Archaeology Notes

Event ID 664569

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/664569

NH94SW 1 9324 4067

(NH 9324 4067) Dunearn (NAT)

Fort (NR)

OS 1:10,000 map, (1976)

Dunearn, a fort, timber-laced according to Feachem (1963), occupies the level S-shaped summit of a wooded hill named Doune.

It measures about 245.0m NE-SW by a maximum of stome 45.0 m transversely, within two ruinous, turf-covered walls whose character and content of small stones and the fact that facing stones are nowhere evident suggest that they were timber-laced. According to Feachem, patches of vitrifaction can be seen in the inner wall, particularly in the SE sector, but none was seen during field investigation. The inner wall conforms to the lip of the summit of the hill and is spread to about 4.0m. The outer wall, visible as a stony scarp averaging some 3.5m wide, is separated from the inner by a terrace at the most 3.0m wide and generally only 1.5m wide. As it is unlikely that two walls would be built so close together and as at no point around the circumference can it be seen that either wall has tumbled over the other, it seems probably that they represent one structure, with a central stabilising wall of timbers, but only excavation can qualify this.

A gap in the NE may be an entrance or a mutilation, but the main entrance was probably at the easiest approach in the S where there is a gap in the walls at the head of an ill-defined track which leads obliquely up the slope from the SW. This track is possibly the original approach but has undoubtedly been used for access to cultivate the interior of the fort which was ploughed until 1906 (Feachem 1963) and is now featureless.

Down the slope to the S of the entrance, the hillside appears to have been scarped in two places for distances of about 70.0m, and around the W slopes are traces of a terrace. These may be the remnants of outworks defending the more vulnerable slopes.

Surveyed at 1:2500.

Visited by OS (A A) 23 February 1971.

A small piece of iron slag, picked up on the slope of this fort, has been retained by the finder.

I Keillar 1974.