Excavation

Date 2007

Event ID 558578

Category Recording

Type Excavation

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/558578

NN 9079 1840 Air photography has long shown that the Roman Gask frontier road in crossing through the temporary camp passes through the defences, rather than the gates. This suggested that the two could never have been in operation at the same time, and a trench was dug to study their history by cutting one of two points at which they intersect. The camp belongs to the so-called ‘63 acre’ series which is assumed to date from the Antonine or Several period, whereas the road was thought to date to the later 1st-century when the Gask frontier itself was built. Both were poorly dated, however, and there has been speculation in the past that the well constructed, all-weather Roman road might be Antonine in date, with the 1st-century frontier using a lighter track. This was supported by the excavated evidence, because the road was clearly shown to postdate the camp, being constructed over its filled in ditch. This sequence would help to explain two phenomena that have been something of a mystery in the past: firstly, why the road ends at the Tay and does not run on to the 1st-century legionary fortress of Inchtuthil, and, secondly the apparent lack of a similarly well constructed road network to link the Gask line to the so-called ‘Glenblocker’ forts to its N.

Archive deposited with the The Roman Gask Project.

Funder: The Roman Gask Project.