Field Visit
Date November 1981
Event ID 1167096
Category Recording
Type Field Visit
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1167096
NR 250 665. About 1km SE of Camduncan the public road B8017 crosses a complex of hut-circles, field-banks and cairns overlain arid partly destroyed by the remains of later agriculture; they are spread over an area of heather moorland, marsh and rough pasture some 14 ha in extent, which falls gently westwards to Loch Gorm in a series of natural terraces. In 1981, when the ditches bordering the road were mechanically recut, the opportunity was taken by Mr J W Barber, of the Central Excavation Unit of Scottish Development Department, to examine the sections of field-banks thus exposed and to cut others in order to seek evidence for the relationship and date of the various elements of the complex. The following description incorporates a summary of the results of these excavations.'
All eight hut-circles (A-H) appear as roughly circular grass- or heather-covered banks of earth and stones which,
except in the case ofA, show evidence of having had a built stone face on both sides. Surface indications suggest that A and G may differ, either in function or date, from the others, which are more substantial. Hut-circle A (NR249 664) measures 7.5m by 8.0m within a bank up to 0.3m in height and 2m in average thickness; the position of the entrance is uncertain but may have been on the NW, where there is noticeably less wall-debris. A roughly circular grass-covered stony mound immediately to the sw appears to be of relatively recent date. Hut-circle B (NR249 664) measures about 7m by 8m within a wall standing up to 0.95m in height externally and varying from 1.8m to 2.8m in thickness, with the entrance on the SE. The interior is roughly bisected by a wall to make two animal-pens of no great age. Hut-circle C (NR 251 664), the most prominent, stands on a small hillock and measures 8m in diameter within a wall which is up to 1.5m high above the interior and 4m thick near the entrance on the ESE. Several inner and outer facing-stones survive, and on each side of the entrance the wall turns outwards for a short distance. The NW and SW arcs of the wall are accompanied by curving external annexes, the one on the SW now very poorly preserved; their inner ends appear to merge in an indeterminate mass of earth and stones, but their outer ends are open. A field-bank, which merges with the annexe wall on the ssw and which diverges from it sharply on the N to run down towards the road, has two small recent rectangular pens attached to its W side.
Hut-circle D (NR252 663) has a diameter of 7.75m within a wall measuring up to 0.7m in height and 3m in average thickness, with several stretches of inner and outer facing-stones still position. The entrance, about 1.5m wide, is on the ESE and is flanked on the S by a low curving bank. The remains of what are probably recent sheep-pens occupy the interior and encroach on the wall.
Hut-circle E (NR252 664) measures 5.3m in diameter within a wall 2.25m thick and 0.9m high externally; the entrance, on the SE, measures1m in width at the inner end and 1.2m at the outer. On the NW there is an open-ended annexe bounded by a low curving wall. A low penannular stony bank (F, NR250 664) appears to be a much damaged hut-circle measuring 8.4m by 9.0m within a wall 3m thick and up to 1m high. The entrance probably lies within the broad gap on the SE, and stones cleared from the adjacent fields obscure much of the wall, while within the interior there are traces of a subrectangular sheep-pen. A field-bank runs from the but-wall towards the S and another towards the N. Hut-circle G (NR250 666) appears for the most part as a low stony mound about 8m by 9.5m and not more than 0.4m high. The outline of the wall has been obscured by the dumping of field-cleared stones but the entrance may
have faced S, and a spread of stony debris on the W edge of the mound may mark the remains of an external curving annexe. Hut-circle H (NR 252 665) is built on the top of a slight hillock and measures 5m by 6m within a heavily robbed wall standing 1m high internally. The entrance, on the E, is flanked on the S by a curving length of wall. On the NW arc
there is an open-ended external annexe bounded by a wall which springs from the hut-wall on the W. About 15m to the SE there are the remains of two small structures; their purpose is not clear, but they may be later sheep-pens similar to those already mentioned within the interior of some of the other hut-circles.
Associated with the hut-circles there is a series of banks representing the remnant of what must originally have been a more extensive field-system; in the area NW of the road and S of a modern drystone wall the older remains have been largely obliterated by rig-and-furrow cultivation which covers an area of about 1.8 ha. The earlier field-boundaries can, in general, be distinguished from the more substantial banks associated with the rig-and-furrow; the former appear as low stony peatf- grass- or heather-covered banks sometimes defined by projecting upright stones, and they tend to run in gentle curves making use of the forward edges of natural terraces. The bank that is cut by the road immediately W of hut-circle B is about 2m thick and only 0.15m high above present ground-level. In the area east of hut-circle B, banks define two fields or enclosures of subrectangular and trapezoidal plan, measuring about 0.3 ha and 0.5ha in size respectively; gaps in the banks, one at the NE angle of the larger field and the other at the w angle of the smaller, may be original entrances. On the N side of the road the earlier field-banks are, in general, peripheral to the banks associated with rig-and-furrow, and in the area N of the modern drystone wall only a few traces remain visible, including a curvilinear enclosure about 0.12ha in area. Accompanying the hut-circles and field-banks there is a scatter of at least fifteen small heather-covered clearance-cairns which, because of the layer of peat that almost covers them, appear as low stony mounds measuring, on average, 2m in diameter and 0.3m in height.
The banks that bound or divide the areas of rig-and-furrow cultivation have been built in a series of short straight lengths; like the earlier examples just described, they tend to follow the forward edges of natural terraces that divide different levels of rig-and-turrow, and some of them have served as dumping-places for field-clearance. Some of the stones cleared from rig-and-furrow cultivation have been formed into the cairns measuring up to 15m by 10m that adjoin such plots but other examples of these larger cairns may have originated in the earlier period, and the large accumulation of stones (I) may conceal the remains of a ninth hut-circle similar to those already described. Attached to the later field-banks there are three small subrectangular structures (J, K and L) of which one, K, may be a corn-drying kiln.
The sections cut through the field-banks and the walls of hut-circles C and E showed that human activity on the site could be divided into at least four periods. The evidence for the earliest period was derived from pollen samples sealed under the wall of hut-circle E and beneath some of the field-banks; this indicated that cereal-cultivation was already
taking place before any of these features had been constructed. In the second period the hut-circles and the field-banks apparently associated with them were built, and cereal-cultivation was again practised; a terminus post quern for this phase is provided by a single radiocarbon determination of 975 be+60 (GU-1474) produced from a sample of cereal pollens recovered from immediately beneath marked by a growth of peat over the whole site, but structural alterations to the walls of hut-circles C and E. and to some of the field-banks, suggest a third period of activity, albeit on a much-reduced scale. There was, however, no evidence of cereal-cultivation during this phase, which is tentatively assigned to the Iron Age or later. The fourth period saw the introduction of rig-and-furrow cultivation probably in post-medieval times.
Visited November 1981
RCAHMS 1984
