EHG427 - Watching brief - A836 Road realignment, Achany Glen, Lairg

A watching brief was undertaken by AOC (Scotland) in 1995-6 on the progress of construction works on the Achinduich to Lairg Auction Mart section of the A836 upgrading scheme. The watching fieldwork began sometime after the start of construction works, which had been underway for almost a month prior to the start of fieldwork and consequently access to archaeological sites and features was, in various ways, inhibited. At the start of the fieldwork 1300m of the 3km roadline had already been soil-stripped and over 800m of the initial levels of road-base had been laid. The task of the watching brief therefore was to combine a rapid survey of the exposed profiles at the road edge with observation of on-going soil-stripping. The working practices and schedule of the road contractor permitted this approach, with discrete phases of soil-stripping and in between periods when the exposed profiles could be surveyed. A variety of factors affected the quality of observation. Adverse weather and ground conditions (in December 1995 and January 1996 conditions were severe with the lowest recorded site temperature being -29° C), coupled with the consequent flexibility and unpredictability in the engineer's schedule, were significant factors affecting the choice of, and access to, particular exposures of archaeological sediment The work identified 24 archaeological sites. Of these, seven were securely correlated to sites identified in the 1988 and 1989 Lairg surveys (see EHG377). The majority of new sites (nine) were located in zones identified by the predictive site evaluation of the 1989 survey as having a medium potential for archaeological sediments. In general, zones evaluated by the 1989 survey as being probable locations of significant archaeological sediments produced few new sites (three). Those areas evaluated as being low or blank in archaeological potential by the 1989 survey produced five new sites. In one case the observation and recording process was expanded to a full scale area excavation. The site in this case had been previously recorded as a probable round-house and could now be described as a small enclosed cremation cemetery. <1> The results of the excavation of the 'enclosed cremation cemetery', subsequently thouight to be a small henge-type feature was later published. <2>