Excavation

Date 1998

Event ID 644065

Category Recording

Type Excavation

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/644065

NO 197 447 Small-scale excavation of a possible pit-defined cursus (Brophy 1997) investigated one of these pit features in the northern alignment. A second short season of excavation in 1998 revealed a further four pits, two each in the N and S alignments. These proved to be very similar in shape, size and content to the pit excavated in 1997.

Several of these features were joined by a very shallow slot or channel, the cut of which could not be differentiated from the pits themselves, and again, the fill was a uniform sandy clay. The pit alignments, therefore, represent near continuous, if ephemeral, boundaries. A straight ditch running across the line of the 'cursus', also visible on aerial photographs, was shown to cut the channel, and may represent a later enclosure.

As with the first season, no evidence for the date of these features was uncovered, nor were there any finds. The initial interpretation of the site as a possible cursus, therefore, cannot be ruled out on the basis of this excavation. Cursus sites in Scotland share the attributes of being parallel-sided elongate rectilinear enclosures, and being situated near to rivers on flat, low-lying land- characteristics of this site.

Sponsor: University of Glasgow.

A Baines, K Brophy and S McKeand 1998.