Stone continued to be an important raw material for domestic objects, from unmodified cobbles used as hammers, grinders and pounders to valued, carefully shaped objects such as spindle whorls and quern stones. Assemblages containing a breadth of typical domestic stone artefacts, such as querns, hammerstones, pounders, whetstones, lamps etc, are found on many Iron Age settlement sites across Perth and Kinross (Case Studies: Moredun Top Hillfort; Castle Craig Broch; The Black Spout). Cobble tools are often the dominant category, but remain poorly understood at a national level. The Perth and Kinross coarse stone dataset that dominates settlement assemblages has been enriched by recent excavations at, for example, Moncreiffe Hill (Strachan et al forthcoming) and Castle Craig broch (Poller forthcoming). Many stone objects are chronologically undiagnostic and display little or no regionality. Attributing provenance is also problematic given both the glacial movement of a wide range of rock types over most of Scotland (Hunter 2015c, 229), and their portability as artefacts. Examples from well-dated, carefully excavated sites will be key for identifying regional trends and offer much-needed insight into the nature and organisation of craft within Iron Age societies.
The dominant form of quern shifted over the course of the Iron Age from saddle querns to rotary forms. The latter are thought to have come into use in Scotland from the fourth century BC (McLaren and Hunter 2008, 105), though none of this date are yet attested from Perth and Kinross. Saddle querns remained in use alongside rotaries throughout the first millennium BC. A difference between disc querns in Atlantic Scotland and bun querns in lowland Scotland has been argued (MacKie 1971). The Perthshire evidence has not been synthesised, but the assemblages from Black Spout and Aldclune are of disc form, with vertical handle sockets. Querns often show evidence of extensive use, such as re-dressing or replacement handle sockets; they were often deliberately deposited in structured deposits, as at the Black Spout (Strachan 2013, 45, 105–6; Case Study The Black Spout) and Aldclune (Hingley et al 1998, 452).
The distribution of another distinctive Iron Age type, handled ‘cups’, more plausibly lamps given the evidence of burning or sooting, extends across Perthshire. They are made from a variety of rock types, usually sourced locally, although the question of stone sourcing in general has seen little extended study beyond a site-specific basis. Scientific analysis of residues can be highly illuminating; for example, the stone lamps from Clachtoll Broch, Sutherland were found to contain beeswax (Dunne et al forthcoming).
Steatite, a talc schist, is a soft workable stone with good thermal properties that was often carved into lamps / cups and spindle whorls. Several examples are known from Perth and Kinross, with vessels from Taymouth Castle (NMS X.AQ 19) and Drummond Hill, both Kenmore; and elaborate decorated lamps from Farleyer Moor, Aberfeldy (Close-Brooks 1972); Edradynate, Aberfeldy (MPK1086; NMS X.AQ 125); and Needless, Perthshire (NMS X.AQ 63). Recorded as stray finds, however these objects, with several others classed as undiagnostic, frustratingly fall into a wide chronological bracket 2nd century BC–4th century AD.
As there are few known steatite sources in Scotland (Hunter 2015c, 229, Illus 13.2), finds from securely dated contexts will also enrich our understanding of trade during the period. Preliminary work on the limited range of central Scottish finds has shown that they originate from western sources (Hunter 2015c, 230).
Stone was also used for decorative purposes, notably in the case of bangles and other jewellery of black, organic-rich stone such as oil shale and cannel coal. However, there are no known examples of the use of jet from the area in the Iron Age. These were not locally available, indicating the existence of exchange mechanisms to obtain them. The Moncreiffe excavations produced evidence for manufacture of such items, based on the import of roughouts rather than finished items but such jewellery remained locally unusual and valued.
