Excavation

Date 20 June 2007 - 27 July 2007

Event ID 556113

Category Recording

Type Excavation

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/556113

NO 3365 7502 To satisfy a condition of the planning consent, a watching brief was maintained 20 June-27 July 2007, during topsoil stripping in advance of sand and gravel extraction. Within the vicinity of the site there are a number of identified prehistoric crop marks. However, a previous 2% evaluation of the site undertaken in 2004 had not identified any archaeological features within the development area, with the exception of a modern field boundary.

An area of 280 x 180m was stripped during phase one operations on the quarry and several groups of archaeological

features were recorded. This included three groups of long cists, a short cist, a cremation, and four posthole groupings.

A total of eight E/W aligned long cists were excavated comprising both adult and child burials. These were constructed

either of locally available sandstone slabs or a combination of sandstone slab and large sub-rounded cobbles. The majority were poorly preserved and had been almost completely ploughed away with the exception of two adult burials, where the remains had survived relatively intact. No grave goods were found associated with these burials

The Bronze Age short cist burial, aligned NE/SW, was constructed of very large sandstone slabs with the capstone still in

place. It contained the partially preserved remains of a crouched adult male burial with the fragmented remains of an Early Bronze Age beaker vessel. No other grave goods were associated with the burial.

Four groups of postholes and pits were excavated; the largest group consisted of several recognisable structures, including a roundhouse and four- and eight-post structures. Pottery recovered from this area may date to the Late Bronze Age or early Iron Age. Two smaller groups of postholes had no recognisable structure and may not be contemporaneous with the settlement.

Pottery from one of these groups may be mid-Neolithic, and the other contained undated prehistoric pottery. The final group was a group of four undated linear-aligned pits; no finds were recovered from these. Several isolated features were excavated including a probable cremation burial found in a small pit and three pits, two of which contained Bronze Age pottery and lithics. With the exception of the group of linear aligned pits, all groups of pits and postholes contained charcoal, charred cereal grain and charred nutshell.

Report deposited with Aberdeenshire SMR and RCAHMS.

Funder: Aggregate Industries UK.

Edward Bailey, 2007.