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Meall Greigh
At Meall Greigh, a small team excavated a rectangular shieling hut and some adjacent features, including part of a small stone dairy or store. Inside the shieling hut was a fire spot or hearth, tucked just inside the doorway, and trampled earthen floors. We also found a number of stone pot lids, a kind of artefact usually found on prehistoric sites but clearly used here in the storage of dairy products such as butter and cheese, which documentary sources say were made at the shielings. Outside the hut, the mounds to either side of the entrance that are characteristic of these buildings proved to be structural features, built of turf to support the single-skin drystone walls. The mound to the east of the doorway was augmented with ash and charcoal raked out from the hearth. Early firespots sealed beneath this material and to the north of the shieling hut may provide dating evidence for the earliest activity at the site.
August and September 2003 excavations at Kiltyrie longhouse and shieling at Meall Greigh
Excavations at Kiltyrie and Meall Greigh (7.8mb) [External Link]
April 2003 survey of the group of sheilings on the slopes of Meall Greigh and survey of the longhouse and tower house at Edramucky
Edramucky and Meall Greigh Survey PDF (2.11MB) [External Link]
Learn more about the Geophysics at Meall Greigh.
Kiltyrie Head-dyke
The third survey season of the Ben Lawers Project was undertaken in September 2003. Work focused on two areas of relict remains within the former outfields of Tombreck and just north of the head-dyke above Kiltyrie on the north side of Loch Tay. The project aimed to produce detailed surveys of structures at both locations and undertake limited excavation over seven structures within both areas. This sample excavation was pursued in order to cast further light on a number of unmapped settlement forms, which were then investigated in September 2004. The 2004 excavation investigated the remains of a turf hut located within an area of rig and furrow cultivation above the head-dyke.
The Kiltyrie structure did not appear on any of the known map coverage for the area, which suggested that they may pre-date Farquharson's survey of North Loch Tayside in 1769. This was confirmed in 2005 (Atkinson et al 2004a, 15-17 & 21), when the site was trial trenched and revealed a hearth deposit. Material from this hearth provided a radiocarbon date range of 1300-1440 AD.
Kiltyrie turf structure under excavation in 2005
August and September 2003 excavations at Kiltyrie longhouse and shieling at Meall Greigh
Excavations at Kiltyrie and Meall Greigh (7.8 mb) [External Link]
