As part of the European Heritage Days programme, the Council for Scottish Archaeology is running a range of events as Scottish Archaeology Month in September.
     All free of charge, the programme aims to give people the chance to discover Scotland's rich and fascinating heritage, with events from Orkney to the Borders, and from the Western Isles to the East coast. Opportunities include the chance to take part in excavation open days, guided tours, exhibitions, lectures, and ancient arts and crafts workshops.
     Among the prehistoric highlights is a visit to the Archaeolink Prehistory Park in Aberdeenshire, where there is the chance to make wattle and daub walls, try potting, or build a clay oven.
     Also in Aberdeenshire is a reconstruction of daily prehistoric life in Glen Tanar. In Angus there is an exhibition at the Montrose Basin Wildlife Centre which allows visitors to look into the past back to the Mesolithic. In Argyll there is a visit to the Barcaldine stone circle.
     In Dumfries & Galloway there is an excavation open day at Cairnderry chambered tomb, and a chance to dig at the site of a crannog cairn and hut circle. In East Lothian there is an illustrated talk about "Scotland's earliest house" - a hunter-gatherer site found in Dunbar quarry. In Fife a Bronze Age roundhouse is being constructed by school pupils, while in the Highlands there is a guided walk through Latheron Wheel Strath to the stone circle there.
     In Orkney there is a chance to visit the Knowes of Trotty Bronze Age burial mounds, and in Stirling there are talks on Neolithic Perthshire and Bronze Age burials in Clackmannanshire. Around Clydebank there is a guided walk to see cup and ring-marked rocks, and in West Lothian there is an ancient crafts workshop and an exhibition about the archaeology of Cairnpapple Hill.
     For further information, please visit http://www.scottisharchaeology.org.uk

Source: Council for Scottish Archaeology (1 September 2003)