Excavations at St Andrews, Castlecliffe, 1988-90

Abstract

Excavation to the immediate west of the castle revealed considerable evidence of occupation (probably not continuous) dating from c. 1200 to at least the mid-sixteenth century. Most of the structures uncovered were associated with the medieval burgh not the castle. The first timber buildings gave way to a fourteenth-century tannery, probably when the castle was in ruins and unoccupied. The tannery gave way to two phases of residential buildings, either of masonry or set in stone foundations. The latest of these structures were set against a new boundary wall, all probably dating to the mid-sixteenth century when the adjacent road, the Scores, was realigned. From an earlier period, Beaker sherds indicate prehistoric settlement, although no associated features could be identified. There are specialist reports on: `Coins' by Nicholas M McQ Holmes (635); `Small finds' by D Caldwell (635--45); `The inscribed stone' by John Higgitt (646--7); `Prehistoric pottery' by Helen Smith (647--8); `Medieval pottery' by George Haggerty & Robert Will (648--69); `Mammal bones' by Finbar McCormick (669--71); `Bird and fish bones' by Sheila Hamilton-Dyer (671--2); `The micromorphology of a buried soil' by Stephen Carter (672--4); `Palaeobotanical analysis of samples from period 3 pits A, B & C' by Coralie Mills (675).