The Mesolithic settlement at Morton lies some six miles north-north-west of St. Andrews in Fife, Scotland (fig. 1). The area around the site, north-eastern Fife, is surrounded on three sides by water, and projects as a blunt peninsula into the North Sea. The river Eden and the Firth of Tay serve as southern and northern boundaries of this peninsula, which consists today principally of the wind-deposited sands of Tentsmuir. The area of Tentsmuir, now afforested, is one of the relatively few regions in Britain where land is building up into the North Sea, and this process has been in action for many centuries (Sissons, 1967).The Tentsmuir Sands are a prolific source of later prehistoric and early historic finds, the earliest yet known being of the late third millennium B.C. In February 1957, while searching for such material on Tentsmuir, Mr R. Candow of Tayport collected some flints from molehills and other exposures on the high ground of the ‘Old Quarry’ field at Morton Farm (National Grid Reference NO 467257). Surface collections continued to be made until 1963 when excavations of the site were undertaken by Mr Candow in collaboration with Dundee Museum and Art Gallery (Candow, 1966). A total of 41 trenches were excavated between May 1963 and April 1967, and these are shown on the plan of site A (fig. 4, no. 1–41). In November 1967, site B in the same field was discovered and partially excavated (fig. 29, no. 51), before work was suspended and the writer was invited to continue the investigations.
David Laing presents an eye-witness account from the York Herald of the 1544 invasion of Scotland by the Earl of Hertford on behalf of King Henry VIII. The article also includes a separate list, attributed to the same time period, of all the places destroyed in this invasion.
Secretary David Laing returned to the proposal for a National Portrait Gallery of Scotland. He presented a letter from historian and essayist Thomas Carlyle on the subject. Carlyle highlights the importance of portraiture for encouraging an interest in history, as well as the artistic value of displaying portraits. He makes the point that the selection of whose portraits to include will be key to the success of the gallery. He ends his letter with some recommendations on how the gallery should be created and run. David Laing then requests that this idea be put before the Board of Trustees again and suggests that a committee should be formed to make enquiries about portraits that might be included. His proposals were approved by the members.
Meeting notes for 10 July, 1854 are appended.
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