Excavation
NR 89479 29534 The Drumadoon cursus (Canmore ID: 360276) was first identified by HES LiDAR survey in 2017. This earthwork consists of two low wobbly banks that run parallel to one another 30–40m apart and for a distance of around 1.1km. The southern end of the monument possibly has a rounded terminal. The most likely interpretation of such a monument is that is it a cursus, but this remains to be proved.
In August 2021, a small-scale excavation was carried out, with a trench 10 x 1.5m opened over the eastern bank of the cursus about 20m from the southern terminal of the enclosure. The bank had an earthen core measuring 6–8m across, formed by a mixture of soil, sediment, and turfs. This in turn may have been lined with flat local rhyolite stones either on the sides or across the whole bank, perhaps to stabilise the earthwork. The bank was more complex than expected and so was not excavated fully, but it seems likely that it is up to 1m in height. Should this snapshot be representative of the entire bank, this suggests a massive monument that would have taken huge amounts of labour and resources to build and that may have been constructed over decades. Finds of worked Arran pitchstone and flint flakes, chips and chunks within the stone and earth layers of the bank suggests that this is a prehistoric feature, although it cannot conclusively be said at this stage that this dates the construction of the monument. The missing element of this monument is an exterior ditch; hints of such a feature were revealed on the exterior edge of the bank but not investigated during this season of work.
Awakening Sleeping Giants is a collaboration between
Universities, the third sector, and local partners on Arran to explore the prehistoric heritage of the island through creative archaeologies, and promote the benefits to the local community of working with their prehistory.
Archive: University of Glasgow Funder: University of Glasgow
Kenneth Brophy and Gavin MacGregor – Northlight Heritage
(Source: DES Vol 22)
