While sand dunes do occur beyond the bounds of this map, we will be considering the stretch of coast between Nairn to the west, and Burghead to the east, and with a particular focus on the dunes area immediately east of Findhorn Village.
The sand dunes of the south Moray coast, unlike the farm land to the south, present unique challenges to the archaeologist. Though they may not have suffered the depredations of the plough, they represent a dynamic land surface which has undergone many changes as the climate changed, tidal waves surged over low lying areas, and the sea level rose and fell following the last ice age. Perhaps the most important factor has been the severe sand blows that occurred from time to time, often during cold peiods such as the Little Ice Age—broadly, from 1300–1850. During the coldest years, wind speeds increased significantly, and the dunes of the Moray coast were subject to increased erosion and re-deposition.
The author Sinclair Ross, in his book Culbin Sands: Fact and Fiction, gives a good acount of one such episode in the late 17th century, when blowing sand inundated portions of Culbin, burying farm land, and ultimately rendering the estate unprofitable. This blowing sand likely created some of the larger dunes we see at Findhorn, and eastward as far as Lossiemouth and Speymouth. The sand predominantly moved from west to east. This is countered by the longshore drift, in which waves move sediment from east to west. This results in the long spits of sand extending westward that can be seen on the coast of Culbin, and at the mouth of Findhorn Bay. As Ross describes, this particular event also led to a change in the course of the Findhorn River and threatened Findhorn Village, which until that time had occupied a position a kilometre or so to the northwest, out on a sand bar. As a result, the village was moved to its current location.
Archaeologically, such wholesale reworking of the land surface can have a variety of effects. At the least it can uncover buried archaeology and leave it exposed at the surface, as happened at Easterton of Roseisle in the 1890s. Here a westerly gale lowered the level of the farmed land’s sandy soil and uncovered a cemetery of several hundred bodies. At worst, it can work its way down through numerous old land surfaces and archaeological deposits and leave them in a mixed heap at the new lower level. This phenomenon was witnessed at Culbin by many researchers.
At the Findhorn Dunes Site many of the recovered artefacts fall into this latter category, with objects from differing periods—Mesolithic to Iron Age—intermixed and scattered over the surface. In places, objects continue to appear at the surface, in some cases eroding out from higher up in the dune surface.
Another important factor in the area is the erosion of the coastline due to the action of waves. The coast of Burghead Bay, adjacent to Findhorn Village, has lot at least 60m of its coastline since 1943 alone.
Archaeological background
The earliest mention of archaeology in the dunes at Culbin, and Findhorn, comes from George Black. In 1891 he published the results of his “Archaeological Examination of the Culbin Sands . . . “. He produced a map with locations for some of the finds, but the area east of Findhorn Village did not include any detail.
His survey took place at a time when Culbin was largely sand dunes, and the extensive forest we see now was yet to come. As a result, he would have had no landmarks nearby to naviagte by. Notice that he places an old course of the Findhorn River extending west from near the bottom of the map. I suspect this is an error, as all other researchers and historians place the old course—at least in modern times—as flowing west just a few hundred metres south of where it now leaves the bay.
