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A complex of cropmarks of what is probably an unenclosed settlement which was investigated during the winter of 1982-3 as part of the Lunan Valley Project. The cropmarks are dominated by a network of land divisions and a scatter of ring-ditch houses and a round house made of post holes. This latter building and the most complete adjacent example of a ring-ditch were investigated. However, cultivation damage prevented the stratigraphical relationship between the site being discovered. Three other trenches were dug to find stratigraphy and to test for features not shown on the aerial photographs. Trench 1: large pit-circle defined house (House 1), plus associated features. The post-ring house had an external diameter of almost 20 m, a single ring of supporting posts for the roof, an entrance porch with evidence of a hinged door, an outside stone pavement and traces of a stone wall 1m thick increasing to 2 m thick at the entrance. Finds included fragments of querns used as post packing and a bronze fibula found in the ploughsoil over the house. A radiocarbon date was obtained from charcoal from the fill of a post-hole associated with the entrance. Trench 2: probable penannular ring ditch house (House 2), with an overall diameter of 12 m and a depth of up to 1.2 m. A setting of four post-holes appears to be related to the possible entrance. A layer of brown soil was tested for phosphates, but the results were inconclusive. A layer containing charcoal-rich debris was interpreted as the remains of the building. There was no internal ring of post-holes. Above this was an early cultivation soil with ard marks. From this layer came pieces of fired clay, a hammerstone and two pierced stone discs. A radiocarbon date was obtained from the house debris. Trench 3: at least one rectangular structure, represented by post-holes, with a pit unknown use, probable storage), found to the south of the large post-defined house. Part of a rotary quern was discovered used as a post hole packing stone. Trenches 4 and 5: trial trenches through a glacial gully, filled with circa 2 m of hillwash, overlying a black, organic deposit, probably representing an ancient marshy area. Trench 8 cut to examine deep soils, but was found to contain a cist (see NO65SE0042) and a floored scoop and the probable quarry for other buildings in the area. This latter feature appears as an oval patch on the aerial photographs. It was cut into the sand and gravel and had a consolidated floor surface. This had been repaired with stones including a saddle quern. The scoop is possibly the remains of a ring-ditch house some 12 m in diameter. Two linear ditches and a pit containing boulders (including a socketed stone) and ash containing burnt seeds were also excavated. The ditches are probably old land divisions.
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Historic Environment Records (HER) 
Angus
HER -
NO65SE0023 - IRONSHILL