EHG6292 - Excavation - Cabot Highlands, Castle Stuart Golf Championship Course development, Dalcross (PS2 & PS4)

An archaeological ‘strip and record’ mitigation excavation (CH23PS2) was undertaken by Avon Archaeology (Highland) in 2023-4 in advance of preliminary development works for a new Championship Golf Course at Castle Stuart, Dalcross near Inverness. The mitigation-stage fieldwork was designed to fully characterise and record significant buried archaeological deposits, features and finds located in a specific part of the development area, designated Mitigation Area PS2, which had been identified during a preceding stage of evaluation trenching (see EHG5992). Mitigation excavation in Area PS2 recorded the remains of an oval enclosure measuring approximately 20m by 11m in plan, which contained a group of contemporary pits and postholes and appeared to incorporate two opposing entrances. The enclosure was defined by three separate ditches and sited in a sheltered embayment on the flood plain of the Lonnie Burn, alongside a sinuous palaeochannel of the burn, which was canalised in the 19th century. The function of the enclosure remains uncertain although use as a livestock-pen is considered most likely whilst pottery recovered from the boundary ditches provides a provisional later medieval date for its construction and use. The archaeological deposits and features recorded in Mitigation Areas PS2 indicating medieval settlement-related and agricultural activity, were considered to represent important new archaeological evidence that adds to our understanding of rural medieval settlement and activity on the Moray coast. Accordingly, it was recommended that a further and final stage of post-excavation analysis and reporting should be undertaken for selective evidence gathered in order to elucidate and confirm the chronology and character of the archaeological activity represented. Subject to the approval of Highland Council, the details, programme and resources for a final stage of post-site analysis and reporting work for evidence gathered in Mitigation Area PS2 would be set out in a Post-Excavation Research Design (PERD) for approval by Cabot Highlands LLP and Highland Council. <1>