 In some cases, he was able to show a good degree of confidence in the identification; in others, he was less sure and later changed his mind, such as with Urquhart Castle, which he downgraded from Bridei mac Maelchon's fort to the fort of a Pictish noble mentioned in Adomnán's "Life of Columba" (Alcock & Alcock 1992, 242).As a result of this list, Alcock undertook a series of what he called 'reconnaissance excavations' on sites in the list; today, these would be termed evaluations.The purpose of these was very different from the large scale excavation of South Cadbury.