Castlehill Wood, located south-west of Stirling, has historically been labelled a ‘dun’ – a poorly defined term that is usually used to describe an unroofed enclosure that is smaller than a hillfort but more fortified than a farmstead. Situated within an MOD training area, it was first excavated in the 1950s, as it was threatened by heavy training vehicles, but has seen little archaeological interest since.
To learn more about this enigmatic feature, Stirling Archaeology, a volunteer research group led by the book’s author Dr Murray Cook, carried out a series of archaeological investigations on the site. The results show that the structure was predominantly in use from the mid-1st century BC to the 3rd century AD, with a possible phase of reuse during the medieval period. Intriguingly, the evidence seems to point to Castlehill Wood having been a roofed structure, in contradiction to the traditional interpretation of a dun. This raises the question as to whether the ‘dun’ classification is ‘too generic to be useful’, and whether more research needs to be done to understand these structures better.
REVIEW BY KK
