Free Republic

Remains of the Ancrum Old Bridge, which stood during the 14th Century, has been found in the River Teviot after being hidden underwater for hundreds of years. Dating of the oak bridge timbers has confirmed a date of the mid-1300s, making the remains the oldest scientifically dated bridge ever found in its original position across one of Scotland’s rivers.

The Isle of Tiree Coastguard Rescue Team were called to a report of an object in the water on September 28. Members of the public were quick to help out the team and identify the object as an autonomous wave glider, which could easily have traveled miles from home. As of last week the boat's owner had not yet been found. The boat's appearance is identical to the surface element of the Boeing Liquid Robotics Wave Glider. The surfboard-shaped object has large solar arrays fore and aft, a large handle at the bow and three hard points for launch and...

Genetic markers for the Clan MacDougall... descends from Dougall, King of the Isle of Man and founder of the ancient Scottish Kingdom of the Isles and Lorn. Dougall (c1140-c1207) was the eldest son of Somerled, the ancient warrior sea-king and progenitor of the MacDonald, MacAllister, and MacDougall clans. Somerled expelled his Scoto-Norse rivals from Argyll, Kintyre and the Isles but was himself a Norseman paternally, having a genetic signature that is more common in Scandinavia than in Scotland. The first genetic signature for Somerled was discovered and published in 2005 by researchers at the University of Oxford, and since then,...

...the research team extracted and analysed DNA from the remains of 442 men, women and children... from archaeological sites in Scandinavia, the U.K., Ireland, Iceland, Greenland, Estonia, Ukraine, Poland and Russia, and mostly date to the Viking Age (ca. 750-1050 AD). The team's analyses yielded a number of findings. One of the most noteworthy is that contrary to what has often been assumed, Viking identity was not limited to people of Scandinavian ancestry -- the team discovered that two skeletons from a Viking burial site in the Orkney Islands were of Scottish ancestry. They also found evidence that there was...

The paper said that Hijjawi was arrested at Heathrow airport and the 62-year-old's house in the Blackhall area of Edinburgh was searched by Scottish police. Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement, also known as BDS. British authorities arrested the former chairman of the Association of Palestinian Communities in Scotland  Dr. Issam Hijjawi on Saturday for allegedly committing preparatory acts of terrorism in connection with the New Irish Republican Army. He was the 10th person to be charged in a joint Police Service of Northern Ireland and MI5 investigation called Operation Arbacia, The Irish News reported Tuesday.

On this date in 1305, Scottish knight Mel Gibson — er, William Wallace — was hanged, drawn and quartered at Smithfield for treason to a British crown he refused to recognize. Well, close enough. Some wags have alleged one or two historical liberties in Braveheart. Among the lesser (but more pertinent here): that they weren’t — you knew this already — offering the former Guardian of Scotland the opportunity to reduce his suffering with a public submission, or use the stage for theatrical defiance. Hanging, drawing and quartering was a brand new execution Edward I was experimenting with for emasculating,...

Did the Battle of Lewes, which saw King Henry III defeated 750 years ago, lead to England's first tentative steps towards representative democracy? As bloodied bodies littered the South Downs, the King hid in a priory. His father, King John, had been forced to sign Magna Carta by England's rebellious barons, now Henry had suffered even greater humiliation at their hands. His victor was Simon de Montfort, the French-born Earl of Leicester, who was fighting for the rights of England to be governed by the English. After the battle, where de Montfort's forces were outnumbered by two to one, he...

In June the world will celebrate 800 years since the issuing of Magna Carta. But 2015 is also the anniversary of another important, and far more radical, British milestone in democratic history, writes Luke Foddy. Almost exactly 750 years ago, an extraordinary parliament opened in Westminster. For the very first time, elected representatives from every county and major town in England were invited to parliament on behalf of their local communities. It was, in the words of one historian, "the House of Commons in embryo". The January Parliament, which first met on 20 January 1265, is one of the...

The dig revealed a central hearth area of stone and clay with remnants of hazel charcoal. The charcoal was submitted to the laboratory at the Scottish University Environmental Research Centre (SUERC) for a radiocarbon date, which revealed that the round house was occupied around 1400 -1300 BC. NTS commissions radiocarbon dating on a number of select items each year to aid in the charity's work to protect Scotland's heritage. With no chronologically diagnostic artefacts on the site, the dating process was the only way to place the round house in to the timeline of Arran's past.The site of the roundhouse...

One of the passengers on the Ukrainian jet downed by Iranian missiles earlier this month was a businesswoman who was the boss of two companies cited in a UN report for links to the shadowy arms trade supplying the protracted civil war in Libya. Olena Malakhova, 38, had been allocated a place in the second row of Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 from Tehran to Kiev, according to a seating plan of the aircraft seen by CNN. She was one of only two Ukrainian passengers on the plane, which crashed shortly after takeoff from the Iranian capital on January 8,...

‘It is extremely concerning that there may now be some further delay in allowing the return to public worship,’ wrote Father Michael J. Kane, pastor of St. Augustine’s Catholic Church in Coatbridge. ‘It is deeply distressing that Catholics cannot receive the Sacraments.’COATBRIDGE, Scotland, July 7, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) ― A Catholic priest has published an objection to the Scottish government’s continuing ban on public church services. Father Michael J. Kane is the pastor of St. Augustine’s Catholic Church in Coatbridge, a town about 10 miles east of Glasgow. In a June 26 open letter to Member of Scottish Parliament (MSP) Fulton...

Interestingly, there is no evidence that this community ate any marine or freshwater fish, despite the fact that it would have been readily available in their coastal location. Archaeological evidence of naval bases, depictions of boats and sea beasts on Pictish stones, and references in literature demonstrate that Pictish communities had a relationship with the sea and would have been able to fish. However, images of salmon in Pictish carvings could indicate that fish had some symbolic importance, and it has been suggested that the consumption of all fish was deliberately avoided, or reserved for a select few. The Picts...

A former Royal Navy diver and Dornoch native has discovered an almost completely intact 5500-year-old cup, hidden in the mud of a loch in the Outer Hebrides... on the Isle of Lewis on Friday... The location has been kept secret at this stage, but Mr Murray described it as "a beautiful example" of the Neolithic age and was the first person to drink from it in thousands of years. Mr Murray has also previously discovered similar bowls around mysterious man-made islands in the Outer Hebrides which have led to a "startling" re-writing of history. The structures - known as crannogs...

Named Kampecaris obanensis, the prehistoric millipede lived during the Silurian period, about 425 million years ago. The ancient creature was a small (2-3 cm in length), short-bodied animal with three recognizable sections. It likely lived near a lake in a semi-arid forested environment and ate decomposing plants. Its fossilized remains were unearthed on the island of Kerrera in the Scottish Inner Hebrides. The specimen is about 75 million years younger than the age other paleontologists have estimated the oldest millipede to be using a technique known as molecular clock dating. The oldest fossil of a land-dwelling, stemmed plant, Cooksonia, has...

The Robert the Bruce statue was spray-painted with graffiti calling him a 'racist king'. Credit for photographs: Grant Stobbart THE Battle of Bannockburn site was found vandalised yesterday with graffiti branding Robert the Bruce a “racist king” and calling for his statue to be removed. Images on social media appeared to show markings on the wall at the visitor centre and the statue. National Trust for Scotland bosses, who operate the centre, said they were “disappointed” by the act. The general manager for Edinburgh and East, Stuart Maxwell, said: “We are very disappointed by the vandalism of the iconic Bruce...

Evidence of woven textile from 5,000 years ago has been found for only the second time in Scotland. The piece of Neolithic fabric has not survived, but archaeologists did find the impression it left on the wet clay of a pot millennia ago. The discovery was made by archaeologists examining markings on pottery from Ness of Brodgar in Orkney. Evidence of Neolithic woven textile in Scotland was first found at Flint Howe, near Stranraer, in 1966. An impression of the fabric had also been spotted on a piece of clay... Organic material from prehistory only survives under certain conditions, and...

A tree ring study of the ancient timbers used to build the bell tower of St Giles’ Cathedral has unlocked new details about the kirk as it approaches its 900th anniversary. The research has been able to pinpoint when the trees were felled for the ambitious construction project with it now known the oak was cut over two spells from a native forest in Moray. As a result, it is now believed the St Giles’ bell tower was finished between 1460 and 1467 with the study being able to refine the date for the first time. The research has also...

Borders folk may be descended from Africans By David Derbyshire (Filed: 11/06/2004) Families who have lived in the English-Scottish Borders for generations could be descended from African soldiers who patrolled Hadrian's Wall nearly 2,000 years ago. Archaeologists say there is compelling evidence that a 500-strong unit of Moors manned a fort near Carlisle in the third century AD. Richard Benjamin, an archaeologist at Liverpool University who has studied the history of black Britons, believes many would have settled and raised families. "When you talk about Romans in Britain, most people think about blue eyes and pale complexions," he said. "But...

Nearly two thousand years ago most of Britain was a settled province of the Roman Empire. But those in the north held out against the world superpower and insurrection flared across Hadrian's Wall. So, in 208AD, the Roman Emperor Septimius Severus marched into Scotland with 40,000 men - one of the largest invasion armies Rome ever mobilised.When Septimus Severus Invaded Scotland | Britain's African Emperor | Timeline | Published May 17, 2020