Archaeology Notes

Event ID 667377

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/667377

NJ40SW 3 444 002

(NJ 444 002) Circular Foundations (NR).

OS 6" map, Aberdeenshire, 2nd ed., (1902)

An extensive settlement (the Old Kinnord Group), containing several unusual features, lies on the strip of land between Loch Davan and Loch Kinnord.

The settlement is enclosed by a wall and comrises eighteen enclosures, ten or more hut circles, 'cairns', walls and rows of implaced stones, two earth-houses, and a 'chambered structure'.

Finds during excavation by Abercromby in 1903 were very few but included a stone disc, unidentified flints, charcoal, burnt earth and bone (both burnt and unburnt), the only identifiable fragment of which was not human.

The only pottery was a few fragments of dark ware, some wheel-turned, glazed on one or both sides. A quern fragment and an angular piece of iron were found in the filling of earth house C.

The lack of finds suggested to Abercromby that the enclosures were for stock, and the quern, fragment of iron and glazed pottery, that they were of comparatively late date.

Ogston, however, considered that the finds were no guide to the original age, and that the settlement was typical of 'Ancient British' remains elsewhere.

J Abercromby 1904; A Ogston 1931.

A settlement of three well defined huts A, B and H, three others not so well defined D, K and Z, and the remains of two earth houses F and C. They are enclosed by the remains of a stone wall which is itself surrounded by a field system comprising clearance heaps and field walls, the whole being heavily overgrown.

A, B and H are hut circles defined by unusually strong stony walls, c.2.5 metres thick, and measuring c.16.5m, c.17.5m, and c.15.5m in diameter respectively from crest to crest, H having a flattened north east side.

D, K and Z are circular enclosures defined by slight stony walls and measure c.18.0m, c.17.5m, and c.17.5m in diameter respectively. The latter, which has an oval annexe attached to its south side impinging on the boundary wall, is shown on the OS 6" but not by Ogston. (NJ 4441 0020).

The two earth houses C and F are as described by Ogston.

Enclosure K to the south west of D is possibly the denuded remains of another circle although too mutilated for positive identification.

All the other structures referred to by Ogston, including the alleged chambered structure, appear to be either mutilated clearance heaps or fortuitous arrangements caused by tumbled field walls and natural rock outcrops.

Surveyed at 1/2500.

Visited by OS (R L), 6 November 1968.

Abercromby's trenches are to be re-opened in 1974 by K Edward, Aberdeen University, in an attempt to date the structures by pollen analysis.

Information from Dr J Kenworthy, 6 May 1974.