Glenbuchat Heritage

18 Creagandubh Ring-Ditch House

24.06.10
Ring-ditch house on slopes of Creagandubh, at NJ31NE 95 3550 1951.
Dating from later prehistoric time,the ring-ditch house is located near to a group of shieling huts.
The outer bank can be seen arcing from left foreground, with water standing in the ditch.

In archaeology, the term ring ditch refers to a regularly-shaped circular or pennanular ditch cut. The term is most often used as a generic description in cases where there is no clear evidence for the function of the site: for instance where it has been ploughed flat and is known only as a cropmark or a geophysical anomaly. The two commonest monument types represented by ring ditches are roundhouses (where the 'ditch' is actually a foundation slot or eaves drip gully) and round barrows. The term is not normally used for larger features than these, which would instead be described as 'circular enclosures' (From Wikipedia)

Site Type RING DITCH HOUSE
County ABERDEENSHIRE
Parish GLENBUCHAT
Council ABERDEENSHIRE
NGR NJ 3568 1981
Latitude, Longitude 57.264403N, 3.068012W
Images 0
Archaeological Notes
NJ31NE 83 3570 1973 to 3600 1976


The remains of this ring-ditch house, which are situated at a height of 450m OD on a heather-grown terrace on the S flank of Creag na Gamha, comprise a shallow ditch with a thick external bank. It measures 7.6m in diameter over the ditch , which is 2.1m in breadth and 0.3m in depth, and the outer bank is up to 2.7m in thickness and 0.3m in height. The entrance is on the S, and what appears to be a contemporary shallow drainage channel is visible immediately outside the bank on the N and W, where the surface of the terrace falls gently to the SE.
Visited by RCAHMS (JRS, KM), 27 November 2002.

Scheduled as 'Newseat, ring-ditch 1300m ENE of... the remains of a ring-ditch house, visible as a penannular ditch and bank... at 450m above sea level... The monument is a circular stone bank measuring 15m in diameter, over a thick bamnk and internal ditch. The ditch is 2.1m in breadth and 0.7m in depth. The outer bank measures up to 2.7m in thickness and 0.3m in height. The entrance is to the S.'
Information from Historic Scotland, scheduling document dated 27 September 2007.


From:
https://archaeology.co.uk/articles/features/roundhouses.htm

To start at the beginning, the roundhouse is found first in the later 3rd millennium BC in South-West Scotland. Attracted to the easily tilled soils, early Bronze Age people settled in upland landscapes and often built houses on platforms levelled into the hillside. By the end of the Bronze Age, house size had increased (to c.10m in diameter): the implication is that more people were, by that time, living together. The number of houses being built increased substantially after c.400 BC – as shown in recent work by John Thomas of University of Leicester Archaeological Services – and we currently think that this indicates population increase. River-valley landscapes, in particular, saw much greater use, linked to new innovations in farming at this time.

The prehistoric roundhouse continued to be built throughout the Roman period, particularly in the north and west of Britain. Roman period roundhouses were usually made of stone and were often rather small (c.5m diameter). Whilst walls of large sunken timbers can support the roof-weight of rather large diameter roundhouses, stone is much less stable at greater diameters. The result is that, if building in stone, household space must become separated between different structures – in the Roman period we find that settlements consist of a number of small stone houses rather than one or two large timber ones. A rectilinear form, however, solves this design problem: a house can be extended length-ways to increase internal space, and in the south and east of England this became the more fashionable alternative, with the adoption of the Roman villa.


Roundhouses provide a huge amount of architectural variation, and many design choices relied on which materials were available to people in their immediate landscape setting. There are, however, some clear house types. Ring-banks of stone and turf are features of upland Bronze Age landscapes. Ring-ditch houses are a very long-lived northern British type. Clay-walled structures are a feature of river-valley landscapes in the later Iron Age, especially in eastern England, whilst in Atlantic Scotland, on the other hand, people well-used to working with stone built monumentally, creating the brochs.