Two people walking their dogs on a beach in Scotland came across footprints left by humans and animals 2,000 years earlier. Although ancient footprints have been found in a handful of locations in England, this is the first such site ever recorded in Scotland.

Ivor Campbell and Jenny Snedden spotted the prints on Lunan Bay in Angus, eastern Scotland, after a strong storm in January. The storm had damaged the sandy dunes, exposing a layer of clay. The pair thought the markings on the wet ground looked like footprints, so they notified the Aberdeenshire council who enlisted the aid of University of Aberdeen archaeologist Kate Britton and her team to investigate the find.

Time was of the essence. High tide was coming in and the winds were very strong, with gusts up to 55mph blowing scouring sand over the prints. Under these challenging conditions, the team had to document the prints as thoroughly as possible before they disappeared. When the wind let up, they photographed the site with drones, photographed the prints with cameras on the ground and then used the photographs to create 3D renderings of the remains. They made plaster casts of the prints left by barefoot humans and different species of animals, including red and roe deer. They also took samples of plant remains deposited right underneath the footprints.

Just 48 hours after the report, the site and its footprints were destroyed. The team returned to the University of Aberdeen laboratory where they radiocarbon tested the plant remains, confirming the date of ca. 2,000 years old.

“This is a real tangible link to the region’s past,” team member Professor Noble added. “The late Iron Age dates are in keeping with what we know about the rich archaeology of nearby Lunan Valley. It’s very exciting to think these prints were made by people around the time of the Roman invasions of Scotland and in the centuries leading up to the emergence of the Picts.”

Archaeologists say the unique find offers a window into human activity along the Angus coastline and the changing nature of the landscape.

Dr William Mills added: “It is incredibly rare to see such a delicate record saved, taking only minutes to create and hours to be destroyed, a snapshot of what people were doing thousands of years ago. The site also tells us how this now sandy beach was once a muddy estuary and that humans were using this environment, perhaps for hunting deer or to collect wild plant foods such as samphire.

A new study of the only complete wooden coffin from the Roman Iron Age, the Princess of Bagicz burial, has solved the debate about its age and revealed fresh information about the deceased.

The coffin was discovered near the village of Bagicz, northwestern Poland, in 1899 when it was literally fell out of a cliff on the Baltic Sea coast, exposed by erosion. It held the remains of an adult woman buried with a bronze fibula, a bone pin, a pair of bronze bracelets and a necklace of glass and amber beads. The burial had been preserved for almost 2,000 years in the low-oxygen waterlogged sandy soil. In addition to the coffin, organic materials including a wooden stool and fragments of woolen clothing and bovine hide had survived in excellent condition. Unfortunately, those elements did not survive the Second World War.

Because of her fine grave goods and the location of the burial in an isolated location overlooking the ocean, at the time she was believed to be someone of extremely high social status, earning her the monicker the Princess of Bagicz. Later discoveries nearby revealed that in fact her burial was part of a larger Iron Age cemetery, so she wasn’t quite at the “princess” level of elite, although certainly a wealthy woman.

The coffin and its lid were made from a hollowed-out oak trunk, a burial style typical of the Iron Age Wielbark culture (1st-4th centuries A.D.). Only traces of the original log coffins are found in these burials, making the Princess a unique survivor from the Roman Iron Age in Poland.

The burial has been extensively studied since its discovery. Today about 30 bones, including her skull, survive, blackened from centuries spent in her log coffin. Osteological analysis found she was between 25 and 30 years old when she died and petite at about 145 cm (4’9″) tall. Despite her young age, she suffered from osteoarthritis in the lower spine, suggesting she performed hard manual labor.

The question of the dating of the burial has been debated in the scholarship for decades. A 2018 radiocarbon analysis returned an approximate date range of 160 B.C. to 50 A.D., which is significantly earlier than the date suggested by the artifacts in her grave, ca. 110-160 A.D. Researchers in that investigation hypothesized that the discrepancy may have been caused by a mistake in the C14 measurements that can sometimes occur when the deceased at a diet rich in fish. Stable isotope analysis of her teeth found no trace of Baltic fish, just a variety of animal proteins that could have included freshwater fish.

To better understand the dating discrepancies, a dendrochronological analysis was conducted in 2024. The results revealed the oak tree from which her coffin was fashioned had been felled around 120 AD (±7–8 years). This indicates that the archaeological typological dating was closer in accuracy than the radiocarbon dating.

The researchers hypothesize that diet or environmental factors, including the reservoir effect, the hard-water effect, or both, may have influenced the radiocarbon dates.

The reservoir effect caused by organisms consuming fish or water food sources which have lower C14 levels than the atmosphere. It can result in false aging, making the material seem older than it is. The hard water effect — consumption of organisms that live in hard water causing artificially aged C14 results — could have had a similar impact. However, this possible explanation for the radiocarbon dates is contradicted by the research team’s strontium isotope analysis results. They found her likely place of origin was Öland, Sweden, but there is no reservoir effect documented in archaeological remains of the area.

The results of the study have been published in the journal Archaeometry, available here to subscribers or pay-for-play.