Desk Based Assessment
Date 17 June 1976
Event ID 589631
Category Recording
Type Desk Based Assessment
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/589631
Dunagoil fort, 300 ft x 75 ft, occupies a headland which is virtually inaccessible except from the inland side. It was defended by a timber-laced stone rampart, vitrified after catching fire. Following this destruction the fort was reoccupied, for pieces of the vitrified rock were incorporated into a later cross-wall which reduced the size of the original fort. The vitrifaction is best seen at the NW corner of the fort where a small part of the wall still stands, elsewhere it has tumbled down, masses of vitrified rock being found on the slope. On the S side an 8ft wide gap in the wall, half-way along, suggests an entrance. This gap, lined on either side by a wall, is now filled with loose stones. Marshall (1915), who carried out excavations here in 1913-5, considers that there was another entrance in the E, leading to a gap in the cliff face. A great many artifacts including polished stone axe heads, ring-headed pins of bronze and iron, an Early Iron Age brooch, glass and lignite bracelets, coarse pottery, a Late Bronze Age stone mould, crucibles, spindle whorls etc, were found during the excavation. (Other excavations were carried out in 1919 and 1925). They are now in Rothesay Museum. Scott (1966) suggests that the fort may have been built about 200 BC, and occupied until 100 AD.
Information from OS (IF) 17 June 1976.
Sources: J N Marshall 1915; J G Scott 1966; L M Mann 1925; J M Coles 1962.
