Structures Seven, Nine, Twenty-Two and Thirty-Four

With these ephemeral structures we have reached the twilight years of the Neolithic complex.

Around a century after it was erected, Structure Ten was the focus of the site. It had suffered a catastrophic collapse but had been rebuilt around 2800BC and its interior remodelled.

Outside, the large piered buildings that had dominated the site for centuries had all but gone, dismantled and covered with midden and rubble.

But some activity continued in and around their remains.

Structure Seven

After Structure Nineteen fell out of use, surviving sections were incorporated into a small, oval building.

Structure Seven measured around six metres by five metres and not only incorporated elements of its predecessor but roughly followed the same footprint.

A large, central hearth sat in the northern half but little else survived the building’s demolition.

To the south of Structure Seven was a stone oven with a 40cm wide entrance flanked by two upright stones.

The interior of this feature, which measured 1.4 metres by 0.6 metres, was heated by hot stones. These were brought from elsewhere – perhaps the northern hearth – and inserted into the oven.

Because there was no evidence of ceramics or burnt grain in, or around, the oven we can rule out its use as a pottery kiln or grain drier. Presumably it was therefore used for cooking food.

Unlike other structures on site, there was no evidence that Seven had a stone tiled roof.

It may have been an enclosed roofless work area or sections may have been partially, or temporarily roofed, with non-permanent materials.

Structure Twenty-Two

This was a very small building will an interior measuring a mere 2.8 metres by 1.1 metres.

It was built beside a rubble mound on top of the remains of Structure Fourteen. Access to the interior was by a single entrance in the north-west side.

The threshold was marked by a large incised slab – probably a re-used orthostat from one of the earlier structures.

Inside, Twenty-Two was partially paved with large flagstones covering 75 per cent of the floor area.

Outside was a carefully constructed paved area that incorporated several large fragments of reused stone roof tiles.

Structure Nine

Structure Nine is represented by two poorly built, curving wall sections to the north of Structure One.

Five metres apart, the walls were built into the midden deposits outside Structure One’s robbed-out northern end.

The north-eastern wall was roughly constructed and single faced, with a series
of shallowly bedded stone slabs.

The fact Nine contained no hearth, and there was no evidence of a floor surface, suggests this structure – whatever its role – was hastily constructed and short-lived.

It is also unlikely it was roofed.

Structure Thirty-Four

There is little that can be said with any certainly about this enigmatic little building.

Nestled between the remains of Structures Eight, Ten, Twelve and Thirty-Three, Structure Thirty-Four appears to have been a subcircular building with a diameter of four metres and a north-north-west facing entrance.

Given its stratigraphy, Thirty-Four must be one of the last constructions in Trench P. Situated to the west of Structure Ten, it partially overlies the remains of Structure Eight’s south wall, where there are the ephemeral remains of a curving outer wall and a small entrance.

It seems that Thirty-Four’s builders incorporated elements of an earlier building into their construction, with the southern orthostats and what may be a corner buttress relating to Structure Twenty-Three.

At the south-eastern end of the interior was a row of three, three-sided box-like features created using thin stone slabs. The purpose of these is not clear but excavation in 2024 produced deposits of animal bone, pottery and a child’s milk tooth. A small, stone-based hearth also revealed cattle remains alongside a half a pottery vessel. The bone belonged to a very young animal – either newborn or stillborn.

Like Structure Nine (see above), no evidence of a floor surface was found in Thirty-Four. Although that could mean the building had a short lifespan, it was also considerably disturbed by later activity, which may have destroyed any traces of floor.

In 2019, excavation at the south-western end of Structure Thirty-Four revealed a small opening leading to a deep void flanked by two stone walls, c 50cm apart.  At the time we thought this might represent a drain – one so large that it was nicknamed the “mega-drain”.

The presence of a site-spanning drain made sense of what appeared to be separate areas of collapse running 30 metres, in a straight line, across Trench P.

However, in 2024 further investigation of one of these slumped areas, Structure Twelve’s south-western corner, showed it was unrelated to the presence of a “mega-drain”.

At the same time, further excavation, particularly outside its exposed “entrance”, gradually saw the drain theory unravel.

The two walls were found to be sitting on natural glacial till – the original Neolithic ground surface – and it seems more likely that they represented two early structures standing side by side, with a narrow gap between.