MONUMENTS AND LANDSCAPE: INVESTIGATING A PREHISTORIC MONUMENT COMPLEX AT LOCHBROW, DUMFRIES AND GALLOWAY Kirsty Millican, Helen Goodchild and Dorothy Graves McEwan Kirsty Millican, Historic Environment Scotland, Longmore House, Salisbury Place, Edinburgh EH91SH, UK. Email: kirsty.millican@hes.scot Helen Goodchild, Department of Archaeology, University of York, The King’s Manor, Exhibition Square, York YO17EP, UK. Email: helen.goodchild@york.ac.uk Dorothy Graves McEwan, Office of Lifelong Learning, University of Edinburgh, Paterson’s Land, Holyrood Road, Edinburgh EH88AQ, UK. Email: dgraves.mcewan@ed.ac.uk This paper presents the results of a survey project investigating a complex of prehistoric archae- ological sites at Lochbrow, in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland. An Early Neolithic timber cursus, Late Neolithic or Early Bronze Age timber circles and Bronze Age round barrows were first recorded as cropmarks on aerial photographs in the s and s. The Lochbrow Landscape Project set out to investigate and understand this lesser-known complex of prehistoric sites and their layout in the landscape using non-destructive survey techniques, including geophysical survey, experiential survey and re-assessment of aerial photographs. A pilot survey was undertaken in  followed by a series of short field seasons from  to . Interpretation of the results from geophysical survey has proved challenging because of strong geological and geomorphological signals, but has been successful in detecting both the features known from aerial photographs and additional archae- ological features. The simple step of marking out the known archaeology on the ground has provided additional insights into the landscape context of the known monuments and elements of their mor- phology. This indicates that the monuments were closely tied to their landscape context and that the monument boundaries were used to influence the experience of being within the monuments. Overall, the research has been successful in enriching our understanding of the complex of prehistoric sites known at Lochbrow. INTRODUCTION Lochbrow, in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland, is the location of a complex of prehistoric archaeological sites, which were first identified as cropmarks on aerial photographs in the 1980s and 1990s. The sites recorded include a timber cursus monument – that is, a monument of Early Neolithic date recorded in cropmarks as alignments of post-pits and interpreted as a long enclosure defined by free-standing timbers. 1 Also recorded were one certain and one probable Late Neolithic or Early Bronze Age timber circles, recorded in cropmarks as incomplete circuits of postholes, as well as one, possibly two, Bronze Age round barrows. Until the present research, very little work had been undertaken at this site, 1. Brophy 2015, 62; Brophy and Millican 2015, 301. The Antiquaries Journal, , 2017, pp 27–47 © The Society of Antiquaries of London, 2017 doi:10.1017⁄0003581517000270 https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003581517000270 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 3.86.10.138, on 01 Oct 2021 at 08:30:02, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at