In This Section:

6.1 Introduction

  1. The Chalcolithic and Bronze Age are terms used to define the period of time which spans the introduction of metallurgy and the first use of metal objects, a time frame extending from around 2450 BC to 800 BC.  
  1. Copper and its alloys were used to manufacture a variety of items. Dominating numerically are the various forms of axehead, but a range of small tools were also produced, such as awls, gouges and chisels. Bronze in particular was also used in the production of weapons. Daggers, rapiers and swords have all been recorded from South West Scotland, as have spearheads and – for defence – sheet bronze shields. Metal could also be used to fashion decorative items for the adornment of the body or ceremonial display. The circulation and exchange of bronze likely played a significant role in establishing and maintaining social relations throughout much of this period.  
Landscape plan of South West Scotland showing topography, rivers and coastline. The plan is overmarked with the location of Key Knowledge Sites.
Distribution map of Key Knowledge Sites in the SWSARF region © Rathmell Archaeology Ltd
Landscape plan of South West Scotland showing topography, rivers and coastline. The plan is overmarked with the location of Other Named Sites.
Distribution map of Other Named Sites in the SWSARF region © Rathmell Archaeology Ltd
  1. It is increasingly argued that the Bronze Age, in its fullest sense, only begins with the introduction of bronze as a deliberate alloy of copper and tin. Not only does this create a distinct technological marker, it also heralds a time of widespread profound social change. Before its introduction, there is a period of several hundred years where unalloyed copper and gold objects occur, often in association with distinctive ‘Beaker’ pottery. Their distribution does however appear to be localised and they appear against the backdrop of a wider society which remains Neolithic in character.  
  1. The term used for this short-lived phase within the later 3rd millennium remains open to debate. It was previously lumped in with either the Late Neolithic or the Early Bronze Age or placed within a more general ‘Late Neolithic/Early Bronze Age transition’ phase. It has even been assigned a more nuanced term such as the ‘metal-using Neolithic’ or the ‘Earliest Bronze Age’ (Roberts 2012, 19-20). More detailed research has resulted in a better understanding; as a result, there have been increasing calls for the recognition of a distinct, potentially very short-lived, ‘Chalcolithic’ phase (translated as ‘Copper Age’). This properly acknowledges the distinct character of this phase, both in comparison to what came before and what comes after (Needham 2012). 
  1. Life in the Bronze Age was played out against the backdrop of a structured cultural landscape which had developed throughout the preceding Neolithic (Barrowclough 2013, 35). Some forms of monument, which continue at least into the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age, appear to have developed from existing traditions. Stone circles and stone settings were often constructed on the same sites as Neolithic timber predecessors. The scale of these later monuments is, however, often smaller than the large circular enclosures and henges characteristic of the Late Neolithic.  
  1. Other types appear quite novel. It is possible that the circular house structures now known as ‘roundhouses’ continue a tradition established in the Late Neolithic, when sub-oval or circular house structures made their first appearance. There may, however, be a contrast between the rather ephemeral structures of the Late Neolithic, Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age, and the more robust, even arguably ‘monumental’ roundhouses which appear from the Middle Bronze Age onwards. These persist in some form through much of the Iron Age. Domestic settlements and enclosures defined by circular palisades are wholly new, as are those established in hilltop locations. At the very least, these infer a new concern with the physical and visual definition of domestic space, as well as the control of movement and access into and around these spaces. Potentially, it may also demonstrate a concern with defence. 
  1. Another new phenomenon which appears in the Bronze Age is the burnt mound. Burnt mounds usually survive in the modern landscape as piles of heat-cracked stones associated with a stone-lined trough. Their purpose remains unknown, though various theories have been proposed, including cooking sites, saunas or sweat lodges. These monuments occur in their largest numbers and densest concentrations towards the south of the region, in Dumfries and Galloway and South Ayrshire. They have also been recorded in Arran. 
  1. The genesis of the Bronze Age as it is understood today came in the 1830s, with the publication and widespread adoption of Christian Thomsen’s Three Age System. Thomsen subdivided northern European prehistory into three phases, comprising – in chronological order – the Stone Age, the Bronze Age and the Iron Age. Each phase could be differentiated through its level of technological achievement and the range of material culture occurring.  
  1. Thomsen’s work influenced a growing community of antiquarians who were active throughout South West Scotland. Two aspects of Bronze Age archaeology in particular would spark their interest. The first was the often-spectacular monuments which we now recognise as characteristic of the Early Bronze Age. These standing stones and stone circles embody the final flowering of a megalithic architectural tradition which began in the Neolithic. The second was the metalwork, which in South West Scotland was being found across the region in a variety of often-spectacular forms. 
  1. One particularly important site which became an early focus of interest was the complex of stone circles at Machrie Moor on Arran. First noted by Headrick in 1807 (Headrick 1807), this concentration of monuments was viewed as part of a much broader megalithic tradition which included the chambered cairns and tombs that we now know to be Neolithic in date.  
  1. Another class of monument that was also widely recognised and examined at this early stage was the circular burial cairn. These cairns faced increasing risk of destruction as the agricultural improvements progressed. With more and more land brought into cultivation, historic monuments and ruins were often being cleared. Once used as repositories for field-cleared stone, these circular cairns were a popular target for destruction. They were often plundered as sources of stone used to build dykes or provide road metalling. In many cases, reports of discoveries of human remains, often but not always accompanied by ceramic vessels (‘urns’) and sometimes even metalwork, found their way into local sources. 
  1. These reports tend to be vague, but sometimes they harbour interesting nuggets of information. The Old Statistical Account of 1795 refers to a round cairn at Belton Mound, Kirkpatrick Fleming, removed before 1794, which revealed ‘Druidical beads.’ Today, we would recognise these as faience beads, probably of Chalcolithic date. References to the removal of cairns proliferate in the New Statistical Account of 1845 and the Ordnance Survey Name Book, produced during the mid-19th century. Examples include a round cairn at Grange Estate, Tundergarth, removed before 1834 to reveal a cist (or cists) which in turn contained a skeleton (or skeletons). Another at Monamore Glen, Arran, was removed in 1835 or 1838, revealing several ‘cists,’ the term given to the small box-like stone-built burial chambers which often contained human remains.  
  1. The individuals within were often cremated, but sometimes inhumations are recorded. A more unusual find noted at Monamore Glen was a penannular gold armlet, now understood to be Late Bronze Age in date. Unfortunately, its relationship with the cairn and its contents was not recorded.  
  1. Chance finds stumbled upon by workmen or agricultural labourers were often recorded. Sometimes unmarked burials were disturbed, as at Ardeer Mains, Stevenston. Here, Ordnance Survey surveyors were shown the location where – decades earlier – a cist containing a Food Vessel and jet buttons had been discovered. Often, though, such discoveries comprised one or more metal objects. These items were often manufactured from copper alloy, but on rare occasions, they might be composed of precious metal, in particular, gold. Such finds often comprised isolated objects such as swords or spearheads, or – more commonly – various forms of axehead. Sometimes, however, these items were deposited in groups: described as ‘hoards’; from any early date these were interpreted as caches of valuables hidden away for safe-keeping during times of strife or unrest.  
  1. Three early reports of such finds, dating from the 1790s, are particularly important. The first was the discovery of five or six sheet bronze shields, reportedly placed in a ring, in a moss at the farm of Lugtonridge, Beith. The second was the Gavel Moss hoard, which consisted of two flat axeheads and a spearhead, found on a farm near Lochwinnoch, close to the Muirshiel hills in Renfrewshire. The third was the recovery of six pieces of copper (later identified as flat axeheads) from Tonderghie, Whithorn (Davidson 1795). Often these objects were treated as curios and many were melted down for the value of their scrap metal. Only one of the six Lugtonridge shields has survived to this day, the axes from Tonderghie have all been lost, while some fragments of ‘armour’ included with the Gavel Moss hoard have left no trace. All of these discoveries were largely down to serendipity, but interest in these ancient sites was growing amongst the wider public. Local doctors, landowners and clergymen often played a key role in collecting and disseminating information relating to notable discoveries.  
  1. It was not until the 1860s that the first targeted fieldwork exploring Bronze Age monuments was carried out in the region. This focused upon the Machrie Moor stone circles, Arran. Two episodes of excavation took place, during the 1850s and early 1860s, respectively. Firstly, there was the excavation of ‘Circle 5’ by John MacArthur in 1858 (MacArthur 1859), with James Bryce subsequently undertaking a more detailed series of investigations during 1861 (Bryce 1863). Bryce in particular aimed to establish a date and function for these enigmatic monuments. His work recovered a bronze pin from the cist within Circle 4, confirming a Bronze Age date for this feature, which was sepulchral. Other cists Bryce encountered in association with other stone circles and stone settings on the island produced worked stone objects and pottery, which were similarly ascribed to the Bronze Age. 
  1. During the late 1870s and 1880s, interest in antiquarianism and archaeology was flourishing. This was expressed in South West Scotland by the arrival of The Archaeological Collections of Ayrshire and Galloway. For a few decades at least, it would become a platform through which local researchers could share their work and learn about recent discoveries. 
  1. Just a few years after the first volume of the Collections was published, a comprehensive overview of British Bronze Age metalwork finds became widely available: John Evans’ The Ancient Bronze Implements, Weapons and Ornaments, of Great Britain and Ireland (Evans 1881), Working on the basis of typology and the technical proficiency required in manufacture, Evans arranged a vast array of prehistoric copper alloy objects, recovered from across the British Isles, into a rudimentary chronological framework.  
  1. Some important objects were omitted from Evans’ work. These included the finds from Gavel Moss and Lugtonridge. This is not to say that the metalwork of South West Scotland was entirely neglected; Evans’ corpus includes a rapier from Fairholm, Dumfriesshire. The absence of the others must reflect the scope of Evans’ contacts during the book’s research and preparation. By the time of its publication, he had established links within the region’s antiquarian community. Indeed, Evans was a contributor to the first volume of The Collections (Evans 1878), with a short but important article devoted to the last surviving sheet bronze shield from Lugtonridge. Evans’ account provides at least some detail relating to the discovery of what proved to be one of the region’s most important Bronze Age finds. 
  1. Evans’ ongoing work on Bronze Age metalwork stimulated further interest in the topic, with regional inventories forming regular inclusions in the Collections. The Bronze Age metalwork of Wigtonshire featured in Volume I (Wilson 1878), with a similar inventory covering Ayrshire (Macdonald 1884) published at a later date. That same volume included accounts of two further metalwork hoards, both provenanced from South Ayrshire. The first was dominated by flat axes from Maidens (Munro 1884); the second was a mixed hoard which included socketed axes, sword fragments and the handles from a bronze cauldron from Dalduff, Crosshill (Macdonald 1884).  
  1. The differing fates of these two hoards showed how serendipity played a role in how well this category of find was recorded, and also to what degree it might be viewed as a closed deposit. The hoard from Maidens, was found during ground-breaking works for a shipbuilding yard. It was spotted within a rocky cleft when Lord Ailsa, the landowner, was present. The antiquarian Robert Munro was contacted, and the site was investigated in the company of Lord Ailsa and his factor. A detailed report was later published in Collections (Munro 1884).  
  1. The fate of the Dalduff hoard was not so favourable. Discovered decades earlier in 1846, during the digging of field drains, much of the hoard was quickly dispersed by the workmen, who kept its discovery secret. A similar fate had previously befallen the Lugtonridge shield hoard, recovered half a century earlier (Evans 1878). In the case of the Dalduff hoard a local landowner, John Gibson of Ladyburn, succeeded in recording some details in the immediate aftermath of its discovery. Word reached the landowner – Sir Charles Dalrymple Ferguson of Kilkerran – who asked the local doctor, Dr Blair, to ask around the village and retrieve the now-dispersed artefacts. There was some confidence at the time that all the contents of the hoard were successfully recovered, and it was established that they had been found within a pot (presumably ceramic), with two sword fragments placed over the top. Some doubt was, however, raised, as to how many objects had actually been present (Macdonald 1884, 50-51). Later reviews of contemporary newspaper reports suggest that as many as 60 items had originally been found (Knight 2022, 389). These discrepancies mean that unfortunately, this important group of metalwork – to date, South West Scotland’s only example of what would generally be classed as a Bronze Age ‘founder’s hoard’ – cannot be treated as a closed deposit.  
  1. James Macdonald authored other noteworthy contributions to the Collections including an important inventory of urns recovered from the cairns and barrows of Ayrshire (Macdonald 1878). This work includes valuable information collated from individuals with knowledge of prehistoric funerary monuments destroyed decades before. In many cases, it provides the only surviving information relating both to the sites themselves and to the ceramic assemblage derived from them. 
  1. The dawn of the 20th century saw a renewed interest in the megalithic tombs of Arran, and in the anatomical details of their incumbents. Phrenology was in vogue at the time – the belief that character traits and personality could be divined from the shape of the human skull. A hypothesis had been proposed for evidence of an Early Bronze Age ‘beaker invasion.’ This work was based on a contrast between a ‘brachycephalic’ (round-headed) skull type associated with beaker burials, and a doliocephalic (long-headed) skull type allegedly consistent with the Neolithic population. This scenario conveniently explained perceived contrasts between the burial practices and material culture of the ‘beaker people,’ with those of the indigenous inhabitants they supposedly supplanted.  
  1. In 1896, Dr Ebenezer Duncan opened a ‘chambered structure’ near Lagg and removed human remains which were exhibited to the Philosophical Society in Glasgow (Bryce 1903). He then invited the anatomist Thomas Bryce to join him in further investigations. This instigated a number of explorations by Bryce, which invariably targeted monuments previously explored by James Bryce half a century previously.  
  1. Thomas Bryce’s work on Arran provided a minimal contribution to what was later dismissed as a discredited theory. This was in part because the recovery of well-preserved human remains proved virtually impossible due to the hostile soil conditions. Bryce was also challenged by the fact that – in many instances – the funerary rite involved cremation. Bryce’s long-term impact proved instead to be archaeological. Amongst the broader population of funerary monuments, two groups were evident. The first were the chambered cairns, ascribed by Bryce to the Neolithic because of the multiple burials present. The second could be characterised as ‘carefully constructed short cists, enclosed either in cairns, or in the area of circles of standing stones’ (Bryce 1903, 76). A number of these revealed bronze objects (such as the spectacular dagger recovered from a cairn at Blackwaterfoot), supporting the hypothesis that this group were Bronze Age in date. 
  1. In addition to this original research on Arran’s cairns, Bryce’s work in the early 1900s also provided a counterpoint to the slightly earlier work of Wilson and Munro and others who had collated less well-recorded finds from across Ayrshire and Galloway. Bryce’s 1903 paper in particular provides a detailed summary of the state-of-play regarding the prehistoric funerary monuments of Arran, and – crucially – the range of material culture occurring within them. Pottery, metalwork and worked stone are all described in detail and often illustrated. Anatomically, his work has long been superseded, but Bryce’s archaeological work on Arran can still be viewed as something of a milestone. This is partly on account of its attention to detail and the original observations Bryce made, particularly concerning cairn construction. 
  1. The first quarter of the 20th century also saw several important discoveries on the mainland. In 1908, palaeontologist Dorothea Bate excavated a cist at Mossknowe, Kirkpatrick Fleming (Bate 1909). Though it was devoid of either discernible human remains or artefacts, Bate’s report on the excavations displayed an unusually detailed level of observation compared to many others at the time. Just a few years later, in 1910, an important paper on the antiquities of Largs was written by Robert Munro, an important figure whose work had appeared previously in the pages of the Collections. On this occasion, Munro’s work was published in the national journal Archaeologia (Munro 1910).  
  1. Through a paragraph in a local newspaper, Munro had been alerted to the discovery of several urned cremations, found during groundbreaking works to the rear of a recently-constructed house in Nelson Street, Largs. The site itself was notable for the fact that the burials had included a single stone-lined pit containing multiple urned cremations. Several satellite burials, each comprising a single urned cremation, were also noted. Munro’s paper not only recorded the details of this find, but also provided information relating to the earlier discovery of a cist. This had contained an inhumation placed in a sitting position (i.e. crouched) and accompanied by a beaker-type vessel (Munro 1910, 246-7).  
  1. Munro – along with others active in researching prehistory at this time – was widely influenced by the work of Sir John Abercromby. His two volume work A Study of the Bronze Age Pottery of Great Britain and Ireland and its Associated Grave Goods would have as significant an impact as John Evans’ works on Bronze Age metalwork and prehistoric stone implements had around three decades previously (Abercromby 1912). 
  1. Shortly after the publication of Abercromby’s volumes, Colonel J G A Baird explored some sites on his estate near Muirkirk, assisted by his gamekeeper Archibald Fairbairn, who had a keen interest in archaeology. Work continued under the direction of Colonel Baird’s daughter, Miss E C Broun Baird (later Mrs Brown Lindsay), with excavations undertaken throughout the period 1913 to 1921 (Fairbairn 1917, Fairbairn 1919). Some of the sites, such as Upper Wellwood, were described as ‘hut circles,’ the inference being that they were probably used as domestic house structures. Fairbairn’s interpretations tended, however, to be rather sparse, with the focus instead on detailed descriptions of layers and pottery finds. The recurring presence of cremated bone and funerary pottery such as urn and beaker might suggest instead some kind of funerary role. The term ‘enclosed cremation cemetery’ is now more commonly used to describe these sites. In addition to these enigmatic structures, a further seven round cairns were investigated, some of which revealed a variety of artefacts, including pottery and metalwork.  
  1. Much of the literature at this time focused on the excavation of grave sites, and the discovery of human remains and their associated grave goods, whether encountered accidentally or through deliberate investigation. The items placed in the grave alongside the body tended to be dominated by ceramics but they occasionally included metalwork or polished stone objects. Of the latter, axe-hammers or hammers were notable finds. An axe-hammer was recovered, for example, amongst spoil removed from the Nelson Street, Largs (Munro 1910). Hoards of metalwork were still being uncovered, with one particularly important find discovered by Captain W Dinwiddie beneath an overhanging rock on Eschonchan Fell, Glentrool. Here, bronze weapons and tools were found in association with two razors, a pin, the remains of a twisted torc and amber beads, with the find published by James Callander (Callander 1921).  
  1. The next three decades saw some important new investigations within the region. In 1925, Ludovic Mann was active on Arran, excavating a chambered cairn at Carmahome but also recording discoveries of Bronze Age metalwork. These comprised a hoard of two flanged axes from Pirnmill (Mann 1925a), and several gold ornaments discovered as surface finds from Whitefarland, Kilmory (Mann 1923b). Mann was also active in Wigtonshire, reporting in 1923 on various finds, including an extremely unusual stone mould valve for a virtually-unique flanged axe-like chisel from Little Glengyre (Mann 1923a). 
  1. Fuelled perhaps by Oscar Montelius’ recently published chronological scheme for the Bronze Age metalwork of the British Isles (Montelius 1908), the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s saw several short articles devoted to the classification and interpretation of various Bronze Age metalwork forms. In the vanguard was John Callander’s 1920 gazeteer of Bronze Age metalwork hoards from Scotland (Callander 1923). Amongst the hoards he highlighted were the lost hoard of flat axes from Tonderghie details of which had been until then been buried deep within the pages of the 1795 Statistical Account (Davidson 1795, 285-6). 
  1. More detailed explorations of specific artefact types followed. Mann examined various gold ornaments (Mann 1923b). John Corrie considered the Scottish rapier corpus, in a paper which gave a detailed account of the unusual hoard from Drumcoltran. This comprised between six and 12 rapiers recovered from the enclosure ditch of an earthwork (Corrie 1928). William Henderson compiled a corpus of two varied classes of bronze artefact: socketed axes and swords (Henderson 1938). He looked for sources, or even influences, for specific forms, identifying an Irish source for one particular group of socketed axeheads. All these papers were written within the period where the concept of the itinerant smith reigned supreme, with Vere Gordon Childe suggesting in 1946 that the character and composition of metalwork hoards might give clues to the organisation of the trade (Childe 1946). 
  1. Meanwhile, further investigation of Bronze Age sites continued, leading to targeted excavation. Funerary monuments at Beoch and Rig Hill, Dalmellington, were investigated in this way by Archibald Fairbairn and Alexander McLeod and others (McLeod 1938). Many discoveries were still being made through the keen-eyed attention of labourers and landowners. Through their efforts, word passed to the archaeological community; sites were investigated, and artefacts and associated material removed for curation. In circumstances foreshadowing the rescue archaeology of the late 20th century, seven cinerary urns were retrieved from Monkton during 1940s groundbreaking works near Prestwick Airport (Webster and Low 1944). At roughly the same time, the renowned archaeologist Vere Gordon Childe reported on the discovery of an unusual form of cinerary urn during works carried out by the Department of Agriculture at Droughduil, near Luce Bay. Half a century later, this area would become a focus for archaeological research into its Neolithic and Bronze Age sites. 
  1. 1960 marked an important milestone in Bronze Age Studies, when Christopher Hawkes circulated his ‘Scheme for the British Bronze Age.’ Drawing together existing chronological schemes by Montelius and others, Hawkes subdivided the British Bronze Age into Early, Middle and Late phases (Hawkes 1960). As well as using variations in pottery and metalwork forms, technological indicators were used as a means of differentiation. For example, the first appearance of sheet metal working (for cauldrons, buckets, shields) was a marker for the Late Bronze Age, along with the widespread appearance of the so-called ‘founders’ hoards’ of scrapped and broken bronze objects. 
  1. Hawkes’ 1960 Scheme was epic in its scope, drawing together then-current thinking on metalwork, pottery, monument types and deftly weaving all these strands together to form a single coherent narrative. It represented the culmination of diffusionist and cultural-historical thinking and how this might be applied to the British Bronze Age. Inherent in this thinking was the assumption that innovation came through foreign ideas introduced from continental Europe, usually into South-east England – the heart of the ‘Lowland Zone’. Change would then disseminate outwards through the movement of displaced persons into the ‘Highland Zone’ (of which South West Scotland formed a part) where the existing material culture would be changed and adapted in response to the new arrivals.  
  1. Hawkes’ Scheme proved to mark a watershed moment. By the early 1960s, advances in scientific analytical techniques were already transforming our understanding of Bronze Age archaeological sites and material culture, so rapidly that the Scheme never actually saw publication.  
  1. The first of these advances was radiocarbon dating, which replaced a typologically-informed relative chronology with an absolute chronology. In South West Scotland, the earliest use of this technique focused in particular upon megalithic monuments. Throughout the 1940s, excavations took place on a number of Neolithic chambered tombs in Galloway and Ayrshire. All showed an extremely long period of use and re-use, which began in the earlier part of the Neolithic but which – crucially – continued on into the earliest Bronze Age. At Cairnholy I and II, the Bronze Age presence was quite ephemeral. At Mid Gleniron I and II, the situation was different. Here, John Corcoran identified Bronze Age burials inserted into the earlier monument and also two Bronze Age cairns constructed close by.  
  1. Bronze Age studies were slow to benefit from the radiocarbon revolution, with researchers reluctant to embrace its potential (Burgess 1974, 167). Absolute dating allowed the date of the earliest metal-using peoples – the so-called ‘Beaker People’ – to be pushed back to around 2500 BC. However, little headway was made on disentangling the various ceramic traditions of the Middle and Later Bronze Age. Technological and typological analyses retained their dominant roles, though the application of metallurgical analysis to prehistoric metalwork soon proved revolutionary. Its potential was illustrated in a ground-breaking paper authored by Margaret Brown and A. E. Blin-Stoyle. The authors argued that the introduction of lead into the tin-copper alloy could be used as a marker to differentiate Late Bronze Age material culture types from their Middle Bronze Age predecessors (Brown and Blin-Stoyle 1959). Just a few years later, the Historical Metallurgical Society was founded by Ronald Tylecote, who published, that same year, an important work on prehistoric metallurgy in the British Isles (Tylecote 1962). 
  1. How these new techniques impacted on the Bronze Age is best illustrated by a revision of the Hawkes 1960 Scheme presented by Colin Burgess in 1974 (Burgess 1974). Echoes of the earlier cultural historical paradigm first proposed by Sir Cyril Fox remained. Burgess still subdivided mainland Britain into lowland and highland zones. Some crucial changes were evident. Burgess acknowledged that the lack of settlement evidence had led to an over-reliance on the study of sepulchral/ritual sites and technology (Burgess 1974, 167). Brown and Blin Stoyle’s observations on lead-bronze alloys had also been absorbed into the narrative; visually similar types of bronze objects could now be assigned to different chronological phases through the presence or absence of lead in the alloy. On this basis, a range of urned cremation burials once interpreted as Late Bronze Age were now moved back into the Middle Bronze Age. This led Burgess to argue for a division into an earlier and later Bronze Age on the basis of the funerary and settlement evidence. At the same time, a threefold division remained firmly in place for the metalwork sequence. 
  1. As these developments played out on the national stage, investigations into the monuments and material culture of South West Scotland continued. During the 1950s and 1960s, funerary monuments remained popular foci for investigation, with radiocarbon dating often confirming a long history of use which spanned the Neolithic and the earliest Bronze Age.  
  1. In 1951, a team of Edinburgh University students led by Richard Atkinson uncovered several Bronze Age finds during excavations at Luce Bay. These included sherds from cinerary urns, Beakers, barbed and tanged arrowheads and even a metal dagger. All were finds typically associated with burials. A site at Flint Howe would again be investigated in 1964, when William Cormack excavated a cairn there, confirming the presence of selpulchral monuments in the area (Cormack 1968). Cormack also organised rescue excavations in advance of road-building at Dinwoodiegreen (Hodgson and Cormack 1975) and Kirkburn, both located near Lockerbie. The investigations at Kirkburn once again demonstrated re-use of a Neolithic site, with sherds of Beaker pottery recovered from within nine pits, and a Food Vessel found within a cist, likely denoting the site of a burial (Cormack 1963) 
  1. Lack of known settlement sites remained an issue. Aerial photography, introduced in the post-war period, was still in its infancy, so it was left to more traditional methods of field survey to try and address the absence. One figure in particular worked hard to identify and characterise potential relict prehistoric landscapes. This was James Scott-Elliott, who – inspired by the discovery of comparable sites elsewhere in Scotland – sought to find examples in the region. Scott-Elliott’s initial investigations focused on Whitestanes Moor, near Ae. Here, he identified a cairnfield populated with numerous small cairns, associated with a circular banked enclosure. This latter feature had been interpreted variously as a sheep fank, or a possible roundhouse structure. 
  1. Scott-Elliot’s excavations led him to re-assess the domestic/secular interpretation for this particular circular enclosure (Scott-Elliott and Rae 1965). He recovered eight cremations and Pygmy Cups, and obtained a Bronze Age date of 1360 ±90 BC for the site, which he classed as an enclosed cremation cemetery. Encouraged by these results, he excavated two further ring cairns amongst the Whitestanes Moor group (Scott-Elliott 1967) then sought to create an inventory of similar small cairnfields across Dumfriesshire (Scott-Elliott and Rae 1967). In light of these discoveries, he argued that these clusters of monuments inferred a change to a sedentary lifestyle, though as yet, physical evidence for actual house structures remained elusive.  
  1. Almost two decades later, Michael Yates compiled an inventory of the Bronze Age cairns of South West Scotland. This explored their form and structure, character, and their associated finds. Originally a Ph.D. thesis, the published version included a comprehensive inventory of these monuments, with Scott-Elliott’s work acknowledged and discussed. Yates also included a summary of earlier excavations undertaken by an amateur archaeologist named ‘D. Phillips’ on several cairns to the east of Luce Bay. Phillips never published the results, but had deposited a large quantity of archive material in Dumfries Museum. Yates was unable, in many instances, to match Phillips’ records to their original location, but at least ensured that these investigations were recorded in the literature (Yates 1984). 
  1. Another form of monument attracting widespread interest at this time was the stone circle. Radiocarbon dating had disproved the earlier theory that continental influences, derived from the eastern Mediterranean, had shaped the late Early Bronze Age ‘Wessex Culture’ of the British Isles (Renfrew 1968). It was a step-change which had major implications for several important sites and finds, including the Gavel Moss hoard and the Blackwaterfoot dagger. Absolute dating had shed light on the chronological depth of megalithic architecture, bringing the stone circles forward into the period of transition between the Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age. The apparent change from ‘communal’ burial in the chambered tombs to individual burials in the Early Bronze Age cairns led Colin Renfrew to argue for a corresponding transformation in social structure (Renfrew 1981). Arran was used as a model, on account of its apparent contrast between its large numbers of earlier chambered tombs and relatively few rich Early Bronze Age burials. This led Renfrew to argue for a change from a relatively undifferentiated ‘segmental’ society in the Neolithic to a hierarchical society in the Early Bronze Age. In this later period, powerful men (‘chieftains’) controlled access both to exotic goods and also powerful cult sites such as the Machrie Moor stone circles.  
  1. Colin Renfrew’s ‘social archaeology’ occurred in tandem with increased interest in archaeo-astronomy. The suggestion that stone circles and stone settings functioned as rudimentary observatories originated as far back as the late 19th century, but it was during the 1960s that the concept of archaeo-astronomy was much more widely explored. Figures like Alexander Thom surveyed these monuments in painstaking detail and proposed the recurring use of a consistent unit of measurement: the ‘megalithic yard’ (Thom 1967). Euan MacKie’s work coupled together Renfrew’s theoretical work on ‘social archaeology’ with archaeo-astronomy (Mackie 1971). He argued that the stone circles and rich Early Bronze Age burials on Arran marked the presence of a skilled priestly caste who operated both as astronomers and engineers. 
  1. A more conventional approach was seen in the work of Aubrey Burl. Burl compiled an exhaustive inventory of these monuments spanning the entire British Isles. His analysis was typological. Using the presence or absence of shared attributes, three distinctive groups of stone circles could be distinguished in South West Scotland. Each shared similarities with other regional stone circle forms. For example, the varied character of the stone circles of Arran showed a mixture of influences, derived from other regional types, in particular those found in Argyll and northeast Scotland (Burl 1976). 
  1. It was evident that while distinctive ceramic forms such as Food Vessels and Collared Urns were commonly recovered from funerary contexts, metal objects were only occasionally present. It was also apparent that the categories of metalwork commonly found in burials seldom overlapped with those in hoards. This led John Coles to suggest that the distribution of metalwork hoards in South West Scotland could infer potential settlement sites (Coles 1965, 63). In reaching this conclusion, Coles was uncritically applying the categories of hoard established previously by Vere Gordon Childe and others. This was even though metalwork hoards that proliferated in southern England were comparatively rare in Scotland. In particular, the ‘founders’ hoard’, composed of ‘scrapped’ bronze objects broken up ready for recycling, was virtually unknown across the region. Only one had been recorded: the Late Bronze Age hoard from Dalduff. 
  1. Childe’s ‘merchant’s hoards’ were similarly rare. Identified as collections of complete and nearly new objects, the closest examples in the region might be the Drumcoltran rapier hoard, or perhaps the Lugtonridge shield hoard. In both cases, their martial character has leaned towards a votive explanation from an early stage. With both the ‘founders’ hoards’ and the ‘merchant’s hoards’ virtually absent, Coles suggested that a different kind of industrial economy was operating in Scotland (Coles 1962). At this point in time, no Bronze Age metalworking sites had yet been identified, though several stone moulds had been recovered from the region, at Little Glengyre and Ardrossan. 
  1. Coles would dominate Bronze Age metalwork studies in Scotland throughout the 1960s and beyond. The 1960s saw him produce three corpus-style inventories covering the Bronze Age metalwork of Scotland. The first was dedicated to the Late Bronze Age (Coles 1962), the second to the Middle Bronze Age (Coles 1966), and the third was to the Early Bronze Age (Coles 1971). This was in addition to an important regional gazetteer covering the Bronze Age metalwork of Dumfries and Galloway (Coles 1965). Coles’ work spanned the period when cultural historicism/diffusionism finally became displaced as the dominant theoretical paradigm and scientific methods of analysis became more and more widely used. Consequently, Coles’ 1962 Late Bronze Age corpus strongly references the then-topical chronological 1960 Scheme of Christopher Hawkes; by 1971, however, he was using recent advances in the analysis of metal composition to propose links between various metalwork forms and potential sources of copper ore. 
  1. The 1950s, 1960s and 1970s marked something of a golden age for material culture studies in South West Scotland. It had been 50 years or more since Abercromby’s work on Bronze Age pottery; seventy years since John Evans published his volumes on the stone and bronze objects of the British Isles. Metalwork continued to attract attention. In addition to Coles’ works, Bridget Trump authored a detailed study of the daggers, dirks and rapiers of Scotland (Trump 1960).  
  1. Metalwork was not the only focus of interest: several studies were published that focused on a variety of Bronze Age material culture forms recovered from the region. In 1965, Derek Simpson’s corpus of Food Vessels was published in the Dumfries and Galloway Transactions (Simpson 1965). This volume also saw the publication of Fiona Roe’s corpus of the impressive stone battle-axes and other items that sometimes accompanied Bronze Age burials in South West Scotland (Roe 1965). A few years later, Alex Morrison’s corpus of Cinerary Urns and Pygmy Vessels was published, again in the Transactions (Morrison 1968).  
  1. After this brief period in the spotlight, focus seemed to shift away from South West Scotland. Artefacts provenanced from the region continued to be included within larger corpus-type volumes, including David Clarke’s important two-volume corpus of Beaker pottery (Clarke 1970); and Ian Longworth’s similar publication, which focused on the Collared Urn (Longworth 1984). Similarly, the various volumes of the German series imprint Praehistoriche Bronzefunde – each devoted to a specific category of Bronze Age artefact – never failed to include objects provenanced from the region. Examples can be found in the corpus of swords produced by Burgess and Colquhoun (Burgess and Colquhoun 1988) and the volume dedicated to flat axes (Schmidt and Burgess 1981).  
  1. The academic environment – particularly in Scotland – was, however, becoming increasingly focused on landscape archaeology and how monuments functioned as spatial and physical objects in their environment. Further afield, there was increasing recognition that social aspects of metalwork and metalworking merited more detailed exploration, with Michael Rowlands (Rowlands 1976) and Richard Bradley (Bradley 1982, Bradley 1984, Bradley 1985, Bradley 1990) writing extensively on this topic. In Scotland, work of this kind focused mainly on the rich Bronze Age metalwork corpus of the northeast. 1988 saw the publication of an important work by Trevor Cowie called Magic Metal (Cowie 1988). Ten years later, a paper by John Barrett presented a contextual analysis of a hoard of Early Bronze Age flat axes from Dail na Carraidh in Highland (Barrett 1999). The metalwork of South West Scotland remained peripheral throughout this period, and the potential value inherent in its study was untapped. 
  1. The late 1970s and 1980s saw field surveys and excavations undertaken in and around Machrie Moor. Undertaken at the behest of the Historic Buildings and Monuments Division of the Scottish Development Department, this work would shed important new light both on the stone circles themselves and the wider environment in which they were set. In 1978-9, Burl led excavations aimed at confirming the total number of stones in Bryce’s ‘Site 11’ (Bryce 1862). Concurrently, this work would assess potential damage caused by grazing livestock (Haggerty 1992, 56). In 1981, poor weather led to the excavations being put in abeyance, but work resumed in 1985 under the direction of Alison Haggerty. Haggerty’s investigations showed that the stone circles were erected late in the site’s sequence, and – crucially – demonstrated that the 11 stones of Circle 1 had been placed on a site once occupied by a timber predecessor. Soil buildup between the stone circle and its timber forerunner suggested to the excavators that a long period of time had elapsed between the timber circles and the erection of their stone successors. This interpretation was later challenged by Stephen Carter, who argued instead for a much shorter interval between the two phases (Barber 1997) with pedogenesis impacting the stratigraphy (see Chapter 2 Archaeological Practice). 
  1. Further important survey work was carried out on Arran in 1979. This evaluated the rich archaeological potential of upland areas, a resource increasingly recognised at the very time it was being threatened by large-scale afforestation. Work focused on three areas on the southwest coast of the island, near Blackwaterfoot: Machrie North, Tormore and Kilpatrick. Of particular interest were the so-called ‘hut circles.’ Interpreted as the circular footings of house structures, they were thought to originate in the Iron Age. In particularly well-preserved areas, these structures appeared to survive as part of a larger coherent field system, similar to those identified two decades earlier by Scott-Elliott. 
  1. Work commenced with a field survey carried out by Roger Mercer, followed by targeted excavations led by John Barber in all three locations. The excavations at Tormore focussed on a ‘hut circle’, a cairn, and a field bank; at Kilpatrick on a settlement platform, a selection of cairns, and a field bank, and at Machrie North on a cairn, various field banks and also a burnt mound. The latter was a category of site which, at that time, was poorly understood. Later, it would become almost synonymous with the Bronze Age of South West and West Central Scotland (Barber 1997, 3). In addition to the examples from Arran, a number of these sites were excavated across the region and further afield in the early 1980s. These included burnt mounds from the East Rhins of Galloway at Dervaird, Cruise, and Star Lodge. A recurring suite of features was often encountered, comprising a pile of heat-cracked stones and a trough, sometimes stone-lined. The sites were often rich in charcoal, allowing radiocarbon dates to be obtained. The East Rhins examples yielded 2nd millennium dates, most falling within the later half, but with some falling earlier, in the first half.
  1. All of this work broadened the focus from individual sites to a more contextual approach which considered the role monuments played within wider areas of landscape. Because the upland areas in question had been subject to relatively light levels of human impact through agriculture or development, the degree of preservation was good. As a result, the information retrieved was complex and detailed. In every case, a palimpsest of features was revealed, comprising successive phases of field systems, often coupled with traces of cultivation undertaken using a light hand-held plough known as an ‘ard.’  
  1. A detailed programme of radiocarbon dating allowed a greater understanding of these cultivation remains and their associated features. Middle or Late Bronze Age dates were confirmed for many of the structural elements, including the ‘hut circle’ at Tormore, the platform settlement at Kilpatrick and the burnt mounds at Machrie North. Significant time depth was evident on some sites: the excavated hut circle at Tormore showed evidence for a multi-phase structure which appeared to have its initial phase in the earliest Bronze Age, with Beaker pottery recovered there. The excavators also postulated in more than one instance that there was a potential for both cultivation remains and field boundaries to date as far back as the Early Bronze Age, or even earlier still, perhaps to the Late Neolithic.  
  1. These excavations helped move the origins of the circular ‘roundhouse’ structure back from the Iron Age into the Late Bronze Age, and potentially even earlier. Evidence which pushes another characteristically Iron Age ‘type site’ back at least into the Late Bronze Age has been found on hillforts. Rescue excavations undertaken during the 1970s in advance of quarrying on Carwinning Hill revealed various features on the summit. These included a Bronze Age cairn and also the remains of a palisaded structure, which had potentially enclosed the summit. The excavations were never published, but it is possible that the earliest phases of defensive occupation at Carwinning Hill had their origins in the Late Bronze Age. This would be consistent with other hillfort sites excavated in the Clyde valley and around the Clyde estuary, including Sheep Hill, near Dumbarton, and Dunagoil, Bute. 
  1. So far, definitive evidence for Bronze Age activity has remained elusive on hillfort sites in South West Scotland. In addition to Carwinning Hill, two sites of potential interest stand out: Auldhill and Dundonald. Auldhill was first excavated in the 1980s by Gordon Ewart, who ascribed an Iron Age to the ramparts, on a site which was later re-used during the medieval period. Later work carried out by David Caldwell hinted at a much-earlier and very ephemeral Bronze Age presence. A similar situation was noted at Dundonald, where excavations undertaken by Ewart and Denys Pringle between 1986 and 1993 revealed ephemeral traces of Bronze Age and Iron Age occupation surviving below levelling layers placed in order to facilitate the construction of the medieval Royal castle. 
  1. The 1990s saw several important new suveys in South West Scotland which recovered in the recovery of a number of new Bronze Age sites. Burnt mounds, in particular, were discovered in profusion during two surveys undertaken in Dumfries and Galloway. In 1994, RCAHMS recorded a number of previously unrecorded burnt mounds as part of their Glenesslin survey (RCAHMS 1994), while work associated with the South West Scotland pipeline recorded a further 20 burnt mounds and other related sites such as firepits and hearths, obtaining samples and radiocarbon dates in a number of cases (Maynard 1993).
  1. During the 1990s and early 2000s, Bronze Age monuments and material culture did not enjoy the same widespread popularity amongst researchers as other aspects of prehistory. There was no widely accessible equivalent of the Neolithic or Iron Age Studies Groups, so opportunities for postgraduate students and early career researchers to share ideas and explore new theoretical perspectives were limited. Often, it was academics more closely associated with Neolithic archaeology who contributed most to new research, and this was particularly true of South West Scotland.  
  1. One such academic who worked in the region was Thomas, who during the 1990s engaged in a series of investigations at the Neolithic monument complex of Dunragit. These excavations were particularly important, as the final phase of the circular timber enclosure on the site extended beyond the Early Bronze Age, into the Middle Bronze Age (Thomas 2015). Another researcher with an interest in South West Scotland was Vicki Cummings, who in association with Chris Fowler carried out excavations on two cairns in the region. The first of these was Cairnderry, and the second the White Cairn of Bargrennan. Both sites revealed a long history of use: although their origins lay much earlier, in the Neolithic, they remained in use as foci for ritual and funerary activity well into the Early Bronze Age (Cummings and Fowler 2007). 
  1. It was during the 1990s that some postgraduate students challenged the uncritical way in which Bronze Age metalwork hoards and single finds were often viewed as a byproduct of industrial or economic processes. Joanna Brűck and Louise Turner each concluded that the recycling of metal might be used as a metaphor for wider processes of regeneration and rebirth across Bronze Age society. Turner argued that founder’s hoards could represent structured deposits generated in events where the metalworker functioned as a mediator between the secular and the spiritual realms (Turner 2010). Brűck meanwhile proposed that the lifecycles of people might have been viewed as analogous to the life-cycles not only of house structures, but of various categories of artefact, including grog-tempered pottery vessels, quernstones and metalwork (Brűck 2001). Their work looked beyond typologies and distribution maps to consider aspects such as fragmentation, structured deposition, use-wear and object biography. It would not, however, be until the early 2000s that such questions would be considered in relation to the Bronze Age metalwork of South West Scotland. 
  1. A valuable insight into Scottish Bronze Age studies in the early 2000s is provided by the published proceedings of the Scotland in Ancient Europe conference (Shepherd and Barclay 2004). Over two days, this conference presented an important series of papers by established figures in Scottish Neolithic and Bronze Age studies. Although its scope encompassed Scotland in its entirety, reference to the South West was limited. A paper by Alison Sheridan and Andrew Shortland on developments in the study of faience beads did refer to the small number of such beads recovered from the region (Sheridan and Shortland 2004), and metalwork was more prominently featured in papers by Stuart Needham and Trevor Cowie.  
  1. Stuart Needham’s examination of the ‘Migdale-Marnoch’ tradition of northeast Scotland noted how ‘A-metal’ derived from the Ross Island copper mines of southern Ireland had arrived first of all in a ‘zone of superfluity’ comprising south and west Scotland (Needham 2004, 241). Objects composed of this A-metal included items in the Maidens hoard and the halberds which occasionally emerged as single finds in the region. Over time, changes in the patterns of circulation and exchange – and also deposition – led to what Needham characterised as the ‘sunburst’ of the northeast Scottish Migdale tradition, which included distinct monument types, dagger graves and metalwork hoards (Needham 2004). 
  1. Trevor Cowie’s contribution explored the deposition of axes in ‘special places.’ His examples included the concentration of late Early Bronze Age metalwork finds, which included the Gavel Moss hoard, located around the Maich Water. This is a relatively modest watercourse which even today forms the boundary between Renfrewshire and North Ayrshire (Cowie 2004, 252). Cowie also cited as one of his examples the Maidens hoard, which was found only 150m from a standing stone. 
  1. In the wake of this conference, Louise Turner embarked on a study of the Bronze Age metalwork of Renfrewshire and Ayrshire (Turner unpublished). She aimed to compile an updated inventory of known finds, to collate and enhance existing contextual data, wherever possible, and to assess use-wear and fragmentation. The work was only part-funded and was never completed, but it would later inform several specialist reports that Turner subsequently wrote in association with developer-led excavations. These included a multi-period site at Hunterston and a Bronze Age cairn at Cloburn Quarry, South Lanarkshire (Turner 2020). Turner also wrote a more general account exploring the potential for an Early Bronze Age ritualised landscape around modern Largs, written following the re-excavation of a Bronze Age multiple-urned cremation burial originally excavated by Munro at Nelson Street (Munro 1910). 
  1. Recent reviews dealing with specific aspects of Bronze Age metalwork have included finds provenanced from the region, providing several important hoards with long overdue recognition. Rachel Faulkner-Jones included the Drumcoltran hoard in a study of non-funerary metalwork deposition in Scotland. Faulkner-Jones’s work considered various aspects which might have influenced the nature and practice of hoard deposition and how this changed over time. These included the location of settlements and known copper deposits, fragmentation and completeness, and also association either with wet places or special places (Faulkner-Jones, unpublished). Matthew Knight authored another review, considering the range of depositional practices evident amongst the Bronze Age metalwork corpus in Scotland (Knight 2022). The Dalduff hoard was mentioned amongst his examples, with Knight classing the find as a structured deposit, rather than a ‘founder’s hoard’. 
  1. The previously-mentioned re-excavation of Nelson Street was just one of many developer-led excavations carried out in South West Scotland from the 1990s onwards. As well as having the potential to shed light on earlier, antiquarian excavations, these have vastly contributed to our knowledge of known Bronze Age sites across the region. Much of this work investigates sites associated with funerary and mortuary activities, which remain as dominant in the literature today as they were a century or more ago. This is merely because modern construction works often impact similar locations. Despite the extent of developer-led work across the region, settlement sites remain rare and often Bronze Age occupation has to be inferred from residual material on later Iron Age occupation sites. Other, more ambiguous, forms of Bronze Age monuments have also been investigated in limited numbers through developer-led work, such as burnt mounds, palisaded enclosures and timber circles.  
  1. Of the funerary and mortuary sites and monuments, developer-led work carried out over the past three decades has highlighted how much variation is apparent, with both cist burials and urned cremations in unenclosed cemeteries encountered relatively frequently. Notable funerary sites investigated in the early 1990s included a possible ‘four-poster’ site at Park of Tongland near Kirkcudbright. In the same decade, the excavation of an Iron Age square enclosure at Carronbridge (see Chapter 6 Iron Age) also revealed three Bronze Age burials. Any accompanying grave markers had been lost, on a site which revealed two burials, one comprising an adult, a child and an infant, placed within collared urns in stone-lined cists, and a third burial comprising a mixture of soil and burnt bone, unaccompanied, within an unlined pit. In 2002, the construction of a gas pipeline resulted in the excavation of a barrow and ring-ditch monument at Kerricks Farm while in March 2005 a flat cist cemetery was excavated at Craig Tara.  
  1. Early Bronze Age cists, each containing a cremation burial, were excavated after being exposed in a quarry face at Sannox Quarry, Arran. In the period 2005-10, Rathmell Archaeology excavated several cist burials and a possible cremation site at Arran High School and a cist burial at Montgomerie Park. Towards the south-eastern limits of the region, excavations undertaken by CFA Archaeology at Lockerbie Academy revealed a Bronze Age cemetery. Evidence for Early to Middle Bronze Age funerary activities was also discovered in the vicinity of Dunragit during developer-led work carried out by GUARD Archaeology and AOC Archaeology on several occasions. Excavations undertaken by GUARD Archaeology in association with the A75 bypass works at Boreland Cottage revealed urned cremations of Early to Middle Bronze Age date associated with ring-ditch features, suggestive of a small barrow, while AOC Archaeology uncovered an unenclosed cremation cemetery at South Boreland, Dunragit. 
  1. Important additions to the known gazetteer of settlement sites include Blairhall Burn – excavated in 1993 – which comprised two roundhouses and a possible truncated platform settlement dated to the 2nd millennium BC (Strachan, Ralston and Finlayson 1999). Two burnt mounds were also identified there. Excavation of these features cast doubt on the regular assertion that burnt mounds mark sites where food was cooked in leather or skin bags, as the site also provided the earliest assemblage of domestic pottery wares from the region (Cowie 1999). More evidence of burnt mound features was identified between 1996 and 1998 during excavations at Chapeldonan, Girvan. Here, eight deposits described as comprising burnt mound material were investigated, yielding radiocarbon dates that spanned the early 3rd millennium BC to the early 2nd millennium BC. Burnt mounds were also identified and excavated at another Girvan site – Gallowhill – in the 1990s, and in 2020 at Hallmeadow, Annan. The excavators of the latter obtained an Early Bronze Age date of around 2000BC for these features, suggesting an even earlier origin for these features.  
  1. Sherds of coarse pottery were also recorded during the excavation of a roundhouse structure at Ross Bay, Kirkcudbright in 2002. Charcoal recovered from this site gave a Middle Bronze Age date of 1530 BC to 1250 BC, providing an unusually early date in the region for this type of structure. More recently, in 2020, GUARD Archaeology excavated another roundhouse, apparently associated with several ancillary structures of the ‘four poster’ type at Curragh South, Girvan. This phase of occupation at the site yielded a date range spanning 1500 BC to 500 BC, potentially dating it to the Iron Age, but also, possibly, pushing it back into the Late Bronze Age.  Another interesting aspect of the site was that these late structures postdated an earlier palisaded enclosure with substantial entrance gateway, suggestive of an enclosed settlement. Traces of even earlier activity was also identified, in particular the remains of what the excavator interpreted as an oval structure, associated with Beaker pottery.
  1. Evidence for enclosed settlement is sparse until the very latest phases of the Bronze Age, but there is some indication that some manner of enclosure was added, perhaps to prevent livestock (or children) straying as much as to provide protection. Excavations at Mountfode Motte, Ardrossan, revealed evidence for what the excavator suggested what was a defended settlement of later prehistoric date, at a site which was until recently interpreted as a medieval motte (Dingwall 2010). The site also revealed traces of a double ring roundhouse, dated to the Bronze Age, and in this instance apparently unenclosed. In 1999, excavations at Aird Quarry revealed a Late Bronze Age ring-groove roundhouse associated with a circular palisade. The same site also revealed Late Neolithic and Middle Iron Age activity (Cook 2006).
  1. Some more ambiguous sites have also been identified, of which burnt mounds are the obvious example. The majority of these features have been identified in upland areas where agricultural activities are low intensity. Developer-led work has however, recovered evidence for examples located in lowland settings. One of these features was uncovered at Boreland Cottage, during archaeological investigations undertaken in association with the A75 bypass at Dunragit.  
  1. Other sites which are difficult to categorise. Research excavations on a timber circle at Dunragit indicated that its final phase of use extended into the Middle Bronze Age, suggesting a potentially late date for this type of monument. This may provide some analogy to the timber circle with complex entrance feature excavated by Douglas Gordon at Hunterston in 2012. This feature, initially thought to be Neolithic based on its form and layout, provided a sequence of Middle Bronze Age dates and did not appear to be associated with any domestic structures or indeed much evidence for contemporary domestic activity.
  1. Contrasting with the dense concentration of features at Hunterston was the small number of pits, postholes and stakeholes, identified in 2020 at Altain Glen, Sandhead, by Rebecca Shaw Archaeological Services. Although charcoal was present in most of the features, there was little in the way of material culture. A mid-second millennium date was obtained, with the presence of a worked flint flake and a worn hammer-stone in one of the pits interpreted as a potential example of structured deposition.
  1. A similar small group of pits and other features was revealed at Ross Bay. Kirkcudbright in 2020. In this instance, these features were associated with charred grain and charcoal, and some burnt bone, inferring a possible occupation site or a location where small scale industrial activities took place. These features were located close to the site of a Middle Bronze Age roundhouse structure, with which they may have been associated. The presence of similar features at Altain Glen, Sandhead may therefore infer a similar domestic site, though in this case traces of the associated roundhouse were not identified within the excavated area.
  1. The identification of such unusual features in the landscape suggests that some aspects of Bronze Age life in South West Scotland remain unexplained and also relatively unexplored, and that there is still much to be learned through a careful exploration of the region’s archaeological sites and excavated data. 

Comments 10

  3. Para 19. Evans did not omit the Beith shields from Bronze Age Implements… They are mentioned on pp 348-9 (‘a farm called Luggtonrigge’) with a footnote reference to his 1878 Collections article, and illustrated in figs 432-4.Reference

  6. Thanks brendanjoc, we’re planning on having an illus of the shield in the final version that, in its caption, will explain that it is down with the Antiqs in London.Reference

  7. Thanks brendanjoc. We missed that one! We’ll amend the paragraph to give Evans his due for the Lugtonridge hoard.Reference

  8. Thanks brendanjoc. We had not appreciated it had finally received the recognition it deserved. We will adjust the para both to make clear the Scheme was privately circulated from 1960 onwards and that only in 2019 was it finally published.Reference

  9. Thanks brendanjoc. We agree this needs a para exploring the contribution of this study. We will get one drawn up and inserted.Reference

  10. Thanks brendanjoc. We have struggled with sites like Camp Hill that have not been subject to modern research/investigation. The Drumcoltran hoard is reported as being from the base of a ditch, but as it was recovered in the 19th century we cannot be confident as to the age or purpose of that ditch let alone the relationship between them. We will save your comment up and re-purpose it for Research Questions as this is a valuable observation.Reference

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