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| Cropmark Archaeological Sites |  |
Cropmarks are archaeological sites that have been ploughed flat. Most of the occupation layers at these sites have been destroyed, leaving just those features dug into the subsoil, such as ditches, post-holes, or wall foundations, as the only traces of past human activity.
Cropmarks are discovered through aerial photographs, which will show darker or lighter areas depending on the type of remains below the surface.
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If the remains of a wall survive below the surface, this will stop the roots of the crops and they will grow badly. In the case of a feature like a ditch, this will favour the roots and the crops will grow better over these types of features. |
Much archaeological information has already been lost. Everything above the ground has been ploughed away. But more still remains to be discovered!
The surviving information below the ground surface, like the arrangement of ditches, walls and post-holes and the artefacts found within them, can provide us with a better understanding of when and how people lived long ago. If we did not know about cropmark sites, we would have missed a lot of the archaeology of Scotland.
The Braehead cropmark site was first seen in an aerial photograph. A three ditched enclosure with a circular house in the centre was spotted in a RAF photograph of this site. But a few years ago tons of spoil was dumped over the site, hiding it from view.
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