EHG6346 - Excavation - Areas M1 to M5 and 12 Green, Cabot Highlands, Castle Stuart Golf Course

Six separate and staged ‘strip and record’ excavations (Mitigation Areas M1 to M5 and 12 Green) were undertaken by Avon Archaeology (Highland) in 2023-4 at Castle Stuart, Dalcross, near Inverness. The fieldwork was undertaken as part of a wider staged programme of archaeological work designed to satisfy the requirements of Highland Council planning consents 15/03626/FUL and 19/01446/PAN. This stage of the project was undertaken in advance of and in mitigation of preliminary topsoil stripping and earthmoving for the formation of Holes 10, 11 and 12 of the new Cabot Highlands Championship golf course. Five of the six mitigation areas were eventually conjoined and located in former open farmland that incorporates the Newton of Petty Prehistoric Settlement site, a scheduled monument (SM11835), the area of which was excluded from any development works. The combined footprint of the six mitigation areas totalled approximately 18,000m² and followed on from an earlier programme of evaluation trenching undertaken for this part of the new course in 2023 (see EHG6123), which identified significant buried archaeological deposits either within or adjacent to each of the areas. Topsoil stripping in each of the designated mitigation areas revealed an extensive range of truncated but nonetheless significant buried archaeological deposits and features, the overwhelming majority of which are provisionally dated to the prehistoric period, broadly between the Early Neolithic and Iron Age periods. In very general terms the evidence recorded in Mitigation Areas M1, M2 and M5 was provisionally considered to reflect the remains of an Iron Age settlement that incorporated at least 12 earthfast roundhouse structures (Structures 1, 2, 4 to 6, 8 and 14 to 19), eleven of which were considered to be broadly contemporary, being of similar size with entrances all aligned to the southeast. Differences in the status of the occupants of at least one of the roundhouse buildings (Structure 2) was suggested by the presence of an accompanying yard defined by an oval palisade enclosure that incorporated a southeast-facing entrance. In addition, and of note, the remains of the postulated Iron Age roundhouses were located adjacent to another mitigation area (Area PS5) where the remains of a large circular palisade enclosure were recorded during an earlier stage of the project, which also had a southeast-facing entrance and incorporated a pit containing an iron cart-tyre (see EHG6218). Strip and record excavation in Mitigation Areas M3, M4 and 12 Green revealed further evidence of settlement-related activity including postholes, pits, stakeholes and floor deposits that were interpreted to represent the remains of three separate earthfast timber structures of both rectangular and ovoid plan-form. Two of the three structures were provisionally, but confidently, dated by pottery to the early Neolithic period and the Carinated Bowl (CB) ceramic tradition, which is generally attributed to the first quarter or so of the 4th millennium BC. As such, the postulated structures were deemed to represent a much earlier phase of settlement activity on the site that took place some three thousand years before the roundhouse settlement. If confirmed, this evidence for early Neolithic activity would represent rare and important new evidence for the earliest phase of pioneer agricultural settlement of the Neolithic period, both in the Highlands and Scotland as a whole. The evidence for prehistoric settlement-related activity recorded in Mitigation Areas M1 to M5 and 12 Green, provisionally dated to reflect multi-period settlement-related activity dating to the Early Neolithic and Iron Age periods, was deemed (by the excavator) to be of Regional and probable National Importance. As such a fuller understanding of the chronology and character of prehistoric settlement-related activity on the site, and its relationship with the wider archaeological and natural landscape, would address a number of research questions and priorities identified in the Highland Archaeological Research Framework (HARF)1 and The Scottish Archaeological Research Framework2, which include, but are not restricted to, the following: • Research Agenda 3.13 (Land and Environment - Multi-period settlement sites) • Research Questions 5.9 (Neolithic), in particular 5.9.5 (Neolithic Buildings) • Research Recommendations Agenda 5.12 and 5.17 (Neolithic lithics provenance and The Neolithic of Inverness and its environs) • Research Questions 7.9 (Iron Age), in particular 7.17 (Settlement) • Research Recommendations Agenda 7.1 (Iron Age dating and settlement) and 7.8 (Palisade enclosures*) *because the proposed Iron Age settlement remains recorded in Areas M1, M2 and M5 appear to be contemporary with the large Palisade Enclosure recorded in adjacent Mitigation Area PS5. It was concluded that the evidence gathered during this stage of the Cabot Highlands Castle Stuart archaeology project would have very substantial future research potential. Accordingly, a further comprehensive stage of post-site analysis and reporting was recommended, the details and aims of which would be set out in a separate PERD proposal whose priorities would include establishing a suite of new AMS radiocarbon dates for stratified deposits plus specialist examination and reporting of excavated artefacts and environmental material. <1>