The first formal excavation seasons aimed to survey a number of key sites across the landscape, making progress towards defining its occupational history. Towards this end, limited archaeological work was undertaken at three sites: near the tower-house, the sites of a road, and a smithy were explored in order to confirm prior archaeological work and expand our understanding of how people lived and moved across the land. An alleged prehistoric settlement in the Craigloun den was investigated in order to expand our awareness of the earliest inhabitants. Finally, portions of the Craigloun Farmstead were excavated in order to move beyond cartographic sources to an idea as to when this farm was founded.
This project was met with both success, changes in course, and some let-downs. Like all good research exploits, it expanded both our knowledge and our awareness of what we have yet to learn. The results of this season are summarized briefly below, and available in an extended and more technical form in our first data report.
The ‘Hilltop Site’ – the Modern Road by the Smithy
As the summer arrived and the project undertook its first formal field season, the first aim was to try and answer some of the questions that had come to light in the prior season by the tower house – was the second cobble feature a smithy, if so what was its date, and was the road really a road? Two larger trenches were opened to work towards these questions, and a geophysical survey of the area was undertaken by Prof. Richard Bates (University of St Andrews) to hopefully show its extent across the landscape. The first trench was placed farther down the site to the south and, removing the heavy sheets of turf, revealed the well-preserved surface of the road with mortar still intact, binding the surface; a section was cut through it to reveal how it was constructed in decreasing layers of cobbles and mortar, while the surrounds yielded further ceramic evidence. The geophysical survey was inconclusive due to a plague of noise and the shallow depth of the soil, but some potential signs of its extension to the south did appear. A second trench was opened to the east over the site of the possible smithy, but this too was somewhat inconclusive. What was thought to be a cobble bloomery base during the winter turned out to be the middle section of a cobble strip extending for seven meters across the trench and surrounded by a mix of gravel and pebbles. More metal finds supported the possibility of a blacksmith: a large late Medieval/early Modern horseshoe, slag, a possible basket frame, and a plethora of iron fragments. The trench fell incidentally on the west side of the wall, which showed a relative lack of evidence of burning, suggesting the east may possibly be a compact floor inside the structure while the west was outside.
Prehistoric Hut? A Modern Site?
The Lingo/Dunino burn divides the farm into sections north and south of its flow; it courses down from the heights in the west and cuts by the site of Craigloun, tossing over a set of waterfalls and cutting a deep gorge as it makes its way east, eventually joining the Kenly Waters and emptying into the sea. This gorge is the Craigloun Den and featured what appeared to be the stone foundations of a prehistoric hut on a raised portion of ground next to the stream, a hypothesis lent some credence by nearby neolithic finds (P. Yeoman and P. Bowden-Smith, 1997: 34) and a healthy dose of hopeful thinking.
On the surface, the site resembled two elongated ‘C’ shapes constructed of large stones, with the features facing each other approximately five meters apart. The site was discovered when the den was being cleared of gorse to help increase speciation, during which the western structure was damaged and heavily disturbed. During the summer 2021 excavation, a small trench was placed over roughly half of the eastern ‘hut’. After almost two days of clearing the site from a thick mat of grass, it was discovered that the open portion of the ‘hut’ in fact featured two returns, creating an entrance of a little more than one meter. The trench was approximately L-shaped, covering both sides of the southern wall and a portion of the entryway. A second larger trench was opened to partly expose the area between the two structures. Excavation was careful but ultimately unfruitful.
A total lack of even the smallest chip of flint, and the presence of a scant selection of modern glass and ceramic pushed the date forward by a few millennia. Although much of the two trenches were largely barren, at the far end of the structure, a dense clayey mound of gravel, charcoal, and fire-cracked rocks indicated the clear presence of a former hearth. Despite this, the function and date of the feature is still more than a little tentative.
The Craigloun Farmstead – Modern Farming
The present Pittarthie Farm is composed of two farmsteads, the ancient farm at Pittarthie on the east of the farm and to the north of the burn, and the Craigloun farmstead at the western end and on the south of the burn. The Craigloun farmstead appears with the first Ordnance Survey map (1855), the oldest source of substantial cartographic information about the farm; the 2021 season aimed to establish a foundation date for the farmstead. By the early 2000s, the main farm buildings had fallen into an unsafe state of dilapidation and eventually had to be cleared from the property to make way for new buildings. In order to answer when the farmstead was formalized, two areas were excavated: a portion of the main cobble road leading through the farm and the remains of a midden heap at the gate of the property.
Excavating through the hardpacked cobble road yielded four layers: the bottom layer represented the first phase in the road’s construction and measured approximately four to five meters in width and consisted of large stones interspersed with smaller cobbles and gravel; at the top of this layer was an assemblage of Eighteenth and Nineteenth-century domestic ceramics, glass, and iron and lead fittings, giving an image of a midpoint in the life of the farmstead; the second phase of the road’s construction followed after this, widening it by a meter and adding a layer of cobbles and pebbles in decreasing size towards the surface; a final layer of Twenty-first century and later glass and metal fittings came from the final destruction of the farmhouse. Overall, the first layer of domestic finds suggests that Craigloun was formed sometime in or before the Eighteenth century, while the road was likely widened in the Twentieth century to account for the increase in automotive vehicles with wider wheel frames.
The midden heap at the gate to the property was excavated in order to a) establish the date and nature of its deposits and b) open a window into the domestic life of the farmstead. The midden was heavily disturbed by roots and hence very little in the way of stratigraphy was discernable; regardless, it is likely that the midden came from a single period, as finds from both the upper and lower range of the heap dated to the early Twentieth century. The assemblage was extremely varied, ranging from intact glass bottles to porcelain, a spade head, ceramics, and the remains of leather shoes. These finds and the surrounding soil are still being analyzed, but will likely provide a glimpse into a brief period of domestic life at the farm.
Petardy Historic Landscape Project 