Monument record MHG12143 - Site of hut circle at Ruighe Shligeach (Rhiconich)

At NC 2517 5213, on the edge of rising moorland, is a hut circle, set into the slope and measuring 8.5m in diameter within a wall at most pronounced a heather-covered rubble spread of 1.5m to 2.0m and 0.3m high. A 5.0m wide break in the SE arc may indicate the entrance position. One or two mounds in the vicinity are probably associated stone clearance heaps.
Surveyed at 1:2500.
Visited by OS (JM) 5 June 1980.

Photographed in 1993. <1> <2>

In March 1993, this hut circle was excavated by GUARD prior to its destruction by roadworks. The wall of the house consisted of a roughly circular (12m by 11m) low stone bank, reaching a maximum height of 0.7m. The entrance lay to the SE. Gneiss boulders formed a rough face on the inside of the wall. An extension of the wall, 1.90m long, formed a spur to the E of the entrance, possibly acting as a windbreak. A small cell (2.8m by 2.2m) was set into the outside of the wall on its SW side. Post settings within the house suggest that the roof was supported by an inner ring of posts. The centre of the house was dominated by the remains of a stone oven floor and flue, set on a stone flagged floor. A deposit of black, ashy, charcoal-rich soil surrounded the oven and was trampled into the floor. Finds recovered included a range of potsherds, tools and flakes of flint, chert and quartz, an elongated polished stone, a possible limpet hammer and burnt bone. The site remains undated until specialist analysis of the finds and radiocarbon assay have been completed. <3>

Radio-carbon dating was subsequently carried out but a full report, which was intended to be published after submission to Historic Scotland, has not appeared. However, a final draft as submitted for publication in PSAS in 1997 was produced. The structure was found to date to the Bronze Age with associated lithics and pottery. The site continued as a focus of activity and was certainly in use during the early historic period, again producing finds which included metalwork, lithics and pottery. <17>