Excavations on Iron Age and Medieval Earthworks At the Dod, Borders Region, 1979–81

Abstract

Over three seasons between 1979 and 1981 the author undertook, on behalf of the then Historic Buildings and Monuments Directorate (Scottish Development Department), the rescue excavation of a 2.4 ha native settlement in advance of land reclamation for upland arable farming. Though limited in extent, the excavations identified a complex sequence of four major phases of occupation. Dating evidence was scarce but occupation appears to have begun as an unenclosed settlement during the Iron Age that was subsequently enclosed within earthen ramparts. Occupation inside the earthworks continued at least until the second century A.D. and a succession of later phases of building indicates that the site may have been settled continually or intermittently until the seventeenth century.