Excavation

Date 22 August 2009 - 5 September 2009

Event ID 605281

Category Recording

Type Excavation

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/605281

NM 4010 5392 Following initial survey work undertaken in 2007 (see DES 2007, 36) a 20 x 1m trial trench was excavated through the crest of a raised beach. This work, undertaken 22 August–5 September 2009, revealed that a thin horizon of peat was continuous throughout the trench below the beach deposit. Chipped stone including microliths and a platform blade technology was recovered from the beach deposit. 733 artefacts were hand-collected during excavation while a further 940 artefacts were recovered by wet sieving samples of the beach deposit at 100mm intervals through its maximum depth of 1.5m. A radiocarbon date of 8850 ± 50 BP

(Beta 264730) was acquired from the underlying peat. Anne McPhail, a local resident, provided the project with further collections of artefacts she had recovered in the vicinity of Croig Field. One of these sites, Kildowie, was explored by test pitting and provided 72 pieces of chipped stone to add to the 65 pieces collected from molehills by Anne McPhail. The majority of this assemblage appears Mesolithic in date but the presence of a barbed and tanged arrowhead indicates a Bronze Age presence.

Archive: Mull Museum

Funder: University of Reading

Steven Mithen and Karen Wicks – University of Reading