Ardnamurchan Transitions Project - 4

Between Swordle and Kilmory a sharp-edged ridge of igneous rock projects across the landscape to end in a steep sea cliff. It forms one of the highest points along the north coast of Ardnamurchan. To Paul Murtagh, a PhD student at Durham University, it seemed an obvious site for the sort of promontory fort he has been studying further south, in places like Islay, Jura, Kintyre and Galloway. The name of the ridge, Dun Mhurchaidh, supported this, as a dun is an Iron Age fort - there is another example just along the coast, near Ockle.

However, as he and his volunteers started to excavate the site, Paul found himself increasingly puzzled and excited - this was no ordinary promontory fort. While there is some evidence for a low wall at the sea end of the ridge, as a fort it's unimpressive, despite the site having a commanding view, although he did find a bead made of amber or glass.

What he and his team of workers uncovered instead was evidence of large fires. At one spot not far from the dun, there is an area of stone, like a pavement, surrounded by the black of charcoal. Here he found blobs of metal, hammer stones used to work metal, and polishing stones, so this must have been a smelting site - yet the stones here show little sign of the high temperatures he found elsewhere.

Some 50m further back from the sea they uncovered signs of extreme heat, seen here in the side of a trench, where temperatures were hot enough to oxidise the iron in the underlying clay, turning it a distinctive, bright red-brown.

Paul therefore thinks that this might have been both a site where metals were worked - this might have been done at night since the colour of the flames is an indicator of the stage the process had reached - and a ritual site. In the period 300-200BC, little evidence of fishing has been found, so burials were probably not at sea. Bodies may, therefore, have been disposed of on high points such as Dun Mhurchaidh, with huge fires built as part of the accompanying rituals. Since the countryside around was already denuded of woodland, the collection of the wood needed to generate the high temperature suggested must have consumed large amounts of time and effort.

One is left, therefore, with a vision of this great ridge, at night, it's elongate summit a mass of flames which could have been seen from tens of miles away, against which are silhouetted the outlines of people involved in ceremonies for the dead.