14th-Century Sanitation Examined at Scotland’s Drum Castle

ABERDEENSHIRE, SCOTLAND—An excavation in the courtyard of Drum Castle has uncovered a large, stone-lined cesspit that collected waste from two toilets within the castle’s tower and from an outdoor toilet. Animal bones and medieval pottery have been found in upper levels of the pit. Archaeologists from the National Trust hope that grains, seeds, fish bones, and other food remains may be preserved in its lower levels. “This project is giving us a great opportunity to fit some of Drum’s historical jigsaw pieces together again, giving us a better understanding of the different ways in which people lived in the castle over the centuries,” Shannon Fraser, the Trust’s archaeologist for Eastern Scotland, told The Deeside Piper.