Dundee University team reconstruct face of brutally murdered Pictish man

Archaeologists excavating a cave in the Black Isle, Ross-shire, found the skeleton of a man buried in a recess of the cave. The body had been placed in an unusual cross-legged position, with large stones holding down his legs and arms.

Professor Black, whose team – including Dr Christopher Rynn and PhD students Micol Zuppello, Viviane Lira and Samantha Goodchild – have been able to describe in detail the injuries he sustained as well as to digitally reconstruct what the man looked like.

They identified at least five impacts that resulted in fracturing to the face and skull, allowing them to compile a detailed account of how the man died.

Professor Black said: “The first impact was by a circular cross-section implement that broke his teeth on the right side. The second may have been the same implement, used like a fighting stick which broke his jaw on the left. The third resulted in fracturing to the back of his head as he fell from the blow to his jaw with a tremendous force possibly onto a hard object perhaps stone.

“The fourth impact was intended to end his life as probably the same weapon was driven through his skull from one side and out the other as he lay on the ground. The fifth was not in keeping with the injuries caused in the other four where a hole, larger than that caused by the previous weapon, was made in the top of the skull.”

A bone sample sent for radiocarbon dating indicates that he died sometime between 430 and 630 A.D., commonly referred to as the Pictish period in Scotland.

The skeleton was discovered when a team of volunteers were digging to determine when the cave might have been occupied. Below substantial layers relating to cave-use since the turn of the 20th century, they found evidence that the cave had been used for iron-smithing during the Pictish period.