EHG4673 - Excavation - Broomhill to Logie Easter A9 Diversion

An archaeological excavation was carried out in February 1993 by the Centre for Field Archaeology (CFA) along the route of the planned diversion of the A9 between Broomhill and Logie Easter, near Invergordon, Ross and Cromarty (NH 738 727). The precise location of the trenches was constrained by the working width for the diversion and the position of features identified from aerial photographs and a geophysical survey conducted by GUARD (EHG121). Most of the geophysical survey had been located outside the final working width. A very deep topsoil was present, and the negative features exposed during excavation were mostly severely truncated, and so had not been detected by the geophysical survey conducted within the final working width. The excavation revealed a number of features cut into the subsoil. A presumed pennanular ditch on the edge of Area A, which could not be exposed to its full extent, enclosed a number of post-holes. The fill of the ditch contained a single potsherd, dated to the early to mid-first millenium bc. Although the suite of features was incomplete, it is probably the remains of a hut-circle. A second straight ditch nearly 200m to the south-west of the hut-circle contained three sherds of a similar first millenium date, whilst four similar shards were recovered from the topsoil nearby. The ditch is potentially part of a contemporary field system. The group of sherds recovered represents the southernmost talc-tempered pottery find in northern Scotland to date. Further lengths of ditches and a proad cut, which may have been a trackway, were contained within the excavation areas. Some of these coincided with linear features originally observed on aerial photographs. The ditches form two superimposed systems of uncertain date. A variety of modern features were also recorded, mainl geological test-pits excavated by Aberdeen University. <1> The excavation assembalge from the site was was allocated by the HS panel to Inverness Museum in 1998. <2>