n or structure of this fort
which differentiates it from many other forts in North Britain. Before
excavation there were few indications that structural remains lay
beneath the debris, but when this was accomplished there were exposed
to view the foundations of a circular wall, 13.5 feet thick, enclosing
a space 30 to 32 feet in diameter. Through this wall there was one
entrance passage on a level with its base, 3 feet 2 inches in width,
protected by two guard chambers, one on each side, analogous to those
so frequently met with in the Brochs. The height of the remaining
part of the wall varied from 18 inches to 3 feet 6 inches. The
interior contained no dividing walls nor any indications of secondary
occupation."

Thus writes Dr. Munro (pp. 130, 131), repeating his remarks on p. 181
with this addition,

"Had any remains of intra-mural chambers or of a stone stair been
detected it would unhesitatingly be pronounced a broch; nor, in the
absence of such evidence, can it be definitely dissociated from that
peculiar class of Scottish buildings, because the portion of wall then
remaining was not sufficiently high to exclude the possibility of
these broch characteristics having been present at a higher level--a
structural deviation which has occasionally been met with."

"All the brochs," Dr. Munro goes on, "hitherto investigated have shown
more or less precise evidence of a post-Roman civilisation, their range,
according to Dr. Joseph Anderson, being "not earlier than the fifth and
not later than the ninth century." {17} "Although from more recent
discoveries, as, for example, the broch of Torwodlee, Selkirkshire, there
is good reason to believe that their range might legitimately be brought
nearer to Roman times, it makes no difference in the correctness of the
statement that they all belong to the Iron Age."

So far the "broch," or hill fort, was not unlike other hill forts and
brochs, of which there are hundreds in Scotland. But many of the relics
alleged to have been found in the soil of Dunbuie were unfamiliar in
character in these islands. There was not a shard of pottery, there was
not a trace of metal, but absence of such things is no proof that they
were unknown to the inhabitants of the fort. I may go further, and say
that if any person were capable of interpolating false antiquities, they
were equally capable of concealing such real antiquities in me