Documents

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The legal document available for download below constitutes the formal designation of the monument under the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 1979. The additional details provided on this page are provided for information purposes only and do not form part of the designation. Historic Environment Scotland accepts no liability for any loss or damages arising from reliance on any inaccuracies within this additional information.

• Type

  Legal Documents

  Title

  SM12541_Legal Doc

  Download(https://portal.historicenvironment.scot/document/600014290)

Summary

Description

The monument comprises a complex of prehistoric remains, including two Late Bronze Age or Iron-Age hut circles and a Bronze-Age ring cairn. They are located in the coastal dunes of the Sands of Forvie nature reserve at around 20m above sea level.

The remains comprise two hut circles. Nineteen examples were noted in the area in the 1950s, although only two are now visible, with the remainder reburied by the movement of the dunes. The NW example is the larger of the two, being around 18m in diameter. The surrounding bank is incomplete and survives as several short segments of its circuit. The NW side is revetted with orthostats and the interior appears slightly raised above the external ground surface.

The second hut circle lies about 45m SE of the first example, and is slightly smaller. It measures around 13m N-S by around 14m transversely. The structure is defined by a continuous ring of orthostats, up to 0.5m high on the NE, defining its circuit. A small entrance gap is evident in the E.

The ring cairn lies around 45m S of the second hut circle. The cairn is around 5m in diameter and is best preserved on the SW arc, where it can be observed that the cairn wall is 1.3m wide. Both the inner and outer kerbs survive for part of their circuit. It has been suggested that the cairn and the huts are contemporary.

The area to be scheduled is rectilinear on plan, to include the remains described and an area around within which evidence relating to their construction and use may survive, as shown in red on the accompanying map.

Statement of National Importance

Cultural Significance

The monument's cultural significance can be expressed as follows:

Intrinsic characteristics

The monument is visible as upstanding features, relatively well-preserved examples of hut circles, likely to date to the Late Bronze Age or Iron-Age, and a ring cairn, likely to date to the Bronze Age. The hut circles appear to be representative of a much wider settlement that survives on the site beneath the dunes, and that appears to be relatively undisturbed. The ring cairn also appears relatively intact and, although the primary burials appear to have been excavated, similar monuments have revealed more than one burial beneath the cairn. Further buried deposits have the potential to inform us of the economic and social environment at the time. The cairn is also highly likely to seal parts of a buried ground surface and this could provide evidence of the environment during the Bronze Age when the monument was constructed and used. The monument has the potential to further our understanding of later prehistoric domestic and funerary practice and their relationship, as well as inform our knowledge of the structural features of such monuments.

Contextual characteristics

This monument belongs to a diverse range of prehistoric monuments in the Strathdon region. Hut circles, a characteristic type of settlement structure of the later prehistoric period, have a widespread survival, in a variety of forms, across Scotland and further afield. It is an extensive and varied class of monument. This example survives as upstanding remains in a lowland coastal location, an atypical survival in a landscape rich in contemporary features. This monument has the potential, when compared and contrasted to other examples, to inform our understanding of geographical variation in the construction, uses and survival of its type.

This ring cairn belongs to a diverse group of around 165 surviving Bronze-Age burial cairns in the Strathdon area. Seventy-one of these have now been completely removed, the rest, including this example, surviving as visible and upstanding monuments to varying degrees. This monument's importance is enhanced by the rarity of ring cairns in Strathdon, with only six examples being known. The number of cairns in this area is also significant, as the majority of cairns found in Strathdon are isolated examples, yet this example is only around 310m SSW of the Sands of Forvie group of kerb cairns, and it is likely that further examples survive beneath the dunes. The location of such sites was extremely important, and this particular example lies close to the North Sea, on low-lying coastal dunes. Further prehistoric remains, including hut circles, ring cairns, flint debitage and hearths have been found in the area. Many of these remains were exposed in the 1950s but have since been reburied by the movement of the dunes, suggesting there may be extensive prehistoric settlement pattern surviving at Sands of Forvie, of which the hut circles and cairn represent only a small part. Spatial analysis of this site with other contemporary sites may further our understanding of later prehistoric settlement, economy and funerary site location, as well as the structure of society.

National Importance

This monument is of national importance because it has the potential to contribute to an understanding of the past, in particular Bronze-Age burial architecture and practice in Scotland, and Bronze-Age and Iron-Age settlement. It also fits into a distinctive pattern of prehistoric burial and settlement in the Strathdon area. Skeletal remains and artefacts from such burials have the potential to tell us about wider prehistoric society, how people lived, where they came from and who they had contact with. The old ground surface sealed by the monument can provide information about what the contemporary environment looked like and how the prehistoric people who interred their dead here managed the surrounding land. The juxtaposition of burials with later settlements can help us to understand how prehistoric people used a place through time. Its loss would impede our ability to understand the placing of such monuments within the landscape, as well as our knowledge of later prehistoric social structure and economy.

References

Bibliography

About Scheduled Monuments

Historic Environment Scotland is responsible for designating sites and places at the national level. These designations are Scheduled monuments, Listed buildings, Inventory of gardens and designed landscapes and Inventory of historic battlefields.

We make recommendations to the Scottish Government about historic marine protected areas, and the Scottish Ministers decide whether to designate.

Scheduling is the process that identifies, designates and provides statutory protection for monuments and archaeological sites of national importance as set out in the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 1979.

We schedule sites and monuments that are found to be of national importance using the selection guidance published in Designation Policy and Selection Guidance (2019)

Scheduled monument records provide an indication of the national importance of the scheduled monument which has been identified by the description and map. The description and map (see ‘legal documents’ above) showing the scheduled area is the designation of the monument under the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 1979. The statement of national importance and additional information provided are supplementary and provided for general information purposes only. Historic Environment Scotland accepts no liability for any loss or damages arising from reliance on any inaccuracies within the statement of national importance or additional information. These records are not definitive historical or archaeological accounts or a complete description of the monument(s).

The format of scheduled monument records has changed over time. Earlier records will usually be brief. Some information will not have been recorded and the map will not be to current standards. Even if what is described and what is mapped has changed, the monument is still scheduled.

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