Mullens Wood

NH 57529 52548 A survey carried out on 12 December 2007 on a proposed development area located one Bronze/ Iron Age hut circle and a number of cairns or stone piles, which may be contemporary with the hut circle, possibly either a Bronze Age cairn field or prehistoric field clearance associated with cultivation.

Report: HCAU

Funder: Gunn MacPhee and Associates

Catherine Dagg, 2008

NH 57547 52662 A walkover survey of Mullans Wood, in advance of remedial woodland works was undertaken on 26 June 2017 to locate and assess the large number of potential burial cairns, clearance cairns and hut circles recorded during previous archaeological survey. The majority of the sites were located. Some were not visible due to windfall, brash and dense vegetation in places. Others have been removed due to the quarrying and storage activities on part of the site. It was recommended that buffer zones are employed around the archaeological sites during all work associated with the felling and restocking of the woodland.

Archive: NRHE

Funder: CKD Galbraith

Lynn Fraser – AOC Archaeology Group

(Source: DES, Volume 18)

NH 57526 52548 An excavation was carried out, 5 – 20 March 2018, at Mullans Wood, Kilcoy, after woodland felling operations damaged remnants of a prehistoric field system and a roundhouse. Significant damage had been caused to the northern half of the roundhouse structure and internal archaeological deposits, as well as the loss of numerous clearance cairns in the surrounding landscape. Rescue excavation focused on the northern half of the structure where archaeological material had been exposed by machine tracking.

The work revealed that the roundhouse survived as a stone rubble-built circular bank with sunken footings. Some evidence for an internal ring of postholes, which included one definite timber posthole, was identified below a shallow sequence of significantly damaged interior archaeological deposits. A small stone artefact, representing a possible bead or spindle whorl, was recovered from inside the roundhouse.

The remnants of clearance cairns and fragmentary boundary walls that formed the field system enclosing the roundhouse were assessed after the felling. Exposed clearance cairns were stripped back using a mechanical excavator. This did not reveal further archaeological material.

Archive: NRHE (intended)

Funder: Galbraith

Mary Peteranna – AOC Archaeology Group

(Source: DES Volume 19)