Structure — peatland in Agharrow

Within a peat layer exposed on a beach, on a NW-facing bay. A church (SL005-022001-), known as Staad Abbey, is located c. 25m NE. In May 2017 several upright timber stakes and other pieces of timber were noted in a peat layer exposed when a covering layer of loose beach cobbles had been swept away by storm/wave action. A rescue excavation (17E0317) was carried out on behalf of the National Monument Service between 27 June and 3 July 2017 to investigate and record the timber features as they were vulnerable to further erosion and possible destruction (Beglane 2018). The excavation was limited to the exposed portion (c. 30m E−W; c. 4.6m N−S; max. D 1.59m) of the peat layer. The full extent of the layer along the shoreline is concealed by beach cobbles, and it is likely that it also extends to SE−S beneath the field of damp, rush-grown pasture which borders the beach. Specialist analysis of a peat core taken during the excavation showed that the peat layer accumulated between the late Mesolithic and the late Iron Age periods in a local environment quite different from that of the present day. The seashore during that period was some distance to NW of its current position, and the peat layer formed in fen-like conditions in what had been a freshwater lake. The excavation revealed activity within the peat layer in the Bronze Age. This record refers to the earliest phase of activity which was represented by a horizontal layer of wood. It was partly excavated. Only one piece of worked wood was recovered -a piece of willow brushwood with a long, shallow chisel point -nevertheless, the layer of wood appeared to have been deliberately laid, and may have served as a trackway, platform or surface. Many of the wood pieces were on a roughly NW-SE axis, suggesting that they may have formed a trackway running across the boggy ground. The excavator concluded that ‘they did not seem to be tightly packed across the whole area or regularly aligned so they probably did not form a permanent route-way, but instead might be considered as occasional aids for persons needing to access or to cross this boggy area, or may only have been placed over the wettest portions of the peat surface’ (Beglane 2018, 40). The wood was mainly willow, reflecting the local wet environment. A wood sample returned a radiocarbon dated of 2285-2044 cal BC, indicating activity during the Early Bronze Age. (Beglan 2018). This structure is overlain at a higher level in the peat layer by other structures (SL0005-193----) dating to the Middle Bronze Age. Compiled by: Jane O'Shaughnessy Date of upload: 19 December 2018