AT a packed meeting in the Eastgate Theatre the Arthur Association announced the results of the 2013 archaeological excavations in Manor Valley. The site covers 32 acresin Glenrath where outlines of ancient houses, yards and fields remain clearly visible. It is one of the most extensive settlements of its kind in Scotland and has survived, because after it was abandoned, the land was never ploughed. On the basis of archaeological evidence to date, it was generally believed that during the Roman period, ancient hill fort settlements were gradually abandoned and people moved down to live and farm in the valleys. A previous excavation in 1941 dated a cluster of roundhouses in Glenrath to around the Roman Iron Age (100-200 AD). Last summer the whole site was surveyed and a roundhouse chosen for excavation because it may have been later than the Roman period It was about nine metres in diameter with a cooking hearth near the centre and it gave the impression of having been occupied over quite a long period. A fragment of a shale bracelet suggested that the occupants had access to exotic goods. However radio carbon dating of finds and soil samples has subsequently turned the accepted archaeological dating for this Borders site on its head - it turns out that the house was built in around 1500 BC during the Bronze Age.

A second building was also excavated. This was unusual in that it was rectangular rather than circular, and it proved an enigma. It appears to have been built in around the 11th or 12th century AD and augmented over the following centuries. Underneath this mediaeval building were traces of earlier activity stretching back to the pre-Roman period around 700-400 BC. So it seems that the location was used for over two millennia. But what was it – a byre or perhaps a food store? A similar building lies close by and this may help to provide the answers.

The excavation was funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund and Scottish Borders Council. It was undertaken in close collaboration with Peebles Archaeological Society and involved over 30 volunteers on the survey and 62 on the dig. Over 300 local schoolchildren took part in an associated programme. An exhibition of the dig places and the Manor Valley story in a broader context of the history of the period is now on display at the Chambers Room in the Chambers Institution for the next two weeks, before moving to Innerleithen and then to Traquair House until mid June. After that it will be made available to any local communities who would be interesting in hosting it. An on-line educational resource, centred around an Arthur Dark Age Trail, will be available by the end of April so that school children and adults can explore more of Scotland’s largely hidden Dark Age past.