Wide Hope Shank

NT14NE 45 centred on 189 499.

NT 188 499 to NT 189 499 Chert outcrops, screes and possible pits for approximately 100 yards on sloping ground on hill top at Wide Hope Shank at 1400 ft. Artifactual flakes found.

R D Knox, T Cowie and B Finlayson 1989.

NT 189 499 Trial excavations at the chert extraction site identified at the summit of Wide Hope Shank (Knox, Cowie and Finlayson 1989) confirmed that these low scoops were prehistoric quarries. Four 1 x 1m areas were investigated at intervals along a transect across one scoop. Vast quantities of chert were recovered from these excavations, some frost-fractured, but some clearly burnt or struck. A small number of formal tools are also present, including bladelets and hammerstones. Extraction may have involved fire setting and the removal of material from the rock face itself. Peat formed directly above these features, but this was interrupted by the deposition of a clay layer which may have derived from activity in the quarry pit immediately upslope of the excavated feature. (Additional contributors: B Knox, B Finlayson.)

Sponsors: Historic Scotland, University of Edinburgh Small Projects Grant

G Warren 1998