To confirm his theories he wrote to Dr Robert Munro, a well known expert on the subject who had excavated Lochlea Crannog nearby. Munro visited the site in the winter of 1880 and started excavating and recording his finds soon after (some of which were spectacular). The general results of his study are summed up in Munro’s own words as follows:
1. The island, as far as could be ascertained from the investigations made, was composed of a succession of layers of the trunks and branches of trees, intermingled in some places with stones, turf, etc.
2. The whole mass was kept firmly together by a peculiar arrangement of upright and horizontal beams, forming a united series of circular stockades.
3. The outer circle was intended more for protection than for giving stability to the island, and in some parts, as at the east side of the refuse-heap, was neatly constructed after the manner of a stair-railing, while the inner one not only gave stability to the island, but was used as a fence, or in connection with the superstructural buildings.
4. The central portion was rudely paved with wooden beams, many of which were firmly fixed to the lower woodwork by stout wooden pegs as well as to the encircling stockades, thus affording here and there, as it were, ‘points d’appui’.
5. While there was one general fireplace situated near the centre, evidence of occasional fires elsewhere was quite conclusive, one of which appeared to have been a smelting furnace.
6. The entrance to the central area was looking south-east, and in front of it there was a well-constructed wooden platform, made of large oak planks, supported on solid layers of wood to which they were pinned down.
7. Beyond the platform, but separated from it by a massive wooden railing, was the refuse-heap; and to the right of it a pathway, also protected on its outer side by a railing, led downwards and westwards to the line of the outer circle, where there appeared to have been an opening towards a rude landing-stage at the water edge.
8. As to the kind of dwelling-house that no doubt once occupied this site, whether one large pagoda-like building or a series of small huts, the evidence is inconclusive, but so far as it goes it appears to me to be indicative of the former.
More modern research of the archaeological deposits has revealed that the crannog at Buiston was built during the Roman period of occupation and that the dwelling was occupied until the first half of the 7th century A.D.
Ref: Scottish Lake-Dwellings or Crannogs by Robert Munro, M.A. - pub:Edinburgh: David Douglas (1882)
