Monument record MHG36909 - Achnandarach

Created automatically by NMRS Register Utility
User: Admin, Date: Wed 13 Oct 2004
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NG83SW 76 8035 3081

NG 8035 3081 A staged programme of field survey and excavations were carried out during 1999 at the site of a proposed water treatment works on the S bank of the Allt Duirinish, c 300m W of Loch Achaidh na h-Inich. The work was necessitated by the discovery of a previously unknown stone-walled hut circle, clearance cairns and lengths of walling.
An initial field survey in May recorded and mapped the hut circle, c 10m across; a second possible smaller structure, c 4m across; over 15 clearance cairns, 2-8m in diameter and 0.2-1m high; and other lengths of bank and modern trackway. The cairns were located on raised rocky areas or steeper slopes, and appeared to define small cultivation plots between them. Following this stage of work, the design of the works was finalised to permit the preservation in situ of the hut circle and several of the cairns. The remaining features were subject to sample excavation in July. The potential small structure was revealed to be no more than a well-constructed cairn with rough outer retaining faces. Most of the other cairns proved to be simple dumps of stone with no evidence of internal structure or phasing. Whilst buried soils were present beneath the cairns, these had been compressed by the overlying stones and penetrated by bracken roots such that no potential existed for palaeobotanical or soil science analyses to be conducted. One cairn, however, was abutted by a deposit rich in charred plant macrofossil remains, interpreted as a possible midden. This discovery prompted more extensive excavation and sampling in October. A programme of soils and palaeobotanical analyses relating to this last site is ongoing.
Reports have been lodged with Highland SMR.
Sponsor: North of Scotland Water Authority.
A J Dunwell 2000