| Abstract: | Auldhill, on the Ayrshire coast of the Firth of Clyde, is a site with a very long history. Excavations were conducted there for a total of ten weeks in 1987, 1988 and 1989, and seven main phases were recognized, as follows: I the timber-framed fort occupied in the first millennium B.c.; II the iron age or early historic dun; III the timber castle of the twelfth-thirteenth centuries; IV the stone castle of the late thirteenth century; V the hall of the end of the thirteenth or early fourteenth century; VI the remodelled hall; and VII dismantlement and stone robbing of the site from the mid-fourteenth century. Significant finds from the prehistoric deposits include an antler cheek piece and cannel coal jewellery. The main objective of the excavations was to understand the use of the site as a lordly residence in the medieval period. An architectural analysis is offered of Portencross Castle, the fourteenth-century successor of Auldhill in an appendix. |
