Note

Date 17 December 2014 - 18 May 2016

Event ID 1044487

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Note

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1044487

Atlas of Hillforts of Britain and Ireland

This fortification is situated at an angle in the edge of a broad terrace that forms a spur of higher ground projecting SE into a meander of the Machany Water. The escarpment on the E is steep and evidently river cut, but on the S it presents a much gentler profile. Whether the artificial defences were originally drawn across this gentler slope is unknown, but elsewhere on the W and NW cropmarks have revealed two roughly concentric ditches about 4m in breadth swinging in a slightly angular arc across the terrace to rest on the lip of the escarpment on the E. The interior thus defined measures at least 60m from N to S by up to 40m transversely (0.25ha), perhaps extending to some 0.2 ha when allowance is made for the presence of upcast ramparts. The entrance, which was partly excavated in 1987 (Barclay and Tolan 1990), is marked by a clearly-defined causeway on the W. The excavation demonstrated that the inner ditch was some 2m deep, and located a number of post-holes along the lips of both ditches, which were interpreted as the remains of associated fences. Trial excavation in the interior revealed a scatter of post-holes and an arc of the foundation trench of a timber round-house. Charcoal from a burnt oak post in the interior returned a radiocarbon date of 390-110 cal BC, but charcoal recovered from a rectangular stone floor in the upper fill of the inner ditch was dated to 1740-1320 cal BC. While the excavator opted to interpret this as evidence that the enclosure is Bronze Age, the taphonomy of this latter sample is unclear, and in the present state of knowledge the later Iron Age date is probably to be preferred for the use of the fortifications.

Information from An Atlas of Hillforts of Great Britain and Ireland – 18 May 2016. Atlas of Hillforts SC2642