Several specimens of myriapodous arthropods have been discovered at the early Carboniferous East Kirkton site near Bathgate, West Lothian, Scotland. None is particularly well preserved, but they are the earliest known Carboniferous myriapods, filling the time gap between the Old Red Sandstone of the early Devonian and the abundant myriapod faunas of the late Carboniferous (Pennsylvanian). One of the specimens, a milliped, provides the earliest evidence for both ozopores (repugnatorial gland openings) and spiracles. A second milliped specimen has some characteristics of the living Order Glomeridesmida, and hence of Enghoff's (1990) ‘ground plan’ of chilognathan millipeds. Aspects of these forms and a third suggest a novel early Carboniferous fauna clearly different from both earlier and later ones. The taxon name ‘Myriapoda’ should be abandoned, since it covers a group now recognised as paraphyletic. ‘Archipolypoda’ is probably synonymous with Order Euphoberiida, Class Diplopoda.