Between approximately 2000 and 2500 years ago, during a period archaeologists call the Iron Age, people lived in a D-shaped enclosure surrounded by a turf-covered stone bank and a ditch. At least 1000 years later, during the medieval period, a rectangular building was built on the northern side of the settlement, with its wall built into the stony rampart. At some time in the medieval or post-medieval periods, a field wall was built which runs straight through the settlement. Gibbie's Knowe Iron Age settlement and the later structures are a Scheduled Monument protected by law.