Fig. 1: Scotland’s earliest gold object? Grave goods, including a stone wristguard with gold rivet caps, from Early Copper Age grave at Culduthel, on the outskirts of Inverness, 2280–2020 BC
CLICK HERE to watch a video on Dr Sheridan’s work on the Prehistoric Gold project
The recent discovery of a huge, 85.7 gramme (2.75 Troy oz) nugget of gold—the ‘Douglas nugget’—at an undisclosed location in Scotland has rekindled the public’s fascination with that most precious of metals, gold. But when was gold first used in Scotland? Who introduced the know-how to work it? And when did Scottish sources of gold begin to be exploited? All these questions, and more, are being tackled by a current initiative spearheaded by Dr Alison Sheridan of National Museums Scotland and Dr Jana Horak of Amgueddfa Cymru-National Museum Wales in Cardiff. Their joint project, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, has created an international research network that takes stock of what we know, what we don’t know and what we need to find out about early gold use, not just in Scotland but in all of Britain’s auriferous (gold-bearing) regions, from 2450 BC until 800 BC.