Note
Date 20 December 2013 - 23 May 2016
Event ID 1045441
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Note
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1045441
This small promontory work is situated on the exposed SW coast of the Machars and its extent has evidently been severely reduced by erosion, now measuring no more than 0.04ha in extent internally. The ground drops into the promontory from the NE and consequently the bank drawn across its neck, which in excavation was 3m thick and up to 0.6m high and was fronted by a steep-sided external ditch 3m broad and over 1.5m deep, does not form an impressive barrier when approached from the landward side. The entrance lay between the eastern terminal of the rampart and the cliff-edge on the E. Prior to excavation, the interior, which measured about 28.5m from NE to SW by 24m transversely when described by the OS in 1973, contained two scooped platforms, both of which seem to have been the stances for round-houses. In 2004 excavation of the platform at the seaward tip of the promontory revealed a complex fourfold sequence in which an earth and stone wall had been replaced in timber and the floor had been relaid on several occasions. The five c-14 dates, which broadly span the period 360 BC - AD 60 come from this sequence, but in some instances probably from contexts with mixed charcoal assemblages. Apart from a number of coarse stone tools, the finds include three lead beads, which are very unusual items from any Iron Age sites in Scotland.
Information from An Atlas of Hillforts of Great Britain and Ireland – 23 May 2016. Atlas of Hillforts SC0229
