Fluctuating settlement patterns in Bronze Age Sutherland

The upgrade of the A9, the main trunk road north between Inverness and Wick, traversed the site of a roundhouse at Navidale in Sutherland. Planning conditions required the design and implementation of a mitigation response, which comprised an evaluation, excavation, post-excavation analysis and publication.

The excavation exposed a roundhouse, which was positioned on a natural terrace that had been modified to create a platform. The roundhouse incorporated characteristics common to hut platforms and hut circles across northern Scotland. These included a stone floor, internal circle of post-holes, stone built walls and its excavation into the hillside, with the excavated material cast downslope as a revetment. Other features of the roundhouse including the use of sophisticated stone capped drains, the presence of a large protective bank and the elaboration of the entranceway are less common and provided a unique opportunity for study.

The excavation also recovered a range of artefacts and ecofacts including saddle querns, fishing weights, domestic tools, pottery sherds, flaked lithic implements and charcoal samples. An enigmatic decorated stone pendant was also recovered and is thought to be an import from the Southern Uplands of Scotland.

The Bronze Age roundhouse at Navidale is an important addition to the growing corpus of excavated roundhouses from Northern Scotland. The position of the Navidale roundhouse on a steep hillside and latterly protected by alluvial deposits, has ensured its survival as an upstanding structure, allowing its full complexity to survive intact. Despite the considerable investment of time and materials in its construction, there is no evidence to suggest other than a single, possibly extended, period of use at the site. Evidence from analysis of the alluvial deposits that overlay the house indicates that the abandonment of the roundhouse was intimately linked to a cessation of cultivation in the surrounding landscape. While Navidale’s coastal location gave its inhabitants access to marine resources not available to inland settlements, it seems clear that these were not sufficient on their own to sustain settlement. In view of the evidence from other contemporary settlements, such as that nearby at Lairg, it seems likely that this abandonment is connected to wider environmental decline across northern Scotland rather than simply a localised event of soil exhaustion.

The results of the post-excavation analyses have been drawn together and are to be published by the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland in their Proceedings, which will form the final stage in satisfying the requirements of the planning condition.

AOC Archaeology Group Excavation Director: Lindsay Dunbar
AOC Archaeology Group Post-excavation Manager: Ciara Clarke
Client: Scottish Executive Development Department: Trunk Roads Design and Construction Division, with Historic Scotland.