Metalworking is a well-represented activity at excavated sites in the area. Important evidence of 7th–9th-century blacksmithing was found in Pitcarmick-type Building 3 at Lair, Glenshee, including a rare rotary grindstone, a stone anvil and hammer-scale flakes (MPK4384; Strachan et al 2019, 98–102). The quality of the finished iron products from the site, including knives, pins, buckles and barrel padlocks, is a reminder that ironworking was a highly skilled craft. The assemblage of iron artefacts, some of which are securely dated and are contemporary with the Pitcarmick building, are very significant as domestic metalwork of the period is rare.
While no evidence of ferrous metalworking was recovered at Dundurn fort various iron objects including a padlock, knives and nails were recovered, and were assumed to have been made on site (Alcock et al 1989, 217–8). Significantly, ferrous metalworking with evidence for both smithing and smelting on site was confirmed at the King’s Seat, Dunkeld, both in the upper enclosure and within the east enclosure on the lowest terrace. Here an area of iron-working which contained slag was dated to the 5th–7th centuries AD. The upper enclosures also produced knives and other iron objects including a key, part of a set of shears, chisel and other iron tools and proxy evidence for edged tool use such as whetstones (Strachan and MacIver forthcoming).
Both Dundurn and the King’s Seat also produced good evidence of non-ferrous metalworking. At Dundurn, bronze-working was attested through crucible fragments and two moulds. One was for an elaborate stick pin with spatulate head and four insets; the only comparable example, though it is not close, is the similarly unique ‘Pictish’ pin from the Udal, North Uist (Heald 2005, 76 A zoomorphic ‘dangle’ or strap-pull of silvered copper-alloy was recovered at Dundurn; though it conforms to Insular forms of animal art, it is of a form which is otherwise unattested in Britain or Ireland. (Alcock 1980, 345–7).
At the King’s Seat non-ferrous metalworking was evidenced through the recovery of stone ingot and mirror moulds, crucible fragments and clay moulds (Strachan and MacIver forthcoming). Brooches are known to have been crafted at forts across Scotland, including Clatchard Craig, Fife, but no brooch moulds have yet been found in Perth and Kinross. However, the King’s Seat material is currently being studied.
The 9th-century Aldclune silver penannular brooch was found in post-occupation deposits in an otherwise Iron Age site (NMS X.FC 304; Stevenson 1985; Hingley et al 1997, 419). These secondary deposits also included a rare iron ‘fire steel’, now identified as a purse mount of likely 7th-century Anglo-Saxon origin (Blackwell 2018, 128). The excavators suggested the possibility that either of these finds could have been disturbed from a pit-burial of an adult male which is also evidence of secondary occupation but lacks a precise date. (Hingley et al 1997, 419).