The Pit Alignment at Eskbank Nurseries

Barber, John; Strong, P. I.V.; Mate, Ian D; Bailey, S. W.; Moffat, Brian; Anderson, Helen; Hepburn, A.

doi:10.1017/s0079497x00007076

Cited by 17 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 21 publications

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“…Rylatt & Bevan 2007), or as a territorial division or symbolic marker (e.g. section 4 'Castlesteads and Langside' in Cameron et al 2010) or as a means of land sub-division (Halliday 1982;Barber 1985).…”

Section: Late Iron Agementioning

confidence: 99%

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Ellis¹,

Hamilton²,

Ramsay³

et al. 2016

SAIR

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Section: Late Iron Agementioning

confidence: 99%

Untitled

Ellis¹,

Hamilton²,

Ramsay³

et al. 2016

SAIR

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“…The entire length of the pit alignment within the road corridor was then excavated by hand. A further evaluation carried The site lies on the same soil formation, fluvioglacial deposits, as the pit alignment excavated at Eskbank Nurseries by Barber (1985), and the expectation that similar conditions of preservation of organic remains would prevail underpinned the excavation strategy. The principal objectives were to recover secure evidence of the date and function of the pit alignment wherever possible, and to record the basic dimensions and spatial arrangement of the pits.…”

Section: Strategymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A preliminary assessment of the macrofossil content and the presence and state of preserva-tion of palynomorphs in two soil samples from pit 4 indicated the presence of identifiable pollen grains and the potential for a detailed palynological analysis of a putative humus regeneration band within the pit (Clarke 1996). Pollen analysis of a similar band in a pit alignment, also in the Dalkeith area, permitted an environmental reconstruction and a hypothesis of the function of the pit alignment (Barber 1985).…”

Section: Pollen Analysis By Robert Mccullochmentioning

confidence: 99%

Excavations on the Route of the Dalkeith Northern Bypass, 1994-95 and 2006

Dunwell¹,

Cressey²,

Cameron³

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 work was commissioned by Historic Scotland on behalf of the Roads Directorate of the Scottish Office Industry Department. 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 by CFA Archaeology Ltd, for Historic Scotland on behalf of Transport Scotland.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 (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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“…In fact these linear landscape features include continuous lengths of ditch as well as single and double pit-alignments, all three seemingly part of an integrated system. The advantage of pit-construction over a continuous ditch is far from apparent, even if one assumes that the pits or ditch served only as a quarry for the upcast bank, rather than as post-foundations (Barber 1985). Mackay's (1980) excavation at Drem showed the pits to be relatively shallow, and to contain no structural features in or around them, so it may be presumed that any effective barrier must have been in the form of a hedge or fence atop the bank.…”

Section: The Contour Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

Later Prehistory in South‐East Scotland: A Critical Review

Harding

2001

Oxford J Archaeology

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This paper reviews the progress of research over the past twenty years, with particular reference to enclosed and unenclosed settlement, agricultural patterns, domestic structural types and burial practices of the Iron Age in the south-eastern Borders. The concept of a 'trend towards enclosure' in the first millennium BC is reviewed and rejected, not least on the grounds of evidence from excavation for the dating sequences of major enclosed sites. In consequence a new overview of the later prehistoric settlement of the region is now possible, consistent with the accumulating archaeological and environmental data.The publication of the proceedings of a conference held in Edinburgh in 1981 entitled Later Prehistory in South-East Scotland (Harding 1982) represented the culmination of a period of activity in field research in the region which was unparalleled since the pioneer post-war programme particularly associated with the name of Mrs Peggy Piggott. It involved a number of (then) younger staff of the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland and younger professional field archaeologists, as well as established staff from the University of Edinburgh and members of local amateur archaeological field groups. Field survey was combined with an intensive programme of air survey, particularly in the Roxburghshire Cheviots, coinciding with the excavation of some key sites in the East Lothian and Berwickshire coastal plain, sponsored by the then Scottish Development Department in advance of destruction.One of the major advances of this programme of fieldwork (Barclay 1995) was the recognition that narrow, 'cord-rig' agriculture (Halliday 1986) was in the Borders associated with both Roman-period and pre-Roman settlement, dating from the mid-first millennium BC at least, along with palisaded enclosures and ring-ditch houses. But it was not simply the recognition of a distinctive class of agricultural remains which marked a significant watershed, but the fact that in some cases these highly fugitive traces, often virtually undetectable from the ground without the evidence of air-photography, occurred extensively in the Borders uplands (though commonly made up of a patchwork of smaller areas), linking extant settlements into a landscape pattern on a scale which was very much more comprehensive than was normally recoverable in lowland areas where later occupation and agriculture had been more intensive. Even in such a well-researched area such as the Borders, these remarkable survivals allowed the potential for a qualitative advance in understanding and interpretation.

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The Pit Alignment at Eskbank Nurseries

Cited by 17 publications

References 21 publications

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Excavations on the Route of the Dalkeith Northern Bypass, 1994-95 and 2006

Later Prehistory in South‐East Scotland: A Critical Review

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