Problems in the interpretation of microscopic wear patterns: the evidence from bone skates

Microscopic examination of wear patterns on artifacts can produce valuable information on the manner in which they were made and used. In the case discussed here, observations made by an earlier worker are reaffirmed but a different interpretation is placed on their significance, so reconciling the scientific and historical evidence which were previously at variance.     

Legends,Traditions or Coincidences: Remembrance of Historic Settlement in the Central Highlands of Scotland

Study has established that sources of evidence (local traditions, documentary, cartographic, archaeological) of the burning of a settlement at Bunrannoch during the 1745/6 Jacobite uprising are contradictory. Some contradictions may result from conflation of long term social memories of earlier events during the late first millennium CE and the way in which the events surrounding the uprising were subsequently remembered. Such conflation may stem from the way identities of local communities were conceived during the late eighteenth century. Some members of local communities would have grounded themselves in traditional life ways, which were being actively transformed during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In contrast, sponsors of change, or improvement, viewed such communities as largely criminal and impoverished.