A View of the Past!
The Juniper Green diggers visit the National Museums Scotland to meet the skull known as Juniper Green man
Tuesday 24th April saw twelve Juniper Green Diggers making their way across town in time to reach the National Museums of Scotland in Chamber Street. They were following up their interest in the Bronze Age awakened by the excellent talk by Dr Alison Sheridan in the JG300 talks series on March 15th and reported elseware on this website.
Dr Alison Sheridan examining the Bronze Age beaker found in the cist at Juniper Green in the nineteenth century
The JG diggers purpose this day? To make a closer acquaintance with the skull of Juniper Green Man buried around 2150 BC in a site now in the village of Juniper Green.
The beaker and skull buried around 2150 BC on the land which became Juniper Green
Arriving at the Museum we were met by Dr Alison Sheridan already known to us from her lecture on the pre-history finds early in this year of Juniper Green 300 celebrations.
We were taken to the Education Room where we viewed the artefacts - the skull and beakers - obtained from the two sites excavated in Juniper Green in 1851 and around 1898 near Lanark Roaad and Woodhall Terrace respectively. Alison showed the skull of Juniper Green man and a beaker buried with him. On show too were the pots which had contained the cremated remains from between 1600BC - 2100 BC found under Woodhall Terrace in 1898.
The cremation pot found when Woodhall Terrace houses were being built in 1898. The pots date back to 1600 BC - 2100 BC
Alison also explained the European experimental work which is using a tooth from Juniper Green man to investigate his place of upbringing and his diet.
A tooth from this skull is under analysis to answer fundamaental research questions of Bronze Age habits of travel and diet
After questions and photographs Alison then took the group on a fascinating tour of the Bronze Age artefacts in the museum and showed where the Juniper Green finds fitted into the picture of life throughout Scotland at that time. It was a very interesting and informative experience guided by a real enthusiast in Alison Sheridan. Alison has been a great friend to Juniper Green 300's celebrations and has inspired many of the diggers about this interesting period of our past. She left the group with the strict injunction to dig deep and dig carefully when cultivating our gardens as we are surely living on interesting land.
Along with other JG Diggers Gordon McFadzean traveled to the National Museums Scotland in Edinburgh to meet Alison Sheridan and the Bronze Age skull found in Juniper Green in 1851