It would be fair to say that Joseph Anderson (1832-1916) was one of the most important figures in the development of archaeology as a discipline in Scotland. He straddled the worlds of antiquarianism and scientific rigour with authority and imagination.

Anderson cut his teeth as a field archaeologist in Caithness. His excavations in the Yarrows Basin in the 1860s were a particular watershed in his career to the extent that this work featured heavily in his seminal Rhind Lecture series of the 1880s. His ability to combine scientific analysis with imagination, and his awareness of developments in European archaeology, made him an ideal person to sketch out the shape of Scottish prehistory in a fashion not previously attempted.

In 1935, Gordon Childe was to write that with the publication of Scotland in Pagan Times in 1886 Anderson "had sketched the essential outlines of Scottish prehistory in a comprehensive and scientific survey such as then existed in no other country".

Early life and career

Joseph Anderson was born in Angus in 1832, the son of an agricultural labourer, and during his childhood lived in St Vigeans where he apparently developed a deep interest in the collection of Pictish stones. After a period as a Latin and English teacher in Scotland he worked, between 1856 and 1859, in an English school in Constantinople, Turkey, a remarkable experience for this young Scot. For reasons that remain unknown, he soon moved back to Scotland, and to a very different kind of career.

Anderson moved to Caithness and became editor of the John O’ Groat journal in 1860, a role he served until 1869.

His digging career in Caithness began in earnest in this period. Anderson worked, for the most part, with Robert Shearer who was factor at Thrumster Estate and was to become a noted naturalist in his own right.

Over the course of two busy seasons of work in 1865 and 1866, Anderson excavated at the multiple stone rows at Battle Moss on the bank of the Loch of Yarrows. He also worked at the small cairn at the focal point of the Garrywhin stone rows in the valley to the south of Yarrows. The ‘laying bare’ of the latter was to reveal a Bronze Age pot, some human teeth and two lithics. This was to strongly inform Anderson’s view of the enigmatic stone rows as decorative additions to existing Bronze Age burials in small cairns or cists.

He worked on other monuments too including a Neolithic long cairns such as South Yarrows South and Kenny’s Cairn, and even the Yarrows Broch, a partially waterlogged and ruinous Iron Age structure. This work was funded by the Anthropological Society of London, and it was to them that Anderson sent a series of illuminating reports and letters reporting on his work, as well as regularly publishing in the pages of the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.

Anderson’s career in archaeology took off in earnest when he moved to settle in the heart of the archaeological establishment in Edinburgh. There, he was Keeper of the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland for 43 years, and long-term editor of the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. But all of this only became possible because of his dedicated and high quality work in Caithness, and in particular the Yarrows Basin.

Archaeology in The Loch of Yarrows

The Loch of Yarrows area is one of the best preserved and most significant prehistoric monumental landscapes in northern Scotland. It lies 4km inland from the eastern coast of Caithness, on the edge of the cultivated coastal strip and the inland expanses of peat and heather moorland. At the centre of the landscape is a large distinctively shaped loch, which is encircled on three sides by steep hills which are a prominent landscape feature in Caithness. They are distinctively craggy and visible from as far south as Dunbeath and from many areas in the north and the west of the county.

The Loch and the surrounding hills are home to a complex of prehistoric monuments including the remains of burial monuments dating from the Neolithic and Bronze Age, monumental Iron Age and Pictish settlement structures, several stone rows and a pair of massive standing stones.

A map showing the location of archaeological sites around Yarrows is available by expanding the thumbnail figures on this page.

Neolithic chambered tombs

The ruins of eight Neolithic chambered tombs can be found on the hills and lowlying land around the Loch, with the site of a ninth cairn recorded on the north-eastern corner of the Loch. The most spectacular of these monuments, South Yarrows South and North, and Warehouse North and South, can be accessed from the Yarrows Trail.

These four monuments were excavated by Joseph Anderson in 1865. He found that in all cases the central chamber contained fragments of human bone, shards of pottery and pieces of worked flint. The pottery that was found in these chambers is of early Neolithic date and it is likely that these sites were being used for burials and other activities from around 4000 BC to 3000 BC.

Stone rows at Battle Moss

The stone rows at Battle Moss and on the southern hills above the Loch are thought to be Bronze Age in date and have been traditionally been interpreted as burial sites or monuments to record astronomical events.

Excavations by Anderson did not throw up any finds and his records of the investigations are limited. Recent excavations at Battle Moss, in 2003 and 2005, similarly did not produce any artifacts or dating material to confirm the presumed date. They did identify a small Bronze Age burial cairn at the northern end of the row, which is thought to be contemporary with the rows of standing stones.

These enigmatic monuments have been variously interpreted as burial sites for warriors following battles and astronomical observatories, however recent work has suggested that they may have been referencing earlier monuments within the landscape.

Iron Age Broch

The Iron Age Broch lies on the southern shore of the Loch, partly submerged by water, the level of which was artificially raised in the twentieth century. The Broch and settlement were excavated by Joseph Anderson in 1866 and 1867. The Broch lies at the centre of the complex and comprises a massive circular tower with an intramural passage and staircase. The external settlement consists of at least five structures arranged around the outside of the Broch. These are later additions to the Broch site.

Other notable finds

As well as the massive monumental sites, the Yarrows area contains less visible evidence for past human occupation. On the northern and eastern shores of the Loch is the site of an extensive scatter of worked flint. This dates from the Mesolithic period (pre-4000 BC) to the early Bronze Age and contains tools and worked pieces that suggest that people were living in this part of the landscape.

Roundhouses dating to the later Bronze Age can be found on the southern side of the Loch, as well as the remains of later farmsteads and fields.

Related publications by and about Joseph Anderson

• Anderson, J. 1866a. Report on the ancient remains of Caithness: the results of explorations of these conducted for the Anthropological Society of London by Messrs Joseph Anderson and Robert Innes Shearer in 1865. Memoirs of the Anthropological Society of London ii, 226–56.
• Anderson, J. 1866b. On the chambered cairns of Caithness, with results of recent explorations. Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland 6. 442–51. .
• Anderson, J. 1868. On the horned cairns of Caithness: their structural arrangement, contents of chambers, &c. Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland 7, 480–512.
• Anderson, J. 1869a. Report on excavations in Caithness cairns … in 1866. Memoirs of the Anthropological Society of London 3, 216–42.
• Anderson, J. 1869b. On the horned cairns of Caithness. Memoirs of the Anthropological Society of London 3, 266–73.
• Anderson, J. 1871. Notes on the Excavation of ‘Kenny’s Cairn,’ on the Hill of Bruan; Carn Righ, year Yarhouse; the Warth Hill Cairn, Duncansbay; and several smaller Sepulchral Cairns in Caithness. Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland 9, 292-6.
• Anderson, J. 1886. Scotland in Pagan Times: The Bronze and Stone Ages. Edinburgh: David Douglas.
• Anderson, J. 1890. Notice of the excavation of the brochs of Yarhouse, Brounaben, Bowermadden, Old Stirkoke, and Dunbeath, in Caithness, with remarks on the period of the brochs; and an appendix, containing a collected list of the brochs of Scotland, and early notices of many of them. Archaeologia Scotica5, 131-198.
• Clarke, DV. 2002. The foremost figure in all matters relating to Scottish archaeology: aspects of the work of Joseph Anderson. Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.
• Graham, A. 1976. The archaeology of Joseph Anderson. Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland 107.