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Dun Fhinn

Dun (Prehistoric)

Site Name Dun Fhinn

Classification Dun (Prehistoric)

Canmore ID 38467

Site Number NR63SE 10

NGR NR 6572 3064

Datum OSGB36 - NGR

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/38467

Ordnance Survey licence number AC0000807262. All rights reserved.
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Administrative Areas

  • Council Argyll And Bute
  • Parish Killean And Kilchenzie
  • Former Region Strathclyde
  • Former District Argyll And Bute
  • Former County Argyll

Archaeology Notes

NR63SE 10 6572 3064.

(NR 6572 3065) Dun Fhinn (fort) (NR)

OS 6" map (1900)

Dun Fhinn, a dun occupying the summit of a rock stack about 10m high, on the E side of the main road. The flanks are almost precipitous, the only approach being up a steep incline on the NW.

Excavations by W F L Bigwood which began in 1966 and were continuing in 1969 have shown that the dun, sub-rectangular on plan, has measured about 13.4m by 5.8m within a wall varying in thickness from almost 3.0m on either side of the entrance to little more than 1.2m near the E angle - the only point where the wall does not keep to the verge of the summit area. To provide an adequate foundation, natural clefts in the rock have been filled up with drystone masonry. The entrance on the NW is checked for a door, but no bar-hole is visible, probably because the walls of the passage are now only 0.9m in height.

Post-holes may indicate the former existence of timber buildings against the inner face of the wall, and finds, which include three small fragments of Samian ware, two bronze penannular brooches and a blue glass 'dumb-bell' bead, indicate that the dun was erected in the 2nd century AD and that there were two periods of occupation. The first may have lasted intermittently over five or six centuries, and the second, suggested by a rotary quern and pot-sherds, appears to have been medieval.

RCAHMS 1971, visited 1969

Dun Fhinn is as described and planned by RCAHMS.

Surveyed at 1:10 000.

Visited by OS (NKB) 15 December 1977

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