar
The story of Northbar goes back even further than the roundhouses. Several centuries before the settlement was established, part of the site had already been used as a cemetery during the Early Bronze Age. GUARD Archaeology discovered cremated human remains belonging to at least nine people. Fragments of ‘ceramic Beakers and urns’ were also found alongside the cremated remains. These objects had been placed with the dead, apparently as part of burial practices intended to accompany them into the afterlife. The presence of the cemetery raises an intriguing possibility. GUARD Archaeology reports that the earlier graves and reputation of the people buried there may have influenced why a later community chose to settle in the same location. That possibility cannot be proven, but it gives the landscape a deeper history. For the people who built the roundhouses, the ground may have carried meaning because of those who had been buried there generations earlier.
Why did the Bronze Age settlement disappear
By around 1100 BC, the settlement at Northbar came to an end. There was no clear evidence that the houses had been destroyed by fire or deliberately attacked. GUARD Archaeology notes that other Bronze Age settlements in Scotland, including sites at Rosemarkie on the Black Isle and Carnoustie in Angus, also came to an end around the close of the Bronze Age. This suggests that the abandonment of Northbar may have been part of a wider change in how communities occupied the landscape. After the Bronze Age settlement disappeared, there was little evidence of human activity at the site for a very long time.
What does the discovery reveal about Bronze Age Scotland
The Northbar excavation offers a remarkably human picture of a community that existed thousands of years before the modern houses being built there. The remains reveal people farming wheat and barley, keeping animals, gathering wild food, making pottery and weaving wool. The graves show that the landscape had also been used by earlier generations for burial. The evidence of hazelnut storage hints at people preparing for difficult times perhaps. Food shortages could threaten a household, so gathering and storing wild resources may have been one way to prepare for an uncertain winter. As reported by GUARD Archaeology, the archaeological work is now complete. The artefacts will enter the Scottish Treasure Trove system and be allocated to an appropriate museum. Underneath a modern suburb, the excavation has preserved the traces of a community that lived, worked, worried about food and buried its dead more than three millennia ago.
