Note
Date 1963
Event ID 1109345
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Note
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1109345
Shell-heap, Polmonthill (Site).
This shell-heap was situated at a height of 50 ft. O.D. on the slope that forms part of the S. border of the Carse of Kinneil at a distance of 250 yds. NNW. of Polmonthill farmhouse. The heap was one of several which have been identified in the. Vicinity (1), but it was destroyed in 1940 and the following account has been prepared from the published report (2).
The heap measured about 25 yds. in width from N. to S. by about 170 yds. transversely; it lay along the slope, and was covered by earth, from 2 to 3 ft. in depth, which had been washed down from the hillside above. The layer of shells was generally from 3 to 4 ft. in depth, and rested on undisturbed boulder-clay which represented the old beach of the Firth of Forth at a time when the level of the sea was some 30 ft. higher than it is today.
Most of the shells were oysters, of which, it was estimated, the heap contained some six or seven million valves. There were also present mussels, winkles, cockles and whelks. The heap was entirely composed of shells, except for a very few Isolated stones, a single thin streak of sand, layers of burnt material which contained charcoal and burnt stones, and some hearths which measured several feet in width and were composed of flat stones. Beyond the E. and W. limits of the heap, and to a slight extent above it on the S., there were layers of burnt matter more than 1 ft. in depth which contained numerous burnt stones.
Samples of the charcoal from the hearths and burnt layers all proved to be of oak. No dateable relics were found, but the position of the shell-heap and the presence of oak charcoal were considered to be in keeping with the conditions prevailing during the Atlantic climate-phase, and the midden was therefore referred to the Mesolithic period (see Introduction, pp. 18f.).
948796 NS 97 NW (unnoted)
RCAHMS 1963
(1) PSAS, ix (1870-2), 45 ff.; lxiii (1928-9), 314 ff.
(2) PSAS, lxxx (1945-6), 135 ff.
