Archaeologists Investigate Massacre Site in Scotland

GLENCOE, SCOTLAND—Live Science reports that archaeologists led by Derek Alexander of the National Trust for Scotland have uncovered traces of buildings at the site of Achtriochtan, one of three small settlements in the Highlands valley of Glencoe. In February of 1692, soldiers belonging to the Campbell clan, who had been billeted in the Glencoe homes of members of the MacDonald clan, were ordered by the government to kill MacDonald men, perhaps because they failed to swear allegiance to William of Orange. Many of the MacDonald women and children who fled to the mountains died of exposure. One of the newly unearthed buildings measured about 40 feet long and 20 feet wide, and might have served as an inn, since it was located alongside the road. “It might just be that you rested your horse there, stated who you were and got something to eat, or water or whisky or something like that,” Alexander said. A piece of manganese-mottled ware found in the structure may have been part of a tankard, he added. The building’s three-foot-wide walls are thought to have been covered with a layer of turf as insulation against the mountain weather. Many of the structure’s stones are thought to have been reused to build a road through the valley. To read about an earlier massacre also involving the MacDonald clan, go to "A Dangerous Island."