A severe storm in the winter of 1965 exposed skeletons and long cists on a beach at Lundin Links, Fife. Excavations the following spring revealed part of a cemetery (photo above left). The remains of several dozen individuals were recovered. Radiocarbon dates suggest that the cemetery was in use for around a century at some time between 450 and 650.

​

The cairns themselves were carefully constructed. The best-preserved example (the "dumbbell complex" image below left) had an exterior defined by large kerb stones of sandstone, and lava boulders enclosing a layer of tightly packed beach pebbles. The cemetery appears to have included both round and square cairns alongside individual cist burials, a combination characteristic of Pictish monumental burial tradition.The sandy coastal soils at Lundin Links proved unusually favourable for bone preservation - significant for a region where acidic soils have destroyed most comparable material.

​

Lundin Links is now recognised as one of the most important Pictish cemetery sites excavated anywhere in Scotland, and the individuals buried there have contributed directly to recent ancient DNA research establishing the local origins of the Pictish people.

The results of the 1965–66 excavation were published in full by archaeologists Colvin Greig, Moira Greig, and Patrick Ashmore in 2000 in the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. The assemblage of human remains from Lundin Links is now in the care of the McManus Museum & Gallery in Dundee.​

​