EHG6140 - Watching brief - new inderground cabling, Braal Castle

An archaeological watching brief was carried out by Highland Archaeology Services in 2023 on behalf of SSEN during works to underground a short section of previously over head cable at Braal Castle, Halkirk, Caithness. The fieldwork was undertaken for a 37m section of wire trench opened between an existing pole and an existing electric junction as well as the sighting for a new stay for the pole. Part of the route passed within 3m of the Braal Castle Scheduled Monument (SM619) area and the existing stay was noted to be very close to the castle wall. During the excavation a patch of burned material was noted in the base of the excavated trench approximately 12m to the southwest of the castle. This deposit was cleaned, photographed, and plotted in using the GPS and sampled. During the sampling an incisor and mandible thought to belong to a pig was also recovered. A few sherds of modern ceramic were also recovered from the topsoil particularly around a modern pathway leading from Braal House past the castle. No other deposits or finds thought to be of significance were noted during the watching brief. Due to its proximity to a scheduled monument recommendations were made to carry out some limited post-excavation work including sample processing, archaeobotanical analysis, and radiocarbon dating. <1> Post-excavation work including the analysis of the material from the patch of burned material was subsequently undertaken. Two samples from context 4 were radiocarbon dated. These provided a date from the late Iron Age/ Early Medieval period and a date from the Medieval / Viking period demonstrating that this was mixed deposit which may have been redeposited from nearby. Whilst these two dates were separated by several hundred years, this demonstrated that there was activity within the vicinity of the site to at least the late Iron Age / Early Medieval period. The pig mandible and canine suggested that butchery from a high-status site may have been taking place nearby. In addition it was suggested that the presence of cinder within the sample may indicate that an industrial process may have taken place here. <2>