Mungo Buchanan was an amateur archaeologist and led various excavations of the Antonine Wall and other Roman sites in the Falkirk area.
He was born in 1845 at Busby and moved to Glasgow as a child when his father took a grocer's shop there. On leaving school he became an apprentice carpet designer, but moved to an apprenticeship in architecture. At the age of 21 years he held the position as foreman draughtsman in the Saracen Foundry, Possilpark, Glasgow. Here he would have met Bailie Mitchell and in 1877 Mungo Buchanan took up post as foreman draughtsman in Mitchell's newly established Grahamston Foundry. Four years later he returned to Glasgow to set up business on his own. In 1886 he re-entered service at Grahamston Foundry, leaving in 1893 for the Falkirk Iron Company, with whom he remained until retirement in 1908.
Mungo Buchanan was a corresponding member of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland and a leading member of the teams from that Society that explored Camelon Roman fort in 1899, Castlecary in 1902 and Rough Castle in 1905. At each of these he undertook survey and planning work. He wrote several papers for the Society, including ones on the Camelon cists, Mumrills, Laurieston and Beattock Hill, as well as contributing items to the Falkirk Herald. He was in charge of the archaeological section of the 1911 Glasgow Exhibition. In 1919 he was made curator of the Carnegie Museum in Pittencrieff, Dunfermline - a post he held for only two years due to ill health. He died on 6 June 1923 at his home in 23 Alma Street, Falkirk. His wife predeceased him by 4 years and he left three sons and two daughters, all of whom were married.