peeblesshire-1967-vol-1/03_060

Transcription

INTRODUCTION: THE EARLY IRON AGE

The fourth kind of timber house is larger and more substantial than those already describe-
ed. If the outer wall was set in a continuous bedding-trench - as in the case of West Plean II, ¹
Harehope III (No. 199), and West Brandon ² - the trench may be visible before excavation;
and the large ring-groove houses in the palisaded homesteads at White Knowe (No. 208) and
Gray Coat ³ may therefore belong to this category. In other cases, however, the wall-timbers of
houses of advanced design, such as West Brandon A, were erected in individual post-holes, and
no surface remains can be seen.
Of the four hundred or so Early Iron Age house sites recorded in the Inventory, one hundred
and thirty are probably of ring-groove type and only seventeen of the ring-ditch type. The
majority of the remaining sites take the form of shallow circular depressions or platforms,
according to the slope of the ground, which are much larger than the similar features found in
the interiors of certain ring-groove houses (supra, p. 21). It is reasonable to assume that these
platforms, like those of the unenclosed platform settlements described in the next section,
served as stances for timber houses, but in the absence of excavation nothing is known of the
type of house in question. In four cases (Nos. 231, 258, 318 and 335) the house-platforms are
bordered by a thin scatter of stones, the significance of which can only be determined by
excavation.
Although scarcely anything is known about the origins of the various house types discussed
above, indications of their chronological relationship have been furnished by a few sites. Thus
at Harehope (No. 199) a ring-groove house was found to overlie a simple ring house, and to be
itself overlain by a house of advanced design. Simple ring houses were also the first dwellings
to be erected at West Plean and Brandon, and in both cases they were replaced by more
elaborate houses of the fourth category. It is only to be expected, however, that the different
types should overlap, and there is some evidence that this actually happened. For at Moss-
fennan (No. 352) a house of the simple ring class was apparently occupied as late as the 1st or
2nd century A.D. And whereas at Horsburgh Castle Farm (No. 195) ring-groove houses were
clearly later than ring-ditch houses, a study of the palisaded settlement and fort on Craik
Moor, ⁴ where both types of house occur, leads to the opposite conclusion.

(ii) UNENCLOSED PLATFORM SETTLEMENTS

A new type of prehistoric habitation, the unenclosed platform settlement, was first recognised
during the preparation of this Inventory. No fewer than forty-six examples have been recorded
in the county, thirty-four of which are sufficiently well preserved to have been planned.
Reconnaissance in adjoining counties has shown that similar settlements exist in some numbers
in the Upper Ward of Lanark, while one outlying example is known in Midlothian and another
in Roxburghshire. None has so far been found, however, in Annandale or in Northumberland.
Only one unenclosed platform settlement, at Green Knowe (No. 151), has been excavated, ⁵
and the most significant relic recovered from it, a vessel with a flat internal bevel at the rim,
cannot be precisely dated. Nevertheless, its apparent relationship to certain other wares found
in eastern Scotland between Traprain Law (East Lothian) and the Sands of Forvie (Aberdeen-

1 Loc. cit.
2 Loc. cit.
3Inventory of Roxburghshire, No. 994.
4 Ibid., No. 650.
5 P.S.A.S., xciv (1960-1), 79 ff.

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