Editing Girvan (section)

== Prehistory and archaeology ==
The earliest evidence of human habitation in the Girvan area dates to the [[Mesolithic]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=MACGREGOR |first1=GAVIN |last2=DONNELLY |first2=MICHAEL |last3=MILLER |first3=J. |last4=RAMSAY |first4=S. |last5=ALLDRITT |first5=D. |last6=Donnely |first6=Mike |date=2001 |title=A Mesolithic Scatter from Littlehill Bridge, Girvan, Ayrshire |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/27917444 |journal=Scottish Archaeological Journal |volume=23 |issue=1 |pages=1–14 |doi=10.3366/saj.2001.23.1.1 |jstor=27917444 |issn=1471-5767}}</ref>

Between 1996 and 1998, archaeological investigations were undertaken by GUARD archaeology (then part of the [[University of Glasgow]]) as part of an expansion of the [[William Grant & Sons]] distillery. This work discovered several [[burnt mound]]s that dated to the later third millennium/early second millennium BC and an [[Iron Age Europe|Iron Age]] trackway. They also discovered a medieval moated enclosure, which is a house or compound surrounded by a moat. These are usually the homes of minor aristocracy but are rare in Scotland (of the roughly 5400 known from mainland Britain, only ~120 are in Scotland). It is surmised that it might have belong to the Bruce family group, either a relative or a supporter and that it was likely that the house would have been known to [[Robert the Bruce]], as he was born at [[Turnberry Castle|Turnberry]].

Two Roman camps lie half a mile (0.8 km) north of the estuary of the Water of Girvan in level fields of Girvan Mains Farm. The discovery of a fragment of a late first-century glass vessel in the primary ditch-fill of the second camp, combined with the almost square plan of the first, makes it entirely reasonable to assume that these were bases used by the forces of [[Gnaeus Julius Agricola|Agricola]] during the campaigns 78-84 AD mentioned by Tacitus in  (de Vita Agricolae, cap xxiv) as relating to a possible descent upon Ireland. The provision of a beach head at either site would have allowed the camps to fulfill the function of a base for Agricolan combined army and naval operations around the Scottish coast.<ref name=":0"/>