Blackshouse Burn
Date 28 May 1985 - 10 July 1986
Event ID 546710
Category Recording
Type Trial Trench
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/546710
(Location cited as NS 952 404). Blackshouse Burn: ceremonial enclosures, cairns, mounds, trackways, former lochan. Excavation and survey in response to proposed land improvements both within and around the 6.5ha enclosure at the headwaters of the Blackshouse Burn have revealed much new information about this remarkable monument and its surroundings. The interior of the enclosure contains 19 mounds and small cairns and is traversed by a network of trackways and drains of various dates. Four cairns and two small, insubstantial enclosures lie within 50m of the enclosure; a former lochan - now filled by silt and peat - lies immediately to the W.
Limited excavation of the bank revealed the following sequence:
Phase 1 - Turf stripping followed by activity represented by stakeholes, a possible hearth and an extensive spread of charcoal and ash.
Phase 2 - The construction of a drystone bank contained by external and transverse divisions of upright flagstones.
Phase 3 - The erection of large, upright posts on the inner and outer margins of the Phase 2 bank.
Phase 4 - The decay of the Phase 3 posts followed by the construction of low heaps of earth and stone against the inner and outer flanks of the Phase 2 bank.
Phase 5 - The laying of flagstones to cap the flanks and, possibly, the crest of the bank.
Phase 6 - Extensive robbing of the centre of the bank, possibly during the 18th century AD.
A spread of charcoal and crude stone surface were exposed on the inner margin of the bank. The decayed stumps of the phase 3 posts had survived and a radiocarbon date of 2085 +/- 55 bc (GU-1983) from one post seems to confirm the Late Neolithic period of the site that was suggested by RCAHMS (1978).
A trench exposing two of the mounds on the interior showed these to be insubstantial stone settings. The mounds lay to either side of a recent rutted track, while an unrutted gravel path to the N may be an earlier feature. A sherd of AOC Beaker pottery was found in the B horizon of the spoil at the S end of the trench.
Sponsor: HBM, CEU.
P Hill 1985.
