Kintore Landscape Project

Between 2000 and 2004, AOC Archaeology Group staff members Murray Cook and Lindsay Dunbar oversaw several developer-funded excavations around Kintore, Aberdeenshire. This work covered 18 ha, produced more Neolithic pottery than the whole of the rest of Aberdeenshire, more roundhouses than have been excavated in any location in Scotland and over 180 Roman bread ovens. These major excavations significantly took place within one of the regional ‘Black Holes’ identified within Understanding the British Iron Age: an agenda for change. The full results of the excavations will be published shortly in Rituals, Roundhouses and Romans, Excavations at Kintore, Aberdeenshire 2000-2006, Volume 1: Forest Road.

Despite the wealth of settlement evidence revealed during these excavations, there were intriguing gaps in the excavation record. There was no Mesolithic evidence, no enclosures and a gap in the sequence from about 50 BC to AD 600. The Kintore Landscape Project aimed to fill these gaps with targeted excavations assisted by local volunteers. A further aim was to develop local expertise around Kintore, to enable volunteers to engage with their area’s past and to develop their own research projects with appropriate professional support.

The Kintore Landscape Project has so far included fieldwalking, test-pitting and a keyhole excavation at Wester Fintray Farm in 2004, which identified a Mesolithic lithics scatter, recovered dating material from an upstanding cairn and identified several possible cup-marks near the cairn. A pollen core taken from a nearby bog, Rollo Mire, was also assessed. This was followed by another keyhole excavation within two hut circles at Balbithan Forest in March 2005, and the excavation of the Wester Fintray Mesolithic lithic scatter in October 2005.

In 2006, a two week excavation was undertaken at Bruce’s Camp, a large hillfort just above Inverurie. This site lies immediately above the line of the A96, the route of every invasion northwards from the Romans to the Hanoverians, and close to the Roman Marching Camp at Kintore. The excavations revealed considerable evidence for activity across the hilltop from the Bronze Age to the post-medieval period. Finds included a cup marked stone, terracing and an Iron Age crucible. The excavations also revealed evidence for vitrified stone around the entire perimeter of the hillfort’s inner rampart, indicating that the original timber-laced stone walls were once burnt so fiercely that the stones melted and fused together. This very likely represented the deliberate and, given its location, very prominent destruction of the hillfort after being captured by enemies. The destruction layer and a burnt in situ post were radiocarbon dated to 410-340 BC and 540-360 BC. The excavation of the entrance, however, revealed that the site was refortified after its destruction by fire. It also became clear that the outer rampart at the entrance was merely for show: at the entrance it was 4 m wide but around the southern side it simply became a rickle of stones less than 1 m wide and did not even join the inner rampart.
Post-excavation works are underway, and it is planned to publish the results of this work in the second volume of the Kintore Monograph in 2008.

AOC Excavation Directors: Murray Cook & Lindsay Dunbar
Research Grant Support:Aberdeenshire Council, Historic Scotland, The Council for British Archaeology, The Catherine Mackichan Trust, Glasgow Archaeological Society, The Society of Antiquaries of Scotland and The University of Edinburgh Archaeology Department.