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Dig unearths 1,500 year old 'Tarbat Man' HUMAN remains have been discovered at Portmahomack - but police will not be called in as the skeleton is thought to be around 1,500 years old and likely to be that of a Pictish monk. The discovery was made by archaeologists from the University of York who come to the Port each season to dig in the grounds of the Tarbat Old Church, one of the most important Pictish sites in Scotland. They are excited by the find came in the last week of the archaeological dig and means that the team will...

Two and a half years ago, shortly after Operation Cast Lead, the West Dunbartonshire Regional Council, located west of Glasgow, approved a bill that called to boycott goods produced in Israel. Following the botched raid on the Turkish Flotilla to Gaza last May, the council expanded the boycott to include a ban on the purchase of English translations of Israeli books and the distribution of these books in public libraries throughout the council's jurisdiction. West Dunbartonshire was joined by the large Scottish city Dundee. . . Legal advisers instructed Dundee's mayor to refrain from legally enforcing the boycott in order...

Two and a half years ago, shortly after Operation Cast Lead, the West Dunbartonshire Regional Council, located west of Glasgow, approved a bill that called to boycott goods produced in Israel. Following the botched raid on the Turkish Flotilla to Gaza last May, the council expanded the boycott to include a ban on the purchase of English translations of Israeli books and the distribution of these books in public libraries throughout the council's jurisdiction. West Dunbartonshire was joined by the large Scottish city Dundee. . . Legal advisers instructed Dundee's mayor to refrain from legally enforcing the boycott in order...

THE discovery of the remains of an aristocratic Scottish "Amazon", killed in battle during the Wars of Independence, is set to rewrite the history books. Her skeleton was among the remains of five "high status" individuals - all of whom had suffered violent deaths - found beneath the paved floor of the "lost" Royal Chapel at Stirling Castle. The woman - simply known as "skeleton 539" - was a robust and muscular female, standing 5ft 4in tall. Archaeologists had previously suspected she had been a courtier at the Royal palace during the reign of Alexander 11. But detailed forensic tests...

THE discovery of the remains of an aristocratic Scottish "Amazon", killed in battle during the Wars of Independence, is set to rewrite the history books. Her skeleton was among the remains of five "high status" individuals - all of whom had suffered violent deaths - found beneath the paved floor of the "lost" Royal Chapel at Stirling Castle. The woman - simply known as "skeleton 539" - was a robust and muscular female, standing 5ft 4in tall. Archaeologists had previously suspected she had been a courtier at the Royal palace during the reign of Alexander 11. But detailed forensic tests...

The real mystery lurking in the chapel where Dan Brown set The Da Vinci Code. From the outside, the Rosslyn Chapel does not look like a suitable place to hide Jesus' head. It's not much bigger than a country church, standing inconspicuously on a small hill in the miniature Scottish town of Roslin, a few miles south of Edinburgh. Its Gothic pinnacles, flying buttresses, and pointed arches have been battered by 500 years of capricious weather, and for years it has been encased in an exoskeleton of scaffolding as restoration efforts plod along. Until recently, it was covered by a...

A newly discovered English source, which also marks the earliest record of Wallace’s gruesome execution, confirms outright what historians had only suspected before: the reason that Edward I dealt so harshly with Wallace was that he viewed him as a pretender to the Scottish crown. Accounts of King Edward I’s Exchequer for the financial year 1304–1305, known as the ‘Pipe Roll’, describe Wallace as, “…a robber, a public traitor, an outlaw, an enemy and rebel of the king, who in contempt of the king, throughout Scotland had falsely sought to call himself king of Scotland.”.....

Scotland's recent freezing winters have resulted in a huge population explosion of field voles across the country. Experts believe there are now record levels of the tiny mammals, which have been protected from birds of prey by long-lying snow. Scientists in Dumfries and Galloway have recorded the highest number of field voles in 20 years, and a five-fold increase on average levels. High levels have also been observed in central Scotland and the Highlands. The number of field voles usually peaks every few years - known as a plague or outbreak - but this year has been exceptional in the...

Alex Salmond's party has achieved 65 seats which means there will be a referendum on independence during the next term. The SNP has secured enough seats to form a historic majority in the Scottish Parliament for the next five years. The Nationalists crossed the line when David Torrance overturned a notional Labour majority of almost 3,500 votes to take Kirkcaldy. SNP candidates took the key seats of Fife North East, once a Liberal Democrat stronghold, and Dunfermline, a constituency in Gordon Brown's back yard. The SNP has picked up votes from all of the other three political parties. Labour are...

Buckton Castle in Stalybridge by the Earl of Chester was built in the 1100s. It was occupied for less than 100 years during a time when the King of Scotland lay claim to Lancashire and Cumberland. The University of Salford's Brian Grimsditch said, due to the unrest, "local rulers like the Earl had to protect their lands". The university's Centre for Applied Archaeology conducted a three-year dig at the castle and have now concluded it was started to offer protection from Scottish expansion, though a change in political circumstances meant it was never finished. It was built by Ranulf II,...

Tweet TO MUCH fanfare, Italy celebrated 150 years since its unification two weeks ago. Less exuberantly, America is commemorating the 150th anniversary of the outbreak of the civil war, a failed attempt to undo its union. Amid this flurry of historical fissions and fusions it is easy to overlook another, arguably more significant unification set in motion in spring 1861. In March of that year James Clerk Maxwell, a Scottish physicist (pictured above), published the first piece of a four-part paper entitled "On physical lines of force". Sprinkled amid the prose in the Philosophical Magazine were equations which revealed...

Libya's revolutionary administration has denied a claim by a British lawyer representing victims of IRA attacks and the Lockerbie bombing that it has apologised for Libya's involvement and offered compensation. Following a meeting with the rebel council's leadership in Benghazi, Jason McCue, head of the Libya Victims Initiative, read a statement which he said was an "unequivocal apology" for Libya's provision of Semtex used in IRA bombings and the blowing up of the Pan Am flight. McCue said the revolutionary council had agreed to pay compensation along the lines paid out in a deal between Muammar Gaddafi and the US...

The disappearance of Rome's Ninth Legion has long baffled historians, but could a brutal ambush have been the event that forged the England-Scotland border, asks archaeologist Dr Miles Russell.One of the most enduring legends of Roman Britain concerns the disappearance of the Ninth Legion. The theory that 5,000 of Rome's finest soldiers were lost in the swirling mists of Caledonia, as they marched north to put down a rebellion, forms the basis of a new film, The Eagle, but how much of it is true? > Hadrian's Wall was designed to keep invaders out of Roman territory as well ensuring...

Two Bronze Age burial pots containing human remains have been found at the base of a standing stone in Angus.Archaeologists excavated the ground around the Carlinwell Stone at Airlie, near Kirriemuir, after it fell over earlier in the winter. Both pots - known as collared urns - could be up to 4,000 years old and were typically used in early Bronze age cremation burials. The 7ft (2.1m) high monolith will be re-erected on Friday. One of the pots is about 4in (10cm) in diameter, and the other is about 8in, the archaeologists said. Melanie Johnson, from CFA Archaeology of Musselburgh,...

The Obama administration may seek the prosecution of Muammar Qaddafi for the 1988 Pan Am bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland, following claims of some ex-Libyan officials that the embattled dictator personally ordered the airline attack that killed 270 people. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told Congress this week that she has asked the FBI and Justice Department to look into the matter in response to lawmakers' requests. "I think justice must be served," she told a Senate legislative committee Wednesday.

Government support for the renewable sector in Scotland is costing more jobs than it creates, a report has claimed. A study by consultants Verso Economics found there was a negative impact from the policy to promote the industry. It said 3.7 jobs were lost for every one created in the UK as a whole and that political leaders needed to engage in "honest debate" about the issue.

Power: A study of renewable energy in Scotland shows that for every job created in the alternative energy sector, almost four jobs are lost in the rest of the economy. We've seen this movie before. Not only has the sun set on the British Empire, but the promise of wind apparently is deserting it as well. A new study called "Worth The Candle?" by the consulting firm Verso Economics confirms the experience of Spain and other countries: The creation of "green" jobs destroys other jobs through the diversion of resources and the denial of abundant sources of fossil fuel energy....

LONDON (AP) -- The former Libyan justice minister has reportedly said that the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing had blackmailed Libyan ruler Moammar Gadhafi into securing his release by threatening to expose his role in the attack. The Sunday Times newspaper quoted Mustafa Abdel-Jalil as saying that Abdel Baset al-Megrahi had warned Gadhafi that he would "reveal everything" about the 1988 bombing of an American flight over Lockerbie, Scotland, if he wasn't rescued from a Scottish prison.

The Carlinwell stone at Airlie, near Kirriemuir, toppled over as the snow, ice and frost from the long cold spell melted away. The 7ft prehistoric unsculptured standing stone is situated on the crest of a knoll on a farm. Human remains were found underneath the scheduled monument at the end of the 18th century. It is one of a number of standing stones across the country. Historic Scotland is now looking to carry out an investigative dig of the site, before reinstating the stone.

The BBC's stunt of taking an electric Mini to Edinburgh reveals just how impractical rechargeable cars are, writes Christopher Booker In its obsessive desire to promote the virtues of electric cars, the BBC proudly showed us last week how its reporter Brian Milligan was able to drive an electric Mini from London to Edinburgh in a mere four days – with nine stops of up to 10 hours to recharge the batteries (with electricity from fossil fuels). What the BBC omitted to tell us was that in the 1830s, a stagecoach was able to make the same journey in half...