AOC Archaeology Group

Rituals, Roundhouses and Romans is the first of two volumes on the archaeological excavations carried out between 2000 and 2005 by AOC Archaeology Group at Kintore, Aberdeenshire.

This series of excavations, undertaken in advance of housing developments around the town, represent one of the largest such enterprises undertaken in Scotland. All the sites lies within the Roman temporary marching camp but the settlement sequence stretches from the Neolithic to the Mediaeval period. The evidence is superlative - from the largest assemblage of Neolithic pottery in Aberdeenshire, the largest concentration of roundhouses so far excavated in Scotland to the largest number of Roman bread ovens excavated on any military site in the Empire!

The wealth of evidence retrieved at Kintore has enabled us to investigate more generic issues such as changing patterns of roundhouse architecture, how societies related to what were already ancient monuments in their landscape, and how artefact deposition changed over time.  The Roman remains have provided a rare insight into the nature and conditions of Roman campaigning.

These excavations raised many questions about later prehistoric settlement in this area of Aberdeenshire, which could not be addressed within a developer-funded framework. This led to the development of a series of research excavations around Kintore which were funded by small grants from trusts and archaeological societies, and staffed by students, volunteers from the local community and AOC employees who gave their time voluntarily.