{"id":57,"date":"2019-04-16T08:30:22","date_gmt":"2019-04-16T08:30:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/guard-archaeology.co.uk\/DunragitBlog\/?p=57"},"modified":"2019-04-16T12:19:02","modified_gmt":"2019-04-16T12:19:02","slug":"excavation-of-11-key-areas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.guard-archaeology.co.uk\/DunragitBlog\/?p=57","title":{"rendered":"Excavation of 11 key areas"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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The Bronze Age Cemetery complex at Boreland Cottage Upper
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The eleven key areas of archaeological significance comprised a range of Mesolithic (8000-4000 BC), Neolithic (4000 \u2013 2400 BC), Bronze Age (2400 \u2013 700 BC) and Iron Age (700 BC \u2013 AD 500) findings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Distribution map of 11 key sites along Dunragit Bypass route<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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The Mesolithic Site 7 at West Challoch under investigation<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

One of the most interesting results from this phase of work was a\nMesolithic settlement revealed at West Challoch to the south-east of Dunragit\nvillage. Mesolithic settlements in south-west Scotland are extremely rare and\nup until our excavations, have consisted solely of scatters of lithic material and\nhearths but no actual structures. However, a Mesolithic circular structure and\nassociated large pits and ditch gully were encountered during the initial Dunragit\nevaluation along with a total of 166 fragments of un-stratified lithic material\nfrom the topsoil. The Mesolithic house consisted of a sub-circular arc of six\npost-holes on the south west, with the possible return on the north-east\ncomprising of two post-holes. The area within the structure appeared to be approximately\n3 m in diameter creating an internal space of approximately 7 m\u00b2. The\npost-holes appeared to be set in four pairs with each pair of posts set\napproximately 0.4 m apart. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The stone adze recovered from the Mesolithic site at West Challoch<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

No obvious sign of an occupation layer survived within the interior of the house but a series of sampling grids were laid across its footprint to extract lithic artefacts. Furthermore, two layers of multi-element samples were taken at 0.2 m intervals in the attempt to establish evidence of occupation and differential uses within the structure. No internal hearth was visible within the structure, with the only direct evidence of a hearth a few metres to the north-west. An accumulation of worked lithic and debitage was noted around the north side of the structure concentrated around two of the post-holes. One of the most striking artefacts recovered was a perforated stone adze.of the structure concentrated around two of the post-holes. One of\nthe most striking artefacts recovered was a perforated stone adze.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A series of four preliminary dates were obtained during the excavation for four separate deposits including one posthole, a pit and two layers from the hearth. The calibrated radiocarbon dates ranged between 7056-6825 BC, 6830-6643 BC, 6867-6696 BC and 6849-6656 BC. These demonstrate that this Mesolithic structure is the earliest house discovered in south-west Scotland to date.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Iron Age structures at Myrtle Cottage under investigation<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

But that wasn\u2019t all, the other areas revealed a wealth of other prehistoric activity, including possible Neolithic structures (East Challoch), a Bronze Age cemetery complex (Boreland Cottage Upper), a series of burnt mound sites (Boreland Cottage Lower) and an Iron Age settlement (Myrtle Cottage). <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The eleven key areas of archaeological significance comprised a range of Mesolithic (8000-4000 BC), Neolithic (4000 \u2013 2400 BC), Bronze Age (2400 \u2013 700 BC) and Iron Age (700 BC \u2013 AD 500) findings. One of the most interesting results from this phase of work was a Mesolithic settlement revealed at West Challoch to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.guard-archaeology.co.uk\/DunragitBlog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.guard-archaeology.co.uk\/DunragitBlog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.guard-archaeology.co.uk\/DunragitBlog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.guard-archaeology.co.uk\/DunragitBlog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.guard-archaeology.co.uk\/DunragitBlog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=57"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.guard-archaeology.co.uk\/DunragitBlog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":126,"href":"https:\/\/www.guard-archaeology.co.uk\/DunragitBlog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57\/revisions\/126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.guard-archaeology.co.uk\/DunragitBlog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=57"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.guard-archaeology.co.uk\/DunragitBlog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=57"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.guard-archaeology.co.uk\/DunragitBlog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=57"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}