Although the areas of Midlothian and Edinburgh have not seen as much excavations as the Scottish Borders and East Lothian, there are important sites for our understanding of the Iron Age. Pre-radiocarbon dating work was undertaken on the hillforts at Castlelaw (Childe 1933), Kaimes Hill (Childe 1941; Simpson 1969) and Braidwood, Midlothian (Stevenson 1949; Gannon 1999). The work by Childe and Stevenson conformed largely to the narratives created by Piggott and others in the Scottish Borders during the same era.
In the late 1980s important work took place at Castle Rock (Edinburgh Castle). Among the most dramatic revelations of the excavation was the discovery that the defences were built upon deposits which extended back to the late Bronze Age or Early Iron Age. Although the recovered archaeology was minimal it is the fact any survived at all and the location of the site that is of particular interest. The Iron Age inhabitants occupied a naturally-created boundary zone through which land traffic moving between East Lothian and central Scotland would pass (Driscoll and Yeoman 1997). Ancient remains on the nearby Arthur’s Seat and Dunsapie Hill, including fortified sites and cultivation terraces, have long been known (Stevenson 1947). New work is also taking place across various areas by Edinburgh University Archaeology department and AOC Archaeology, under the auspices of a training school.
As with East Lothian, development-led archaeology has enabled important new discoveries, particularly across Midlothian. For example, excavations in advance of housing development at Brixwold, Bonnyrigg, Midlothian revealed a large sub-rectangular ditched enclosure with dating suggesting occupation between 4th centuries BC to 2nd century AD (Crone and Sullivan 1997). This site was one of the first of these types of enclosures on the Lothian plain to be dated.