Friday, August 31, 2018

EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND—A team of volunteer archaeologists working with the National Trust for Scotland has uncovered a medieval doorway leading into caves beneath Culzean Castle, according to a report from The Scotsman. The castle was built in the late eighteenth century and is located on the Ayshire coast of southwestern Scotland. The caves underneath the castle are known to have been used by smugglers in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The newly discovered doorway was found buried around three feet underground at a spot marked by stones on the surface. New radiocarbon dating of charcoal found in the caves has also established that they were occupied up to 1,800 years ago, during the Iron Age. To read about a recent discovery in another Scottish cave that may be tied to a legendary sixteenth-century massacre, go to “A Dangerous Island.”