Overview
- Researchers at the University of Southampton report that the Loch Bhorgastail crannog dates to about 3800–3400 BCE, placing it well before Stonehenge.
- The site is a man‑made islet built as a circular wooden platform about 23 meters across, later packed with turf and stone and linked to shore by a submerged stone causeway.
- Excavations recovered layered timbers and hundreds of Neolithic pottery fragments, some with food residues, which suggest shared meals or gatherings, with the exact purpose still uncertain.
- The team created a single high‑resolution 3D record using a portable stereo‑photogrammetry setup with paired underwater cameras, drone images, and land surveys.
- Published in Advances in Archaeological Practice, the work points to hundreds of similar Scottish lake islands that remain little studied and could be re‑dated and mapped with the same low‑cost method.