From an Iron Age settlement to a 21st-century publication, Matt Ritchie takes us inside the process, in a spin on a traditional book review

Culduthel: An Iron Age Craftworking Centre in North-East Scotland

Candy Hatherley & Ross Murray Society of Antiquaries of Scotland (2021) pp.272 Hardback, £30.00; E-book, open access ISBN: 9781908332202

In 2005, Headland Archaeology excavated a site at Culduthel farm on the outskirts of Inverness, in advance of a new housing development by Tulloch Homes. Initially a small-scale investigation of a likely palisaded enclosure identified by aerial photography, the subsequent work revealed a well-preserved craft production centre with significant timber roundhouses and multiple workshops containing iron-smelting furnaces and glass- and bronzeworking hearths. The quality and quantity of the archaeological evidence recovered at Culduthel – and presented in this fine monograph from the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland – paints a vivid picture of an Iron Age community engaged in large-scale craft production between the 2nd century BC and early to mid-2nd century AD.