Archaeology Notes

Event ID 648358

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/648358

NC36NE 15 centred 3872 6531.

(A: NC 3877 6511) Hut Circle (NR), (B: NC 3872 6531) Hut Circle (NR), (NC 388 652) Mounds (NR)

(NC 3880 6524) Bronze Age Pottery found AD 1958 (NAT)

OS 6" map, (1962)

An extensive area of field clearance, with evidence of cultivation and possible field banks; two hut circles.

'A': Mutilated hut circle, the stone course of whose perimeter is very vague but which appears to have measured about 5m in diameter.

'B': A well-defined hut circle with an earth and stone bank 2.0m broad and 0.6m high, a diameter of 8.5m and a possible entrance in the SE.

The clearance heaps are small piles of stones from 3m to 5m in diameter and 0.1m to 1.0m in height. The southernmost group is bounded on the E by slight traces of an earth and stone bank which runs N towards Loch Caladail (NC 3966). A fragment of Early Bronze Age pottery was found by Mrs M E C Stewart when she cleared the mound at NC 3879 6524 in 1958 (Information from Dr C S Sandeman, Durness, 2 March 1959).

R Reid (1968) is of the opinion that these clearance heaps may represent the only definite evidence of Bronze Age settlement in the area, apart from funerary monuments.

An oval stone-walled hut (B) with a contemporary field system marked by stone clearance heaps and extensive ruinous walls, partly obscured by peat. No cultivation plots were measureable.

The hut measures about 9.5m NW-SE by 8.0m transversely between the centres of a wall spread to some 2.0m all round. In the W arc are one or two outer facing stones. The ill-defined entrance is in the SE. A sheep track crossing the hut from N to S has mutilated the wall.

'A', described by the previous field investigator as a hut circle, seems to be a fortuitous arrangement of stones combined with a natural boulder and a clearance heap.

Hut surveyed at 1:2500.

Visited by OS (A A) 20 July 1971.

A beaker sherd from below a small cairn near Sarsgruin (NC 377 640) was donated to the National Musuem of Antiquities of Scotland (NMAS) by Mrs M E C Stewart. (Accession no EG 97)

Proc Soc Antiq Scot 1962.

The hut circle 'B' and the field system are as described by the previous authorities. The remains and the likely origin of the feature at NC 3877 6511 ('A') are as described by OS field surveyor (A A) 20 July 1971.

The mound in which the beaker sherd was found is a clearance heap, not a cairn, at NC 3877 6523, which shows signs of recent excavation, unlike the other clearance heaps in the area, which form a part of the ancient field system.

The publication on OS 25" of Bronze Age pottery at NC 3877 6523 is incorrect. There is no record or local knowledge of Bronze Age pottery being found there, and certainly not the piece found by Mrs Stewart. Revised at 1/2500.

Visited by OS (J B) 22 April 1980.

OS 25" map, (1972).