Dun Ardtreck Visit

Dun Ardtreck

Visited on 9/5/17

For archaeology notes and a plan of the Dun, see the previous post on Dun Ardtreck  

A short walk from the parking spot near NG338354, room for two carefully parked cars only! 

Helpful signposts directed us from there to the track through gates and onto the moorland.  A less friendly, but perhaps necessary, sign was on a final gate - to the effect that any dogs worrying sheep would be shot!


 The Dun soon comes into view (NG33503581)

Dun Ardtreck has been the subject of much controversy among archaeologists.  Is it a D shaped semi broch (Mackie)? Is it a full circular broch where sea erosion has caused part of the walls to fall into the sea (Harding and Martlew)?  Is it simply a variant of the complex roundhouse class (Armitt)?

The last visible stone in one of the "legs" of the D

My own feeling is that it is a D shaped broch (aka semi broch)  as I believe the walls flatten out a little towards the sea and there does seem to be evidence of a wall at the edge of the cliff.  Whether being a D shape makes it a semi broch – Mackie style - or a variant of a complex roundhouse class – well I wouldn’t know but I am not at all sure that the two ideas are contradictory anyway except insofar as Mackie believed the semi broch could have been a prototype of the full brochs.  

 Dun Ringill, Dun Grugaig Glenelg and Dun Ruigh Ruaidh near Loch Boom are other examples of semi brochs according to Mackie. (We visited Dun Ringill in July 2016 ( dun ringil)  and Dun Grugaig in May 2016  (no write up for that part of the trip)

"Guard cell"

Part of an outer wall?

One of the door checks

Detail of stone work

Dun Ardtreck is certainly situated in a highly defensive position

One of the finds at the site was a Roman military style axe - now housed in the Huntarian museum.  The axe wasfound in the phase three deposits.  Such a find is very unusual in remote Highland sites and one possible explanation, offered by Mackie, is that it came directly from the Roman fleets of the governor Agricola's campaign around 80Ad.  Perhaps a gift to the local chieftain?

From the Dun we continued towards the light house and looked at the deserted township at Ardtreck Point.  The township must have been deserted some time ago as the OS map of 1881 ( 6" sheetXXX111) shows five un-roofed buildings. However, we saw more than five and Canmore states that the1969 current edition of the OS 1:10560 map shows fourteen un-roofed buildings and three enclosures.

Dun Ardtreck meaning:
The Dun takes its name from the township at Ardtreck Point   Forbes suggests the name could be derived from Aird Bhreach - meaning speckled point.

References:

Armit, I. (1996) The archaeology of Skye and the Western Isles. Edinburgh 


Forbes, Alexander Robert, (1923)  Place names of Skye and Adjacent Islands (digitised by SMO http://www.smo.uhi.ac.uk/files/PDFs/00915325_Place_Names_of_Skye.pdf.

  Harding, D. W. (2004) , The Iron Age in Northern Britain: Celts and Romans, Natives and Invaders, Routledge, London & New York

Mackie, Euan, Aspects of the origins of the brochs of Atlantic Scotland,retrieved 15/5/17

Mackie, Euan, Excavations at Dun Ardtreck (2000)

(retrieved 5/5/17)

Mackie, Euan, Dun an Ruigh Ruadh, Loch Broom  http://www.euppublishing.com/doi/pdfplus/10.3366/gas.1980.7.7.32, retrieved 15/5/17

Martlew, R. (1982 )The typological study of the structures of the Scottish brochs, in Proc. Soc. Antiq. Scot. 1981-82. vol. 112: 254-76.  Quoted in Mackie above.

 

Dun Ardtreck

Dun Ardretreck will be a fascinating place to visit.  It was excavated in 1964-65 by Euan Mackie who described it as a semi broch.   The idea that this type of structure was a protoype broch had been suggested in 1928 by RCAHMS.      Dun Ardteck U3A walk October 2012 Euan Mackie originally believed such structures were the immediate predecessors of the brochs and this provided evidence that broch construction emanated from Skye.  The excavation was planned to test this hypothesis. From Macsween Ian Armitt does not support this view and considers Adreck as a variant within the complex roundhouse class[1] showing elements of broch architecture but never planned to be a tower like structure. Euan Mackie considers that the Dun was constructed in perhaps the second or third century BC and was in us, not necessarily continuously,  until the sixth or seventh century AD.  Carbon particles found in the excavation were carbon dated to between 170 BC to 110 AD.  This was however, done when carbon dating was in its infancy The Dun was constructed on a rubble platform, presumably laid to create a level area on the rocky knoll on which the Dun stands.  Mackie assumes there were at least two upper galleries and that the original height of the wall would have been around 5-6m. The entrance was 3m long and paved with flat slabs and pebbles. Traces of bar hole and socket were seen being the upright stone slabs which formed the door checks. This is the abstract from the excavation report – which was not published until 2000 – 35 years after the excavation took place!!! From: https://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/archiveDS/archiveDownload?t=arch-352-1/dissemination/pdf/vol_130/130_301_411.pdf (retrieved 5/5/17)[2] picture of one of the fascinating finds from phase 2 occupation - copied from Euan Mackie's report (2) below. References: [1] Armit, I. (1996) The archaeology of Skye and the Western Isles. Edinburgh. Page(s): 118 [2] https://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/archiveDS/archiveDownload?t=arch-352-1/dissemination/pdf/vol_130/130_301_411.pdf (retrieved 5/5/17) MacSween, A 1985 The Brochs, Duns and Enclosures of Skye. Northern Archaeology Group: Newcastle (= Northern Archaeology 5/6).