Deep-sea fishing in the Iron Age? New evidence from Broxmouth hillfort, South–east Scotland

Abstract

Rescue excavations carried out during the 1970s at the Iron Age hillfort of Broxmouth in East Lothian produced a small assemblage of fish bone. Despite some uncertainties surrounding the recovery of this material, recent analysis has produced highly unusual results. In particular, the presence of large specimens of ling and other species raises the possibility that the Broxmouth community was, at least periodically, engaged in deep-sea fishing. This suggestion is at variance with present understandings of Iron Age fishing strategies which generally envisage more expedient practices, such as line fishing from the shore. Indeed, it has even been suggested that the consumption of fish was avoided altogether in Iron Age Britain, for religious or cosmological reasons. The composition of the Broxmouth assemblage thus has potentially important implications for our understanding of Iron Age marine exploitation.

Keywords:

• Iron Age
• fishing
• marine resources
• Broxmouth hillfort

The Broxmouth Project is funded by Historic Scotland and we would like in particular to thank Noel Fojut and Rod McCullagh for their assistance with the project. We would also like to thank the original excavator of the site, Peter Hill, for his help in transferring the archive to Bradford, Mandy Jay for information on the destroyed fish remains, Rick Schulting for advice on the isotope data, Cathy Batt for discussion of the radiocarbon dates, as well as Lindsey Büster, Mhairi Maxwell and Rachael Reader. Figures 1 and 4 were prepared by Rachael Kershaw.