A new paper co-authored by the University of the Highlands and Islands Archaeology Institute’s Dr Ingrid Mainland and Martin Carruthers was launched today and is free to access online.
First records of grey whales, Eschrichtius robustus, from Scotland appears in the journal Mammal Communications, and can be downloaded here.
Analysis of whalebone from Orkney and Shetland has identified the presence of the grey whale at archaeological sites in Scotland for the first time – the first confirmation that seas around Scotland were once part of the species’ range in the eastern North Atlantic.
One of the Scottish samples came from the UHI Archaeology Institute excavation at The Cairns, in South Ronaldsay, Orkney, where a large assemblage of cetacean bone has been recovered.
