Meadowsweet and a Bronze Age burial.

The fragrant meadowsweet is in full bloom on the wet slacks among the sand dunes. The area is also rich in bits of worked flint, evidence that back in the Bronze Age people were settled here and harvesting the marine resources to be found in the estuary. There is an interesting link between meadowsweet and those ancient people.

Back in 2009 archaeologists from the Universities of Glasgow and Aberdeen found proof that pre-historic people laid flowers at the graves of their dead. They believe that the discovery of a bunch of meadowsweet blossoms in a Bronze Age grave in Forteviot, Perthshire is the first recorded example of such a ceremony. It is thought that the flowers were placed by the head of a high-status individual as a bronze dagger with a gold hilt was found in the same grave. The grave site had been marked by an avenue of oak posts and earthworks.