Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-dh8gc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-09T15:56:19.186Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Close ny chollagh: an Iron Age fort at Scarlett, Isle of Man

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 May 2014

Peter S. Gelling
Affiliation:
Department of Ancient History and Archaeology, Birmingham University
W. Potts
Affiliation:
Department of Zoology, Birmingham University

Extract

Close ny chollagh lies on the southern coast of the Isle of Man (fig. 1), about one mile south-west of Castletown, and is one of the group of Manx fortified coastal sites. It is not on a promontory, having land adjacent to it on two of its four sides, but the deep gully to the south combines with an artificial ditch along the rest of the landward side to make it a position of some strength.

When it was chosen for excavation in 1953 it was thought that the Manx promontory forts belonged to the Viking Age, and Close ny chollagh did indeed have a mediaeval level in which the principal building was a long-house of Scandinavian type. There was also, however, an Iron Age level, separated by a sterile layer from the later one, clearly demonstrating for the first time an Iron Age origin for one of the Manx promontory forts. It is to this Iron Age phase in the history of the fort that the present report is devoted.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Prehistoric Society 1958

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

page 86 note * Proc. IOM Nat. Hist. and Ant. Soc., vol. v, no. v, 1957Google Scholar.

page 94 note * I wish to thank Professor C. F. C. Hawkes and Mr R. B. K. Stevenson for their help in dealing with the small finds.

page 99 note * Published in Proc. IOM Nat. Hist. and Ant. Soc., vol. v, no. 111, 1952Google Scholar.