Preliminary report of 1998 excavations by the Roman Gask Project

A small team of four mounted a trial excavation at the supposedly Iron Age site of Dornock, just SE of Crieff.

From the air the site had appeared almost identical to the Roman Gask Project’s 1997 excavation target (about 1.5km to the East) at Cuiltburn. The latter proved to be Roman period, but otherwise without parallel and we had hoped that this second site might provide further clues to its function. However, the two proved to have almost nothing in common, with Dornock producing little or nothing in the way of internal structures, but copious stratified 19th century glass and pottery coupled to evidence for metal working, and we suspect that the site might be connected to the construction of the Crieff to Auchterarder railway which crossed the River Earn on an Iron bridge c.200m further to the west in the same field