The earliest reliable information on the region of Galloway and Carrick when it was inhabited by the Novantae comes from archaeological discoveries. They lived in small enclosed settlements, most of them less than a single hectare in area and inhabited from the 1st millennium BC through to the Roman era. They also constructed hillforts and a small number of crannogs and brochs. Stone-walled huts appear during the Roman era and the Novantae are thought to have had a centre of some kind at Clatteringshaws near Kirkcudbright, which started out as a palisaded enclosure before being expanded into a set of timber and then stone-faced ramparts. This had been abandoned by the Roman period but there is evidence that the Romans used it as the target of a military exercise, erecting two practice camps nearby and subjecting it to a mock siege.