This is the site where the majority of the objects have been found over more than 20 years of field walking and targeted investigation. It lies several hundred metres east of the point where the Findhorn Dunes Road meets the sea, and is nestled between two high dunes. Its northern edge is being actively eroded by the sea, and during the prehistoric period may have extended hundreds of metres northward.
Remote Sensing Portal.
On a first visit to the site, what stands out is the extensive spread of fire-cracked stone, visible in the centre of this image. Interestingly, this layer of stone continues under the sand dunes, apparently at a fairly low level, and reappears on the other side, to the west, indicating either an extensive occupation deposit, or that the stone was scattered somehow. It also tells us that the high dunes we see now arrived sometime later. So far there has been no way to date the activity associated with the fire-cracked stone.
Across the site at the surface, and in places visible in the shore section under the dunes, is an old dark land surface characterised by finely divided charcoal, about 0.15m thick. A radiocarbon date obtained in 2025, showed that the burn occurred between 1658 and 1916 AD. Another researcher, studying the geomorphology of the Culbin Sands and Burghead Bay radiocarbon dated a number of buried soil and peat deposits in the area between Burghead and Kintessack to the west, and reported a wide range of dates from the ninth millennium BC, to the Post-Medieval period (Comber 1993). This reflects a wide range of adaptations of the vegetation to changes in climate and sea level, over thousands of years.
