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Balbridie
Location	Banchory, Aberdeenshire
Coordinates	57°03′13″N 2°26′36″W / 57.05356°N 2.44325°W
Type	Neolithic long house
Length	26 m (85 ft)
Width	13 m (43 ft)
Area	329.6 m2 (3,548 sq ft)
History
Founded	Early to mid 4th millennium BC
Periods	Neolithic
Site notes
Excavation dates	1977-1980
Archaeologists	Nicholas Reynolds and Ian Ralston
Condition	No extant remains
Ownership	Historic Scotland
Management	RCAHMS
Public access	Yes
Scheduled monument
Designated	1978
Reference no.	(CANMORE) 36669

Balbridie is the site of a Neolithic long house in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, situated on the south bank of the River Dee, east of Banchory.^[1] The site is one of the earliest known permanent Neolithic settlements in Scotland, dating from 3400 to 4000 BC. This is the largest Neolithic long house to be excavated in Britain.^[1]^[2]^[3] In a European context, Whittle has indicated the rarity of such large Neolithic timber houses, citing Balbridie, a hall in Cambridgeshire, and Fengate as a small set of such finds.^[4]

Neolithic features found in a later excavation at Dreghorn included post holes indicating a large rectangular structure comparable to Balbridie.^[5]

In 2022, a study of nitrogen content ancient grain at the site by the University of Stavanger and Durham University published in the journal Antiquity revealed details of neolithic farming techniques at the site suggesting that manure was not used in the area because of the quality of its soil.^[6]^[7]

Discovery

The Balbridie site was discovered in 1976 by aerial photography carried out by the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland. The unusually dry summer revealed previously undetected cropmarks suggesting a very large structure.^[8] Subsequent archaeological work on site allowed the conceptual reconstruction of an enormous timber structure including the identification of large timber postholes.

Relationship to other very early features

The vicinity of Balbridie includes a number of other notable archaeological features including the Neolithic site of Bucharn. Watt has pointed out that this local area attracted an unusual density of very early settlement in Scotland. Balbridie is not only close to the River Dee but also to the Elsick Mounth trackway, the route of early crossings inland through the lower Grampian Mountains.

References

Notes

^ ^a ^b Fairweather & Ralston 1993.
^ Bellwood 2004.
^ Barclay 1998, p. 15.
^ Whittle 1996.
^ "Dreghorn, Station Brae". Canmore. Retrieved 22 February 2016.
^ HeritageDaily (13 September 2022). "Early Scottish farmers didn't use manure to fertilise their fields". HeritageDaily - Archaeology News. Retrieved 15 September 2022.
^ Bishop, Rosie R.; Gröcke, Darren R.; Ralston, Ian; Clarke, David; Lee, Daniel H. J.; Shepherd, Alexandra; Thomas, Antonia S.; Rowley-Conwy, Peter A.; Church, Mike J. (2022). "Scotland's first farmers: new insights into early farming practices in North-west Europe". Antiquity. 96 (389): 1087–1104. doi:10.15184/aqy.2022.107. hdl:20.500.11820/e7ac98c4-b81c-4c23-8032-7ad1dd54cdd1. ISSN 0003-598X. S2CID 252285982.
^ Ralston, Ian; Reynolds, Nicholas (27 May 1978). "Balbridie: Early architectural site". The Times. London. p. 3.

Bibliography

Barclay, Gordon (1998). Farmers, Temples and Tombs: Scotland in the Neolithic and Early Bronze Age. Edinburgh: Canongate Books. ISBN 978-0-862-41821-2.
Bellwood, Peter S. (2004). First Farmers: The Origins of Agricultural Societies. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN 978-0-631-20566-1.
Fairweather, Alan D.; Ralston, Ian B.M. (1993). "The Neolithic Timber Hall at Balbridie". Antiquity (67): 313–323. doi:10.1017/S0003598X00045373. S2CID 161773998.
Whittle, Alasdair (1996). Europe in the Neolithic: The Creation of New Worlds. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-44920-5.