Headlines were made in 1864 when a group of excavators uncovered evidence of an "ancient British city" near modern-day Edinburgh Airport.
The fascinating find, which included visible remains of numerous dwellings once inhabited by a prehistoric tribe of people, was made at the southern end of Craigie Hill not far from the River Almond and around a mile northeast of Kirkliston.
The initial discovery had been made some time earlier by the pioneering Edinburgh anaesthetist Professor James Young Simpson who in one of his wanderings thought he had observed the indications of an ancient hill fort in the area.
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Newspapers reported that Simpson, then the vice-president of the Societies of Antiquaries of Scotland, wrote a letter to local landowner and arborist Mr Robert Hutchison of Carlowrie, who just months earlier had been responsible for the excavation of a large number of stone coffins in the vicinity of the Cat Stane, a standing stone dating back to the Bronze Age.
After permission to excavate the area was granted from landowner Mr Hope Vere, Hutchison and his men set about examining Craigie Hill in greater detail. What they discovered would make the entire archaeological community sit up and take notice.
Chopping back the thick gorse and woodland, the group uncovered traces of three walls or ramparts near the top of the hill, upon which were "numerous raised circular rings of stones, apparently the foundations of such dwellings as our 'rude forefathers' are known to have occupied".
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Subsequent excavations in the 20th century found that the Craigie Hill site was not actually an "ancient British city" as claimed by the 1864 headlines, but the remains of a Bronze Age hillfort, similar to others that were once ubiquitous in the Lothians.
Evidence of seven roundhouse dwellings was uncovered along with stone walls ranging from between five and seven feet in thickness, and the remains of a gated entrance.
The area around Edinburgh Airport is famous for its prehistoric settlements. In 1830, archaeologists uncovered the remains of a stone circle called the Huly Hill Cairn, which today stands preserved as a peculiar oddity given its proximity to the interchange of the M8 and M9 motorways.
The nearby Cat Stane, which is thought to have been erected between 3,000 and 5,000 years ago, is today inaccessible to the public as it is situated within the present-day perimeter of Edinburgh Airport.
Over the generations the remains of nearly 1,700 hillforts have been discovered in Scotland as a whole, including dozens within miles of Edinburgh.
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