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Test Pit Survey

Date 17 June 2013 - 23 June 2013

Event ID 975848

Category Recording

Type Test Pit Survey

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/975848

The investigations at the ‘Bannockburn Big Dig’ at Braehead, Balqhidderock Wood, Broomhill and residents’s gardens involved 250 volunteers in a metal-detecting survey, a geophysical survey and in the excavation of 139 targeted hand excavated 1 m² test pits. This work was carried out as part of ongoing work leading up to the 700th anniversary of the Battle of Bannockburn in June 2014, in collaboration with The Centre for Battlefield Archaeology, The National Trust for Scotland and BBC Scotland.

The metal-detecting survey retained a total of 133 finds (78 from Braehead, 55 from Balqhidderock Wood). The discard included post imperial coinage, agricultural machinery debris and modern picnic refuse in the form of bottle tops and ring pulls. The retained finds included 21 coins ranging from an Elizabethan penny to coinage from the mid to late twentieth century with five as yet unidentified coins. Other finds included equestrian fittings and buttons. The remaining majority of finds are as yet unidentified.

The geophysical survey did reveal several anomalies on the resistivity and gradiometer plots. Unfortunately on this occasion none of the test pits targeting the anomalies uncovered features that could be directly related to the Battlefield of Bannockburn.

From the 139 test pits excavated across the three areas the material culture included medieval ceramic dating from thirteenth through to the fifteenth century. The assemblage included one sherd of white gritty ware, some Scottish red ware sherds and reduced green-glazed pottery as well as considerable amounts of late medieval 14/15 th C green-glazed pottery sherds. Finds from the test pits also included a copper alloy belt buckle fragments and a copper alloy button. One test pit at Braehead revealed a possible fire pit of unknown date.

Information from Oasis (guardarc1-154970) 11 February 2014

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