EHG5416 - Watching brief - Quarry site, Wester Balblair

A watching brief during topsoil stripping was undertaken by AOC Archaeology in 2015 in advance of the extraction (Phase 1b southern area) of further reserves of sand and gravel at Balblair Quarry, Wester Balblair, Beauly. The mitigation work followed an archaeological evaluation undertaken in May 2015 (see EHG4756) and excavation in September 2015 (see EHG5415). The evaluation sampled a possible burial cairn and three possible oval banked enclosures, together with a number of agricultural clearance cairns of probable prehistoric date. The excavation works were to further investigate the possible burial cairn through excavation with the possible enclosures being subject to a programme of controlled top‐soil stripping in order to further reveal their form. The subsequent archaeological watching brief revealed two pre C19 earthen banks, three C19 midden spreads and several patches of burning of unknown date. <1> NB: the report does not contain plans of the excavated areas tied into the OS national grid.