Iron Age Warrior

Iron Age Warrior burial
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Image: Susan Mills, Museum and Heritage Service

Two days after the excitements of the Bronze Age, another stone-lined cist came to light just fifteen metres south east of the earlier cist. This was excavated by Paul Duffy of Glasgow University Archaeological Research Division through an arrangement with Historic Scotland, which funded part of the excavation and much of the post-excavation work. The cist was much longer than the Bronze Age one. A pit had been dug on an east-west orientation, some 2.5m by 1.5m size. Coarse-grained sandstone slabs had been used for the base and walls, which were unevenly laid and sometimes up to seven courses high. The walls curved inwards at the top, so that the grave was narrower at the top than at the base. The lid was also made of sandstone slabs, although one slab had collapsed into the cist.

The cist contained the skeleton of a man, laid on his back with his head to the east. He had probably been buried fully clothed, and was wearing a belt to which was attached a sword. There was also a glass bead, and a copper alloy annular-headed pin fastened near his neck. He had two copper alloy rings on his toes - so modern fashions are sometimes not new at all!

He had probably been buried still wearing his elegant sword on his back, since it appeared to be lying beneath the torso area. A spear had also been placed in the cist, but it was too long to fit in: the spearhead had been laid between the top two courses of stone at the foot of the cist, while the end of the shaft rested near his head.

Iron spearhead
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Image: Crown copyright, reproduced courtesy of Historic Scotland

The sword and other finds, including six copper alloy rings and two iron rings covered with copper alloy sheets, all probably associated with the belt and scabbard, are dated provisionally by Fraser Hunter of the National Museums of Scotland to the late Iron Age, in this region c. 100 BC - AD 100. A provisional radiocarbon date of c90 - 130AD has been obtained from a sample taken from the skelton.

The man's possessions and the care given to his burial, suggest that he was a native warrior in the upper echelon of his social group. The skeleton was very poorly preserved, but we hope eventually to determine the warrior's height and his approximate age at death. First thoughts by Paul Duffy suggest an age of 25-35 years, on the evidence of the teeth.

The Alloa warrior burial is remarkable. Such richly furnished graves are very rare in Scotland, and this is one of the few discovered undisturbed and investigated in a controlled excavation. Further study of the artefacts, together with analyses of associated organic samples, could well lead to a reassessment of other burials of the period, such as the double cist burial from Camelon, near Falkirk, found in 1975.

One final thought: is the proximity of the Iron Age warrior burial to the Bronze Age graves fifteen hundred or more years earlier merely a coincidence? Or is it possible that long-held folk memories attached special significance to this place of burial over such a period of time?

Ochil View Housing Association and Clackmannanshire Council have worked together to provide public art funding, so the burials are now commemorated in a stunning stained glass window designed by artist Inge Panneels and called The Timekeepers in the main stairwell of the Marshill housing development. The sites of the two cists are also marked in stone on the ground.