Satellite Imagery
Satellite Imagery
HER: The West of Scotland Archaeology Service 4862 (None)
NMR: NS 05 SE 14 (40280)
SM: 409
NGR: NS 0864 5332
X: 208648 Y: 653324 (OSGB36)
This fort occupies encloses the rocky hillock known as Little Dunagoil, comprising an irregular enclosure following the lip of the hillock at its WSW end, with what appears to be an added annexe taking in the ENE end in similar fashion. The interior of the main enclosure measures about 42m from ENE to WSW by 30m transversely (0.07ha), its perimeter made up of stony scarps and outcrops; excavations during 1956-61 (Marshall 1964) included two trenches across the perimeter, on the NW and SE respectively, but revealed little evidence for the structure of the rampart in these scarps, and though the turf was also stripped from its crest along the S flank, the excavators did not recognise what RCAHMS investigators identified in 2010 as the butted junction of the annexe rampart onto the main fort. The entrance seems to have been on the E, opening into what became the annexe, which measures internally about 48m from ENE to WSW by a maximum of 19m transversely (0.05ha) at the ENE end. There are also traces of walling around a lower terrace on the N. The excavations included two areas within the fort, and a third at the ENE end of the annexe, this latter proving featureless. Evidence of occupation was recovered in the other two, but no coherent structural remains. Finds include: part of a shale ring and 40 sherds of pottery from the rear of the rampart on the SE; a fragment of a comb and five sherds of 'grass-tempered' pottery and unstratified fragments of a mould for a Late Bronze Age axe (Schmidt and Burgess 1981, 246, no.1642) from the W sector of the interior; and a pendant and armlet fragment of shale, a serpentine ring, and a whorl, an awl, a pin and a knife handle of bone from the northern sector. The excavations also included two rectangular buildings on a lower terrace to the ENE, from which a wide range of medieval and earlier finds were recovered, including a large assemblage of shale working debris and fragments of finished items, and two heavily worn sherds of Samian ware. There is also a mould for a knobbed spear-butt from the site (Laing and Laing 1986, 214).
Citizen Science: ✗
Reliability of Data: Confirmed
Reliability of Interpretation: Confirmed
X: -562096 Y: 7505929 (EPSG: 3857)
Longitude: -5.049393735943721 Latitude: 55.73544149579851 (EPSG:4326)
Country: Scotland
Current County or Unitary Authority: Argyll & Bute
Historic County: Buteshire
Current Parish/Community/Council/Townland: Kingarth
None
| Extant | ✓ |
| Cropmark | ✗ |
| Likely Destroyed | ✗ |
None
| Woodland | ✗ |
| Commercial Forestry Plantation | ✗ |
| Parkland | ✗ |
| Pasture (Grazing) | ✓ |
| Arable | ✗ |
| Scrub/Bracken | ✗ |
| Bare Outcrop | ✗ |
| Heather/Moorland | ✗ |
| Heath | ✗ |
| Built-up | ✗ |
| Coastal Grassland | ✗ |
| Other | ✗ |
None
| Contour Fort | ✓ |
| Partial Contour Fort | ✗ |
| Promontory Fort | ✗ |
| Hillslope Fort | ✗ |
| Level Terrain Fort | ✗ |
| Marsh Fort | ✗ |
| Multiple Enclosure Fort | ✗ |
| Hilltop | ✗ |
| Coastal Promontory | ✗ |
| Inland Promontory | ✗ |
| Valley Bottom | ✗ |
| Knoll/Hillock/Outcrop | ✓ |
| Ridge | ✗ |
| Cliff/Plateau-edge/Scarp | ✗ |
| Hillslope | ✗ |
| Lowland | ✗ |
| Spur | ✗ |
Dominant Topographic Feature: None
| North | ✗ |
| Northeast | ✗ |
| East | ✗ |
| Southeast | ✗ |
| South | ✗ |
| Southwest | ✗ |
| West | ✗ |
| Northwest | ✗ |
| Level | ✓ |
Altitude: 15.0m
N/A
While a number of artefacts have been recovered from the interior of the fort, none can be used to infer the date of the fort itself.
Reliability: D - None
| Pre 1200BC | ✗ |
| 1200BC - 800BC | ✗ |
| 800BC - 400BC | ✗ |
| 400BC - AD50 | ✗ |
| AD50 - AD400 | ✗ |
| AD400 - AD 800 | ✗ |
| Post AD800 | ✗ |
| Unknown | ✓ |
| Pre Hillfort: | Late Bronze Age axe mould |
| Post Hillfort: | The rectangular buildings and field walls indicate ongoing medieval and later occupation and landuse round about. Some of the finds may be early medieval |
| Artefactual: | None |
Depicted on the 1st edition OS 25-inch map as a topographical feature (Argyll and Bute 1869, sheet 227.2), the presence of fortifications was first noted about 1880 (Ross 1880, 79) and followed up by John Marshall, who seems to have carried out a minor trial excavation in 1914 (Marshall 1915). Mrs C M Piggott picked up a fragment of a the mould for a knobbed spearhead within the fort in 1948 (Laing and Laing 1986, 214), and excavations were carried out 1958-61 by Dorothy Marshall (1964), following a visit by C Ralegh Radford, The OS visited in 1976 and it was re-Scheduled in 1993. The following year it was included in a new survey of Dunagoil (Harding, Ralston and Burgess 1994), and RCAHMS carried out a detailed survey of the fort and its surroundings in 2010 (Geddes and Hale 2010, 31).
| 1st Identified Written Reference (1880): | Noted by Blain (Ross 1880, 79) |
| 1st Identified Map Depiction (1915): | 3rd edition OS 6-inch map (Argyll and Bute 1924, sheet 227) |
| Other (1948): | Mould for a knobbed spearhead found by C M Piggott (Laing and Laing 1986, 214) |
| Other (1953): | Scheduled |
| Excavation (1958): | Marshall 1964 |
| Excavation (1959): | Marshall 1964 |
| Excavation (1960): | Marshall 1964 |
| Excavation (1961): | Marshall 1964 |
| Other (1976): | Surveyed at 1:10.000 by the OS |
| Other (1993): | Re-Scheduled |
| Earthwork Survey (1994): | (Harding, Ralston and Burgess 1994) |
| Earthwork Survey (2010): | Plan and description (Geddes and Hale 2010, 31; RCAHMS DC 49425 & SC1231879; GV 004724 & DP097431) |
Featureless
None
| None | ✓ |
| Spring | ✗ |
| Stream | ✗ |
| Pool | ✗ |
| Flush | ✗ |
| Well | ✗ |
| Other | ✗ |
None
| No Known Features | ✓ |
| Round Stone Structures | ✗ |
| Rectangular Stone Structures | ✗ |
| Curvilinear Platforms | ✗ |
| Other Roundhouse Evidence | ✗ |
| Pits | ✗ |
| Quarry Hollows | ✗ |
| Other | ✗ |
cobbling
| No Known Excavation | ✗ |
| Pits | ✗ |
| Postholes | ✓ |
| Roundhouses | ✗ |
| Rectangular Structures | ✗ |
| Roads/Tracks | ✗ |
| Quarry Hollows | ✗ |
| Other | ✓ |
| Nothing Found | ✗ |
None
| No Known Geophysics | ✓ |
| Pits | ✗ |
| Roundhouses | ✗ |
| Rectangular Structures | ✗ |
| Roads/Tracks | ✗ |
| Quarry Hollows | ✗ |
| Other | ✗ |
| Nothing Found | ✗ |
None
| No Known Finds | ✗ |
| Pottery | ✓ |
| Metal | ✗ |
| Metalworking | ✓ |
| Human Bones | ✗ |
| Animal Bones | ✓ |
| Lithics | ✓ |
| Environmental | ✗ |
| Other | ✗ |
NO APPARENT FEATURES
| APs Not Checked | ✗ |
| None | ✓ |
| Roundhouses | ✗ |
| Rectangular Structures | ✗ |
| Pits | ✗ |
| Postholes | ✗ |
| Roads/Tracks | ✗ |
| Other | ✗ |
See main summary
| 1: | None |
| 2: | None |
Guard Chambers: ✗
Chevaux de Frise: ✗
| 1. Simple Gap (East): | None |
Single rampart
| Area 1: | 0.07ha. |
| Total: | 0.07ha. |
Total Footprint Area: 0.17ha.
None
| ✗ | None |
| ✗ | Broken by outcrops |
| NE Quadrant: | 1 |
| SE Quadrant: | 1 |
| SW Quadrant: | 1 |
| NW Quadrant: | 1 |
| Total: | 1 |
| Partial Univallate | ✗ |
| Univallate | ✓ |
| Partial Bivallate | ✗ |
| Bivallate | ✗ |
| Partial Multivallate | ✗ |
| Multivallate | ✗ |
| Unknown | ✗ |
| Partial Univallate | ✗ |
| Univallate | ✗ |
| Partial Bivallate | ✗ |
| Bivallate | ✗ |
| Partial Multivallate | ✗ |
| Multivallate | ✗ |
None
| None | ✗ |
| Earthen Bank | ✗ |
| Stone Wall | ✗ |
| Rubble | ✓ |
| Wall-walk | ✗ |
| Evidence of Timber | ✗ |
| Vitrification | ✗ |
| Other Burning | ✗ |
| Palisade | ✗ |
| Counter Scarp Bank | ✗ |
| Berm | ✗ |
| Unfinished | ✗ |
| Other | ✗ |
Only tumbled stones identified
| None | ✗ |
| Earthen Bank | ✗ |
| Stone Wall | ✗ |
| Murus Duplex | ✗ |
| Timber-framed | ✗ |
| Timber-laced | ✗ |
| Vitrification | ✗ |
| Other Burning | ✗ |
| Palisade | ✗ |
| Counter Scarp Bank | ✗ |
| Berm | ✗ |
| Unfinished | ✗ |
| No Known Excavation | ✗ |
| Other | ✓ |
| ✗ | None |
| ✗ | None |
Number of Ditches: None
| ✓ | The annexe on the ENE of the fort virtually doubles the size of the interior. |
Duffy, P R J (2012) One Island, Many Voices: Bute, Archaeology and the Discover Bute Landscape Partnership Scheme, Donington (pp 9,10,75,76)
Geddes and Hale, G F and A G C (2010) RCAHMS: The Archaeological Landscape of Bute, Edinburgh
Harding, Ralston and Burgess, D W, I B M and C (1994) 'Little Dunagoil (Kingarth parish)', Disc Exc Scot 1994, 57
Laing and Laing, L and J (1986) 'Scottish and Irish metalwork and the "conspiratio barbarica"'. Proc Soc Antiq Scot 116 (1986), 211-21
Marshall and Speirs, D N and A (1992) History of Bute, Revision (Rothesay) (p 29-30)
Marshall, D N (1964) 'Report on excavations at Little Dunagoil', Trans Buteshire Natur Hist Soc 16 (1964), 3-69
Ross, W (1880) Blain's History of Bute, in Rev. William Ross, Rothesay
Schmidt and Burgess, P K and C B (1981) 'The axes of Scotland and Northern England'. Prahistorische Bronzefunde, 9, Munchen, Germany
Atlas of Hillforts:
Wikidata:
This work is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0
and should be cited as:
Lock, Gary and Ralston, Ian. 2024. Atlas of Hillforts of Britain and Ireland. Available at: https://hillforts.arch.ox.ac.uk
Document Version 1.1