| Details |
Flint-working site, consisting of roughly circular hollows along the top of the ravine, where the Buchan flint deposit surfaces. The Buchan ridge gravels is the only major concentration of flint in Scotland. Survey recorded 458 pits (346 on the west side of the den and 112 on the east) but excavation revealed that not all pits are visible above ground. Oval-shaped pits were dug as deep as 4.5 m below the surface to reach flint cobbles of suitable quality. The pits were often very close together, and much of the spoil extracted from each new pit was thrown back into the adjacent abandoned one. The flint was tested for quality on the surface by knapping. The result of this testing can be seen in the millions of discarded flakes and fragmentary cobbles which litter the whole site. The debris of flakes, cobbles and hammerstones were found in areas between the pits where the flint had been processed. Surrounding areas also had flint extraction but evidence for this has been ploughed away. It has been suggested that the site covered 12 hectares and somewhere in the region of 1,000 pits. Excavation was carried out 1991-3 by NMS on the west side of the Den, beyond the main break of slope, in a pocket of ground previously cultivated. No surface indications of hollows were present, but stripping of topsoil over 130 sq metres in 1993 revealed seven extraction pits, two of which were fully excavated, revealing lenses of knapping debris, above which occur peat formation underneath the ploughsoil. A buried soil was also recorded between some of the pits, but contained no artefacts. Samples buried soils from the 1991 and 1992 excavations gave radiocarbon dates indicated two episodes of activity in the late Neolithic: 3483 - 3031 BC and 2565 - 2034 BC. Fieldwalking in 1993 (NK14SW0098) to the north and northwest of the excavations recovered debitage indicating further extraction pits.
|
Historic Environment Records (HER)