Rhynie: A Powerful Place of Pictland

Edited by Gordon Noble

Rhynie, A Powerful Place of Pictland presents the results of three major excavations in the Upper Strathbogie Valley, Aberdeenshire: the Craw Stane elite complex and the hillforts of Tap o’ Noth and Cairn More. Offering a transformative reassessment of power, settlement and material culture in Late Roman Iron Age and early medieval northern Britain, this volume provides the first comprehensive analysis of a Pictish central place complex. Integrating artefactual, environmental, stratigraphic and scientific datasets, it explores themes of rulership, cult and connectivity between northern Pictland and the wider European world. It establishes Rhynie as a key locus for understanding sociopolitical formation in early medieval Scotland and suggests new models for the emergence of polity, economy and identity in Late Roman and post-Roman northern Europe.