Next week, the team at the Scottish Crannog Centre by Kenmore will emulate its ancestors, playing host to a wide range of European craftsmen and professionals, in a prestigious new Culture 2000 project known as LiveARCH.

The local Iron Age team is delighted to launch its tenth anniversary year with this project.

Running from 2007-2009, more than 40 participants from eight European Centres will gather to share best practice and the methods of authentic interpretation using living history.

The five-day Scottish visit this month will culiminate in a one-day symposium on heritage interpretation on 17 March in Pitlochry.

Public places are still available, and full details may be found at www.crannog.co.uk or by telephoning the Scottish Crannog Centre at 01887 830583.

Discoveries underwater in Loch Tay of the settlements of affluent Celtic farmers prove that Tayside in ancient times was a thriving community with business interests extending as far afield as Europe. This is a welcome revelation given the efforts of Perth and Kinross Council to improve status and connections with Europe.

The discoveries about these loch-dwellings, which flourished across Scotland for thousands of years, tend to be dismissed by historians in favour of palaces and castles of modern times.

However, it was the ancients who first reflected their status by showing off in their ‘water-castles’, which lasted until the 17th and 18th centuries AD across the nation.

Many records were retained and recorded by clan families, who came to inherit the ancient crannog islands as holiday homes, fishing stations, or seats of post-Medieval power.