Description

The monument is the remains of an unenclosed settlement dating to between 1800 BC and AD 400. The settlement lies buried beneath the ploughsoil and is visible as cropmarks captured on oblique aerial photographs. The monument lies around 5m above sea level on relatively flat ground some 350m inland from the coast.

Numerous dark crescent- and disc-shaped marks indicate a dense distribution of roundhouses, some immediately adjacent to one another and potentially representing houses of different dates. The visible features range from about 8m to about 16m in diameter. Other curvilinear and linear cropmarks indicate the likely presence of buried souterrains (storage chambers) and sub-rectangular structures.

The scheduled area 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 is expected to survive, as shown in red on the accompanying map. The monument was first scheduled in 1995, but the documentation did not meet modern standards: the present amendment rectifies this.

Source: Historic Environment Scotland

Statement of Scheduling

The monument is of national importance as an unusually dense concentration of roundhouses with the potential to make a significant addition to knowledge and understanding of prehistoric rural settlement and economy in Scotland. Excavations of roundhouses nearby indicates that the features surviving here are likely to comprise relatively deep and robust remains with high potential to retain excellent structural characteristics and rich assemblages of artefacts and ecofacts. The monument offers high potential to compare settlement form and character over a long time period and its importance is enhanced by its association with the wider archaeological landscape of unenclosed settlements and enclosures in the lower Lunan Valley. Our understanding of the distribution and character of later prehistoric settlements would be diminished if this monument was lost or damaged.

Source: Historic Environment Scotland

Sources

Bibliography

Other Information

RCAHMS records the monument as NO64NE 48. The Angus Sites and Monuments Record reference is NO64NE0048.

References

RCAHMS Aerial Photographs DSC1696, AN5488

Pollock, D, 1997, 'The excavation of Iron Age buildings at Ironshill, Inverkeilor, Angus', Proc Soc Antiq Scot 127, 339-358.

McGill, C, 2003, 'The excavation of a palisaded enclosure and associated structures at Ironshill East, near Inverkeilor, Angus', Tayside and Fife Arch Jour 9, 14-33.

Source: Historic Environment Scotland