Posted on 05/01/2014 12:13:06 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
German and Dutch pots, jugs and mugs, coins including an American cent, spindles, a sheep skull and horse teeth have been found by archaeologists digging in the Scottish Borders, where doors integrated into walls have revealed a “lost” Medieval village of families, farmyards and hearths.
Between Edinburgh and the Northumberland National Park, the outskirts of Selkirk have previously been associated with the Battle of Philiphaugh, a 1645 victory for the Scottish Covenanter Army against their under-strength Royalist enemies...
A pipeline-laying project by Scottish Water, though, has found stone brick structures including two pivot stones, used as hinges for doors between the 14th and 16th centuries but turned into cobbling after their buildings were demolished.
Four coins, stone counters for games, burnt clay and fired fragments were also found...
“The radiocarbon dates confirm activity in the period from 1472 to 1645. Although the artefacts were recovered from the lower plough soil rather than sealed archaeological contexts, they too support a late 15th to 17th century date.
“Two pottery sherds from stoneware bottles, or possibly drinking mugs imported from Germany or Belgium, would date to that period. A fragment of a clay tobacco pipe identifies the maker as James Colquhoun, who manufactured pipes in Glasgow between 1660 and 1680.
“These artefacts also suggest that manufactured goods were being traded from the cities to the rural areas of Scotland.”
(Excerpt) Read more at culture24.org.uk ...
What’s the difference between bagpipes and an onion?
Nobody cries when you chop up bagpipes.
Maybe it was just the coin that time traveled, someone cent it back in time.
He He He...
I have some pics of Pipers in the wind.
They can’t be posted on FR.
I was being a wee bit sarcastic.
But none as early as the article mentions.
“Lad, I don’t know where you’ve been, but I see you’ve won first prize...”
Coinage from the Americas earlier than 1700 is rare; early examples (I’ve got a 3 cent coin around here somewhere) are hard to find even online. Coin collectors have become wary of doing that, because an online photo can be used to create a convincing fake. The Spanish Real was a popular denomination, and the term “two bits” (still in use today referring to a US quarter dollar coin) derives from the practice of cutting a Real into 8 bits (”pieces of 8”); the Real remained legal currency in the US until 1857.
It’s not well known, and I’m sure it’s not taught in school, but the US gov’t didn’t get serious about having a national currency until not long before the Civil War. Around here, and probably everywhere on the frontier, we had “wildcat banks”, which issued their own currency, and were audited by state (or territorial) authorities, to make sure they had sufficient specie (gold and/or silver) in their safe/vault to back their scrip.
Or as they say in England, “keep your pecker up”.
Yep. As best I know our first coins were minted after 1780.
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