St Germains, Tranent, East Lothian: the excavation of Early Bronze Age remains and Iron Age enclosed and unenclosed settlements

Alexander, Derek; Watkins, Trevor; Gleeson, A; Hunter, Fraser; Sheridan, Alison; Thoms, J

doi:10.9750/psas.128.203.254

Cited by 5 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…In the Mid-Late Bronze Age, the pottery has parallels with vessels from sites such as the unenclosed platform settlements at Lintshie Gutter, Lanarkshire (Terry 1995), Ormiston Farm hut circle, Fife (Sherriff 1988) and Green Knowe, Peeblesshire (Jobey 1980). During the Iron Age in the local area, bucket-shaped plain coarse vessels were found at Broxmouth hillfort (Cool 1982), St Germains (Alexander & Watkins 1998), Dryburn Bridge (Cool 2007) and Fisher's Road, Port Seton (Cowie 2000), all likely dating from around the middle of the first millennium bc and into the first century or two ad.…”

Section: Datingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The Lamb's Nursery and Melville Nursery sites in Dalkeith (Cook 2000;Raisen & Rees 1995) also produced structures of this type. Further afield, many examples of ring-groove house type have been excavated in the Lothian plain area, such as those at Broxmouth (Hill 1982), Dryburn Bridge (Dunwell 2007) and St Germains (Alexander & Watkins 1998).…”

Section: The Ring-groove Structuresmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The ring-groove structures are assumed to belong to an unenclosed settlement -no enclosure ditch or palisade trench was identified within the excavated area, nor in the evaluation trench to the west of the structures, and nothing is visible on aerial photographs. Other apparently unenclosed settlements containing structures of similar type have recently been excavated to the south of Newfarm (Thornybank, Rees 2002), some 2km further south at Eskbank (Lamb's Nursery, Cook 2000), and approximately 3.5km to the north at Inveresk (Neighbour 2007), but ring-groove structures also occur in small enclosed sites such as those at Fishers Road, Port Seton (Adams & Philip 2000) and St Germains (Alexander & Watkins 1998), although these cover a wide date range.…”

Section: Later Prehistoric Sitesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Excavations on the route of the Dalkeith Northern Bypass, 1994–95 and 2006

Cameron¹,

Cressey²,

Dunwell³

et al. 2010

SAIR

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An evaluation and subsequent targeted excavations were carried out along the route of the proposed A68 Dalkeith Northern Bypass by the Centre for Field Archaeology (CFA) between September 1994 and March 1995, with additional watching briefs taking place in 1997. The bypass was not constructed at the time, and further pre-construction mitigation work was recommended in 2005, with fieldwork being carried out in 2006–08. This report describes the results of the evaluations and each excavation individually. The route traverses a narrow strip of the Lothian plain which contained several prehistoric sites, including two ring-groove structures, a stone-paved area and two pit alignments, a Roman temporary camp, a post-medieval building, an 18th-century designed landscape, and two industrial sites (a brick and tile works and a coal pit engine house). Several sites also produced ephemeral remains of earlier or later date. Overall, the results indicated a settlement pattern and land use which concentrated on the sands and gravels of the river terraces, with far less settlement on the unforgiving compacted clays which otherwise characterise large parts of the road corridor.

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Section: Datingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Ring-groove Structuresmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Later Prehistoric Sitesmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Excavations on the route of the Dalkeith Northern Bypass, 1994–95 and 2006

Cameron¹,

Cressey²,

Dunwell³

et al. 2010

SAIR

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Open or Enclosed: Settlement Patterns and Hillfort Construction in Strathdon, Aberdeenshire, 1800bc–ad1000

Cook¹

2013

Proc. Prehist. Soc.

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This article presents a synthetic précis of enclosed and unenclosed settlement in Aberdeenshire over an extended period of study encompassing the later prehistoric and early medieval periods (1800 bc–ad 1000) where the perceived boundary between prehistory and history is of limited significance. The results will then be placed in a wider Scottish context, with a brief discussion of the changing nature of enclosure within the study area.A recent upsurge in research, development, and survey work has, in particular, drawn renewed attention to a discrete cluster of around 20 hillforts in the Strathdon area, which lie well beyond Cunliffe's Hillfort Dominated Zones. In general, the settlement record is predominantly unenclosed but, in the first half of the 1st millennium bc the Strathdon area appears to reflect wider UK trends: there are relatively few hillforts and they appear to be aimed at communal gatherings. Their direct use in conflict appears to have been rare and their ‘defences’ perhaps marked a neutral zone rather than fortification. A putative increase in the volume of agricultural surplus may have led to increased social competition and eventually conflict. After c. 500 bc a variety of local factors influence hillfort design and there is an increase in their number and variability, before the emergence of a single dominant form from Northern Fife to Inverness, and then an abandonment of enclosure until the early medieval period. The current evidence indicates that hillforts were abandoned before the Roman incursions, perhaps by several hundred years and, while they may have been re-occupied, there is as yet no evidence for refortification. In contrast during the early medieval period hillforts appear to have been more actively used in both settlement and conflict. They may relate to a period of expansion amongst local competing polities and the cessation of their construction in the 7th century ad may be connected with the emergence of larger regional power structures.

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Hierarchy to anarchy and back again

Armit¹

2019

Alternative Iron Ages

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St Germains, Tranent, East Lothian: the excavation of Early Bronze Age remains and Iron Age enclosed and unenclosed settlements

Cited by 5 publications

References 15 publications

Excavations on the route of the Dalkeith Northern Bypass, 1994–95 and 2006

Excavations on the route of the Dalkeith Northern Bypass, 1994–95 and 2006

Open or Enclosed: Settlement Patterns and Hillfort Construction in Strathdon, Aberdeenshire, 1800bc–ad1000

Hierarchy to anarchy and back again

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