Spurryhillock

NO88NE 85 852 861

Trial trenching, excavation and a watching brief were undertaken in advance of the proposed realignment of an unclassified road at Spurryhillock Junction, joining the A92 Aberdeen to Stonehaven trunk road. The proposed road line ran close to a suite of scheduled cropmarks at Farrochie (NO88NE 39) and the former site of a cropmark enclosure (NO88NE 58).

In total six trenches were excavated along the line of the proposed road. [Numbers in brackets refer to those given on Fig 13.] To the SE of the cropmark site of Farrochie, in Trenches 1 and 6, the remains of a shallow curvilinear ditch (006, 013, 014) and eight pits were recovered. The relationships between these features is unknown. One pit (007) included Neolithic Unstan Ware pottery, whilst another larger pit (019) contained a series of charcoal deposits and a flake of flint. Other finds, from the interface between the topsoil and subsoil, included flint blades, suggesting a possible Mesolithic presence on the site. Two radiocarbon dates confirmed that the lower fill of the large pit (019) was of late Mesolithic date. On Beattie's Hill five further pits of differing character were recorded; however, the lack of artefacts prevented any attribution of date to them.

A programme of environmental analyses of the pit fills is currently under way. Assistance provided by the Regional Archaeologist for Grampian Region was gratefully received. Detailed report deposited with NMRS.

Sponsor: Grampian Regional Council Roads Department.

CFA 1994f; Information from D Alexander (EUCFA), 1993 (NMRS, MS/726/55).

Post-excavation analysis has suggested that the large pit (019) is of Neolithic date; a flint flake was found in one of the fills and it is located next to a pit (007) containing Unstan pottery. Sieving and pollen analysis of samples from pit 019 indicated an oak flora indicative of a date in the Neolithic or (possibly) Mesolithic, while radiocarbon assay on charcoal yielded determinations of 3910 +/- 70 bc (Beta-73552) and 3750 +/- 70 bc (Beta-73553), which may be calibrated to 4720-4370 and 4910-4540 cal BC respectively, indicating a Mesolithic date for the lower fill of ther pit. This supports the identification of the small chipped stone assemblage from the pit as Mesolithic in character.

Sponsor: Grampian Regional Council Roads Department.

Information from D Alexander and C Clarke (EUCFA), August 1994 (NMRS, MS/726/60).

No further finds or features were identified during road construction in September 1994.

Sponsor: Grampian Regional Council Roads Department.

Information from A Rees (EUCFA), September 1994 (NMRS, MS/726/62).