The Early Days
Local History
In prehistoric times, the district around Tayport was inhabited by Neolithic Settlers, whose clay pottery and finely-wrought stone arrowheads have been found in considerable quantities on Tentsmuir, once an area of heath and moorland, which is now owned by the Forestry Commission.
These settlers had not learned how to use metals and did not practise agriculture, but lived by hunting and fishing. The sites of some of the early settlements have been located by large collections of shells and, although nothing remains of their homes – probably primitive turf huts – one of their boats, a hollowed-out tree trunk, has been found in a sandbank near Newburgh, further up the Tay. Dundee Museum keeps a good collection of Neolithic artefacts.
Tentsmuir has also been the site of dozens of exiting Bronze Age finds – implements and ornaments made by the Celtic invaders who settled in the district, have been discovered near the remains of iron-smelting sites.
When a Roman force under Agricola crossed the Forth of Forth in A.D. 83, the area now covered by Fife Region was inhabited by a tribe called the Horesti. Roman coins have been found near Leuchars, five miles south of Tayport and there is evidence of occupation by the Romans in East Fife at Carpow, near Newburgh. Other camp sites being between the Firth of Forth and Loch Leven, where they guarded the main route to the frontier, beyond which the Celtic tribes were never conquered.
Information about the 400 years which followed the evacuation of the Roman garrisons in 446 is very scant, but it was during this time that the Scots emigrated from Ireland to the Western Isles and introduced Christianity to the mainland.
Early in the ninth centaury, a peaceful union of the Picts and Scots was achieved under one King and the country was united to resist the Norse and Danish raiders who began their ravages at this time, particularly around the coast of West Fife. When these raiders sailed up the Firth of Tay, they probably saw signs of habitation on the site of Tayport.
Sources:
- a booklet titled ‘The Burgh of Tayport: an Introduction’, published in 1985 by Tayport Community Council.