Current and planned project work

Small cairns

We have plans to excavate about six cairns from a recently discovered group of forty three. These are located in an area of felled and re-planted woodland at Corse Law near Carnwath. The cairns are part of a large series of cairns on the southern end of the Pentland Hills, and which cover much of the moorland between West Linton and Carnwath. Included over this landscape are several long cairns, a chambered cairn, large cairns, but most are in the size range of c 2m to 10m in diameter, which is the size of the cairns to be investigated.

The rationale is to test if any of the cairns are funerary in function, and to this end a selection of sizes will be chosen from the group, nearly all of which have been damaged to some extent by forestry operations. The general area has been shown to be rich in artefact scatters ranging back to Mesolithic times.

References

Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland, 1978, Lanarkshire An Inventory of Prehistoric and Roman Monuments, Nos 1, 2, 46, 64 and 67.

Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland, 1967, Peeblesshire An Inventory of Ancient Monuments, Nos 46, 47 and 48.

Clarke, A 1989’Corse Law, Carnwath, Lanarkshire: a lithic scatter’, Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland 119 (1989), 43 – 54

Crop mark site Brownsbank Farm near Biggar

As part of our Pre-History North of Biggar Project, we have conducted a major arable field-walking project over Brownsbank Farm, this has resulted in a series of excavations of sites threatened by forestry and ploughing. The sites have proved to be Early and Late Neolithic, producing significant quantities of pottery and lithic, C14 dates have been secured for several features. A large assemblage of lithic including Arran pitchstone and Mesolithic material has been found on the fields.

The crop mark site, a sub-rectangular ditched enclosure with internal bank, was first recorded by RCAHMS and investigated by them with trial excavation. They found a flat-bottomed ditch with postholes on each side for vertical timbers. Sherds of possible Iron Age pottery were retrieved. However, four distinct pit like features forming a square, appear on photos, in the centre of the site. We want to test our hypothesis that this may be a Roman Watch Tower or Signal Station, since it lies near to the supposed route of the Roman road. It is also possible that the postholes are more to do with Home Guard activity during WWII than the original function of the site. Limited excavation is planned to throw more light on this site, since it forms an important part of the overall enquiry we are conducting.

References

Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland, 1978, Lanarkshire An Inventory of Prehistoric and Roman Monuments, Nos 275 (site) and 263 (Roman road).

Biggar Urban Archaeology Project

This is an ongoing opportunistic project to gather information on the history of the medieval town of Biggar. Trial trenches are exploring gap and garden sites. So far results have been disappointing with mainly post medieval and later material turning up. Biggar has a 12^th century motte and the church site is also recorded to the same period.

Upper Tweeddale Research Project

The first part of this major project, an upland survey of the area has been completed; three reports will eventually be given on this Web site. The next phase is the selective excavation of certain sites and parts of sites to further elaborate the story gleaned through survey. It is anticipated that excavations will begin in 2005 and continue for at least one year. Some opportunistic excavations have already taken place; these have been in the Fruid and Megget Reservoirs during periods of low water levels and were in response to sites being eroded by the water.

A series of places are to be investigated, these range from Bronze Age, Early Christian, possible medieval and certainly post medieval sites. This project is research driven, although several sites will be targeted because of various existing threats.

Annual arable field walking programmes

Pre History North of Biggar Project

This is an ongoing enquiry into the landscape to the north of the town of Biggar, to test a hypothesis that most of the Neolithic evidence in the district lies in this area, while most of the Bronze Age evidence lies to the south of Biggar. Results have produced several Neolithic locations north of Biggar, some of which have been excavated and C14 dated. This project has several years to run.

Biggar Gap Project

This project is designed to determine if any Mesolithic evidence can be gathered, to reinforce the theory that the valley between the River Clyde and River Tweed was used as a through route by hunter gatherers. Limited results from one season of walking have produced lithic scatters including Arran pitchstone. Chert quarry sites will be investigated.

Clydesdale Survey

Probably two seasons of hill walking are required to complete the survey of the southern part of South Lanarkshire. Results from this survey have produced a large corpus of previously unrecorded sites and monuments of most archaeological periods to be found in southern Scotland. Sites are now recorded by GPS with written descriptions and survey plans if necessary. Surveys are site drawn at appropriate scales using the taped offset method of measuring.