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Islay, Ardnave

Hut Circle (Prehistoric)

Site Name Islay, Ardnave

Classification Hut Circle (Prehistoric)

Alternative Name(s) Ardnave 1

Canmore ID 37480

Site Number NR27SE 15

NGR NR 2872 7301

Datum OSGB36 - NGR

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/37480

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

  • Council Argyll And Bute
  • Parish Kilchoman
  • Former Region Strathclyde
  • Former District Argyll And Bute
  • Former County Argyll

Archaeology Notes

NR27SE 15 2872 7301.

(NR 2881 7299) A round house (information from RCAHMS) - a small circular stone building exposed in a bunker - on which rescue work was undertaken in 1976. The wall, which lay against the outer edge of a foundation cut into the dune, was skilfully constructed of upright slabs interspersed with thin dry stone panels of water worn pebbles. Finds consisted of two small sherds of pottery, a bone needle, a few scattered animal bones and a pit full of limpets.

C Burgess 1976.

NR 2872 7302 The excavation undertaken in 1976 has been backfilled, but the top of the wall is still exposed measuring 6m in diameter. A scale model re- construction and photographs in Islay Museum indicate beyond reasonable doubt that this is a hut circle. The finds are with Burgess for analysis, but are to be donated to Islay Museum.

Surveyed at 1:10000.

Visited by OS (N K B) 10 June 1978.

Activities

Field Visit (September 1978)

NR287 730. A stone-walled structure, which became exposed by wind erosion in an area of sand-dunes 430m E of Ardnave, was excavated in 1976 (Burgess 1976) and has since been reburied by blown sand. The building had an internal diameter of 5.75m with its wall built against the outer edge of a 1m-wide construction trench cut into the slope of a sand-dune. The N arc of the wall, where the pressure of the sand was greatest, comprised a bottom course of orthostats angled against the thrust of the dune, and upper courses of drystone walling; elsewhere the wall was formed by orthostats with thin panels of water-worn pebbles between them. There was a gap 0.25m wide in the SW arc. Within the same quadrant there were two stone settings which may have supported posts (b on RCAHMS 1984 plan). The entrance, on the E, was approached by a short passage 1.5m long and 1.2m wide, the outer end of which was marked by two orthostats. The interior was level, with two areas of black carbonised material which may have been hearths. Two post-holes were found, one in a nearly central position and the other close to the inner face of the wall on the sw side (a), while their function was unclear, they may have been related to the roof structure. The date of the building is not known, the only finds being small undiagnostic sherds of pottery, a bone needle and a few animal bones. A secondary feature, consisting of a pit filled with limpets, had been cut through the floor of the house. Some 4.5m to the N of the building, a hearth, with some pottery sherds on it and some corroded fragments of iron nearby, was discovered, apparently unassociated with any structure.

RCAHMS 1984, visited September 1978

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