Dr MacKie excavated Dun Mor Vaul in the 1960s. The broch measures 9.2 m in internal diameter with dry-stone walls up to 4.5 m thick and once probably 8 m high. Built around the middle of the 1st century AD, the absence of a permanent central hearth suggests it was used originally as a temporary refuge. The upper storeys of the broch were subsequently dismantled and a round-house, possibly an aisled wheel-house, constructed in the interior. It housed a flourishing community engaged in mixed farming, iron-working and bronze-casting. A number of worked bone, pottery, metal and worked stone artefacts were discovered during excavation and are now held in the Hunterian Museum in Glasgow. Radiocarbon dating of organic material indicates that the site was inhabited from the late 6th or 5th century BC to the 2nd or 3rd century AD, though perhaps not continuously.