The Mote of Mark near Dalbeattie is a vitrified hillfort that seems to date to the 6th century. This archeological site has produced finds of “glass beads and wine jars from central France and glassware from Germany.” Imports suggest the local population would have been engaged in exporting as well. But what did the local population offer in exchange for these foreign goods? The site indicates large scale metalworking. Were the metal materials imported also, perhaps from further south along the coast of Great Britain? There is at least some evidence that bronze was mined locally in Southwest Scotland. However, this evidence is scant.
Regardless of what precisely the local population was exporting in the early medieval times, the evidence of imported goods show that Southwest Scotland was engaged in trade well beyond the British Isles.