Excavation

Date November 1994 - January 1995

Event ID 550296

Category Recording

Type Excavation

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/550296

NT 345 692 area. An excavation was conducted between November 1994 and January 1995 across the Roman Temporary Camp (RTC) at Smeaton, within the proposed road corridor of the A68 Dalkeith Northern Bypass. Seven trenches totalling c7500 square metres in area were excavated within the c60m wide road corridor running for c400m between the River Esk and Salters Road. Archaeological features of Roman, prehistoric, post-medieval and modern origin were recorded. Those demonstrated to be of pre-medieval date were entirely restricted to the areas of gravel subsoil adjacent to the river. To the E of this, where a heavy clay subsoil was present, only a dense spread of cultivation furrows and land drains was identified.

Only the western alignment of the RTC perimeter ditch was located in Trench 1. A continuous length of 57.5m of this feature was exposed, through which 13 sections were excavated. The ditch was most substantial at the northern end of the trench, where it was 3.5m wide and 1.7m deep, with a V-shaped profile and indications of a squared channel at its base. No evidence was identified for any structural complexity within the ditch. It had not been deliberately backfilled. No trace of an adjacent rampart survived. Finds from the ditch include a carved sandstone block, a fragment of stone armlet and a chip of flint, all from the uppermost ploughsoil fill. The absence of the opposite, eastern, ditch alignment of the RTC accords with the cropmark evidence- either this feature was never dug or it has not survived later cultivation.

Three linear features and a series of pits were identified in the vicinity of the western RTC ditch. Artefact recovery and stratigraphic relationships indicate that at least some of these features are of pre-Roman origin. The linear features, c0.2m deep, were truncated by the RTC ditch: they may be some form of cultivation furrow (1018, 1113, 1125). Two large pits, 2.5m and 3.0m long and each c1.5m wide by 0.3-0.5m deep, containing primary deposits of burnt cereal grain and charcoal, are provisionally identified as cooking pits or ovens (1076, 2027). Pending further analysis, these features can be interpreted as being of either Roman or native in origin. The remaining pits were generally sub-circular, measuring between 0.5m and 1.5m across and less than 0.5m deep. Few showed evidence of multiple fills and none had been recut. Several sherds of coarse, native pottery were recovered from pits 2016 and 2017.

Sponsor: Roads Directorate of The Scottish Office Industry Department and managed on its behalf by Historic Scotland.

A J Dunwell 1995.