Description

The monument comprises the remains of three hut circles, possibly of Late Bronze Age or Iron Age date (late second or first millennium BC). One of the hut circles has an enclosure around it which is interpreted as a yard; it has previously been referred to as a 'homestead'. The other two are unenclosed. The hut circles appear as roughly circular features built of earth and stones. They are situated on an E-facing slope around Cat Craig, at a height of around 250m above sea level and around 230m W of Gotter Water.

Situated in rough grazing on an upland moor, the hut circles are overgrown with long grass and heather. The first (westernmost) hut circle measures around 8m in diameter with an entrance on the SE side. It is visible as wall footings up to 0.5m high and around 1.5m thick. The hut circle is contained within a rectangular enclosure, some 24m NW-SE by 19m transversely, which comprises a boulder-faced wall standing around 0.3m high and up to 1m wide. Situated 40m to the SSE is a second hut circle, marked by a penannular bank of grass-covered stones. The second hut circle is scooped into the slope on its W arc to a depth of around 0.5m. If complete, the circle would have a diameter of around 9m. A third hut circle is located to the ENE. It is situated on a circular platform which is scooped into the slope on its S side and revetted on the N with a stony bank. The platform measures around 12m in diameter. A D-shaped enclosure, roughly 7m in diameter and defined by a narrow stony bank abuts the hut circle on the NE side. Along the S side of the hut circle and enclosure runs a linear stone bank or revetment around 15m long and up to 0.3m high.

The area to be scheduled is irregular on plan, to include the remains described above and an area around them within which evidence relating to the monument's construction, use and abandonment may survive, as shown in red on the accompanying map.

Source: Historic Environment Scotland

Statement of Scheduling

The monument's cultural significance can be expressed as follows:

Intrinsic characteristics

This well-preserved group of hut circles probably defines a Late Bronze Age or Iron Age settlement. Visible as clearly defined earthworks, the monument represents a fine example of a settlement with an unusual combination of enclosed and unenclosed elements.

Given their good condition, the hut circles have excellent potential to tell us more about the way they were built and used. It is unclear whether all three houses were built and occupied at the same time, or if the site represents several generations of inhabitants who built, repaired and abandoned a number of houses along the banks of the Gotter Water. The reason for changes in form, such as the presence of an enclosure, may represent changes in functional needs over time. Alternatively the annexe attached to the SE wall of the third hut circle may reflect prolonged occupation and expansion by its inhabitants. Another possibility is that hut circle 1 and its enclosure may be of one build and be of different date to its neighbours.

The excellent condition of the upstanding earthworks, with no evidence of disturbance, suggests that well-preserved archaeological remains of the roundhouses may also survive below ground. These buried remains can help us to understand more about the design, construction, phasing and use of the buildings. A high potential exists for the survival of buried land surfaces beneath the roundhouse banks that could preserve information about the nature of the environment before and when the monument was constructed, adding to the time-depth represented by the remains. The upstanding banks may also contain evidence relating to the creation, use and abandonment of the buildings, helping to inform our understanding of the character of late-prehistoric enclosed and unenclosed settlement, including local variations in domestic architecture and building use.

Buried features such as postholes and pits may lie inside or beyond the buildings and offer potential for additional archaeologically significant deposits that can enhance our understanding of later prehistoric society, such as beliefs and rituals, domestic economy and agricultural practices and domestic architecture. Other buried remains, such as artefacts and ecofacts, may also survive within the immediate vicinity of the known roundhouses and have the potential to tell us more about the settlement's construction, occupation and use. Excavations at comparable later prehistoric settlement sites have also demonstrated the potential for the deposition of fragmentary human remains in and around such monuments. The monument has an inherent capacity to further our understanding of the treatment of human remains during this period, as well as increase our knowledge of pathology and other details of the population of the time.

Contextual characteristics

Researchers have very little firm evidence for the evolution of settlement types over time in SW Scotland, giving sites such as this considerable potential to contribute to a better understanding in future. Scientific dating has not been widely applied and the precise date of most prehistoric settlements is uncertain. Radiocarbon dating of deposits from recent work on stone-walled roundhouses at Picketlaw in Renfrewshire suggests that the houses started in the Middle Bronze Age (around 1800-1200 BC) and continued into the Late Bronze Age (1200-800 BC). Further afield, excavation at Lintshie Gutter in Clydesdale shows that unenclosed settlements of hut platforms date to around 2000-1500 BC. While it is difficult to identify unenclosed roundhouses that definitely derive from the Iron Age (800 BC-400 AD), researchers believe that upstanding roundhouses in the Renfrewshire uplands may nevertheless belong to this period.

The monument lies to the E of Queenside Moor, an upland expanse of rough grazing and moorland SW of Kilmacolm, and an area beyond the limits of medieval and later cultivation. The three roundhouses to be scheduled are part of a small cluster of six previously recorded. The remaining three have not been identified on the ground in recent years and may have become overgrown with vegetation.

A circular enclosure, identified as the remains of a hut circle have been recorded around 790m to the SW on Windy Hill. Another hut circle is recorded around 995m to the E and 1080m to the NW are two oval enclosures. In addition a Bronze Age cairn has been recorded 710m to the ENE. In general later prehistoric remains usually only survive in this condition in upland or marginal land as centuries of development and intensive cultivation have destroyed similar remains in lowland landscapes. These sites provide a wide variety of comparators for the roundhouses described here, though the known distribution of roundhouses has been shaped by disturbance in the lowlands and by the activity of researchers who surveyed specific areas. Moreover, these houses can be compared with a variety of homesteads, enclosures and forts that are also potentially of contemporary date. Other examples of homesteads in the region at Knockmade Hill and Knapps may have originated in the Bronze Age and, at the hillfort at Craigmarloch Wood, around 7.74km to the NE, the palisade that predated a timber-laced rampart may date to around 800 BC. Small homesteads appear to have continued in use through much of the later 1st millennium BC, just as larger hillforts also appear in the landscape, suggesting the emergence of small tribal units. The later defences at Craigmarloch and the hillfort at Walls, the largest hillfort in the former county of Renfrewshire, provide local examples. This monument thus has particular potential to contribute towards a better understanding of the character and date of dwellings, including size, number of entrances, design and placement in the landscape. By comparing this monument to a range of others nearby we can learn more about the evolution of settlement in the former county of Renfrewshire and more widely across Scotland, gaining a fuller picture of the development of prehistoric landscape and society in the region over time.

Additionally, research suggests that the people who built and lived in hut circles such as these organised the internal space of their homes in specific ways. This may have influenced factors such as the orientation of doorways and the position of the main hearth. The assigning of certain areas to specific activities is likely to have been based partly on practical considerations, as well as social conventions and spiritual or ritual beliefs. For example, excavation of Bronze Age and Iron Age houses at Cladh Hallan on South Uist suggested that interiors were divided into areas and certain activities took place in specific places within. This monument has the potential to contribute further our understanding of the use of domestic space.

National Importance

This monument is of national importance because it has an inherent potential to inform us of a settlement type that characterises the wider Bronze Age and Iron Age domestic landscape. The excellent levels of preservation, the lack of recent cultivation and the survival of marked field characteristics greatly enhance this potential. Domestic remains and artefacts from settlements have the potential to tell us about wider society, its architecture, how people lived, where they came from and who they had contacts with. In this area in particular, analysis of domestic monuments and associated cultural material may provide evidence of native-Roman interaction. The old ground surfaces sealed by the upstanding remains may provide information about the nature of the contemporary environment and the use made of it by prehistoric farmers. The monument forms an intrinsic element of the later prehistoric settlement pattern in the high moorland to the south of the Clyde. Spatial analysis of sites may inform our understanding of patterns of landholding and the expansion, or contraction, of settlement. Its loss or diminution would impede significantly our ability to understand the placing of such monuments within the landscape, both in this area and across Scotland, as well as our knowledge of later prehistoric social structure, economy and building practices.

Source: Historic Environment Scotland

Sources

Bibliography

RCAHMS record the monument as NS36SW 2; West of Scotland Archaeological Service SMR as 6907. The site lies within the Renfrewshire Heights Site of Special Scientific Interest (SNH Site code 8666). A copy of the SSSI citation is appended.

References

Newall, F 1962, 'Early open settlement in Renfrewshire', Proc Soc Antiq Scot 95 (1961-2), 159-70.

Pope, R 2007 'Ritual and the roundhouse: a critique of recent ideas on the use of domestic space in later British prehistory', in C Haselgrove and R Pope (eds), 2007, The Earlier Iron Age in Britain and the near Continent Oxford: Oxbow, 204-28.

Source: Historic Environment Scotland