Neolithic Pottery at Duneaton Quarry
During May 2008 Douglas Gordon of Rathmell Archaeology Ltd led an archaeological evaluation - a sequence of machine cut trenches - at Duneaton Quarry. The quarry, being developed by Hodge Plant Ltd, is near Abington and has been granted planning consent by South Lanarkshire Council, which they conditioned for archaeology on the advice of the West of Scotland Archaeology Service.
The majority of the trenches were free of significant archaeological features, showing the impact on the ground of intensive improvement for agricultural use. The exception was a small cluster of truncated pits (not more than 200mm deep) on level ground at the northern end of the ridge which defines the quarry. Two sherds of prehistoric pottery were recovered from the fill of one of these pits.
This pottery has been identified as Grooved Ware, dating to the late Neolithic, typically from 3500 to 2500 BC. As of 1999, there were over fifty sites in Scotland identified with Grooved Ware present (Cowie & MacSween, 'Grooved Ware from Scotland: A Review' in Grooved Ware in Britain and Ireland; Neolithic Studies Group Seminar Papers 3,1999) although some 40% of the material recovered are uncontexted - stray finds or from stray pit features which are not elements of larger sites. Southern Scotland has traditionally had a poverty of contexted Grooved Ware, leading to a break in the distribution between English and Scottish material.
Two late Neolithic Grooved Ware contexted sites have started to fill this gap; these were both identified during the construction of the North West Ethylene Pipeline and are within ten miles of Duneaton Quarry. At Hillend near Roberton (Armit et al, 'Excavations of pits containing Grooved Ware at Hillend, Clydesdale District, Strathclyde Region' Proc Soc Antiq Scot 124, 1994) a sequence of Neolithic pits containing Grooved Ware were excavated between two enclosures while at Wellbrae near Thankerton a pit complex held comparable material.
The Duneaton Quarry site may well prove to only be uncontexted material, although there is the tantalising possibility that more complexity may be recovered from future studies.