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Auchtercairn Farm

Hut Circle (Prehistoric)

Site Name Auchtercairn Farm

Classification Hut Circle (Prehistoric)

Canmore ID 76490

Site Number NG87NW 17

NGR NG 804 766

Datum OSGB36 - NGR

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/76490

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

  • Council Highland
  • Parish Gairloch
  • Former Region Highland
  • Former District Ross And Cromarty
  • Former County Ross And Cromarty

Archaeology Notes

NG87NW 17 804 766.

A hut circle, elevation c35m OD, diameter 9m by 8m, stone walled; no doorway visible, lies in the fenced grassy park at an Cachaileath Dearg, about 120m to the N of the modern sheepfold of Auchtercairn Farm, and 20m to the S of the gate in the park fence. A Seann-rathad, the pre-1840s road, runs just to the E, between the hut circle and the wire fence. Vegetation - grass.

The remains of a sub-rectangular bothy, 3m by 2m, are visible inside the hut circle. Another of the same size and shape lies on the slope below.

R Wentworth 1989.

Activities

Excavation (October 2020)

NG 80520 76630 A small-scale archaeological evaluation was carried out on Achtercairn Roundhouse 10 (Canmore ID: 76490) in October 2020. The work was carried out by a team consisting of professional archaeologists, Gairloch Museum staff and volunteers, and volunteers from the local community.

The evaluation uncovered a relatively well-preserved archaeological record, with sealed deposits, some with stratigraphically secure charred plant macrofossils. Stone artefacts were also found in the form of several ‘pot-boilers’. The site was identified through survey as a putative Iron Age roundhouse with two later shieling/bothy structures sitting upon it. Evaluation trenching totalling 10m in length hand-dug in an L-shaped trench across site to top of archaeology identified the presence of in situ archaeological deposits adjacent to the roundhouse walls, where wall collapse had protected deposits from bioturbation. Intact clay floor deposits were discovered internally where preserved, and externally wall tumble had preserved the remains of a drip-line erosional feature running up to the wall base. The stone-footed double-skinned roundhouse wall, when collapsed, had also preserved homogenous deposits of loamy matrix interpreted as eroded and collapsed turf walling. Intact individual turfs were sampled from one such deposit and will be subjected to micromorphological analysis to confirm their source. It is thought at this stage that this represents a turf upper to a stone-footed wall, which is rarely recognised in Atlantic Scotland.

Material for radiocarbon dating was retrieved from a series

of deposits including wall cores and sealed palaeosols, and, in particular, from a charcoal-rich and heavily fired soil, which lay across the entire interior of the roundhouse and may represent a demolition horizon. This radiocarbon dating has not yet been undertaken.

Archive: Gairloch Museum and Highland HER Funder: Gairloch Museum

Tom Gardner

(Source: DES Vol 22)

References

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