Forteviot occupies a special place in the history of Scotland. The death of King Kenneth mac Alpin, one of the first kings of a united Scotland, was recorded at the ‘palace’ of Forteviot in AD 858 and at this time this site was an major royal centre in a fledgling Scottish nation. Forteviot is also the location of one of the most extensive concentrations of early prehistoric ritual monuments in mainland Scotland.

It is these two chronologically separated but physically linked episodes of landscape use at Forteviot, which provides a focus of the SERF project. What it is about Forteviot and Strathearn that drew people here at different time periods to establish such important centres?  The Strathearn Environs and Royal Forteviot (SERF) project is a long-term study set out to explore this question and to situate Forteviot in a wider political, social and geographical perspective. Since 2006 archaeologists from the Universities of Glasgow and Aberdeen, with the help of local volunteers, have been exploring Forteviot and the neighbouring parishes of Dunning and Forgandenny.

Deep-time dialogues - a conversation about the SERF Project

• Project Directors:  Prof. Stephen Driscoll, Dr. Kenneth Brophy, Dr. Ewan Campbell
• Project Manager:  Dr. Tessa Poller

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