Excavation

Date 10 July 2019 - 18 July 2019

Event ID 1116085

Category Recording

Type Excavation

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1116085

NT 34400 97000 In July 2019, a partnership of the SCAPE Trust, Save the Wemyss Ancient Caves Society and the University of Aberdeen carried out targeted excavation in Court Cave, Doo Cave and Sliding Cave; three of the seven Wemyss Caves that form part of scheduled monument SM 817. The research objectives addressed two overarching questions. Firstly, to learn something of the potential significance of the buried archaeological resource in Court Cave and Doo Cave because no modern investigations have ever taken place in them; and secondly, to further investigate stratified deposits in the Sliding Cave previously dated to the 3rd-5th century AD, which have potential to contribute to wider research of national significance about the origin and dating of the Pictish symbols.

Two trenches inside Court Cave recorded shallow compacted layers of mostly relatively recent date and found bedrock approximately 0.3m below the current cave floor surface. However, a single sherd of a Scottish White Gritty Ware green-glazed jug (14th-15th century) and five conjoining sherds from a Yorkshire Type Ware green-glazed jug (13th–14th century) were recovered from a context directly overlying the bedrock floor in Trench 2 at the side of the main entrance chamber. A trench just outside the entrance to Court Cave was excavated 2.3m to bedrock, and contained deeply buried midden material including animal bone, marine shell, and 5 pottery sherds from a possible Northern English Ware green-glazed jug (14th-15th century), as well as evidence of iron working in the form of slag and a fragment of tuyère. This is the first time that evidence for iron smelting or smithing has been identified in the Wemyss Caves, and given the location of the midden and the lack of deposits inside Court Cave, there is a real possibility that the midden derives from activities taking place inside the Court Cave in the medieval period. Scientific dating of the tuyère and a sample of animal bone will hopefully provide more certainty on the date of activities resulting in the midden.

A trench located at the back of the Doo Cave revealed an unexpected discovery of rock cut niches and a possible pit carved into the bedrock floor of the cave. These were buried beneath nearly 2m of in-wash from the back of the cave, which contained only relatively modern finds. The in-wash sediments are likely to be the result of the collapse of the West Doo Cave in 1914. It is puzzling that these recent deposits were found on clean bedrock floor. A thin layer of sand and pebbles filling features cut into the bedrock may hold the answer. In the early 20th century, changes in the coastline resulted in the migration of the beach right up to the mouth of the Doo Cave, putting the cave interior in reach of the erosive power of the sea.

The re-excavation of the 2004 Time Team trench in the Sliding Cave successfully located the 3rd-5th century occupation horizon and sampled additional material from it for analysis and radiocarbon dating. The excavation also discovered a bone-rich layer below this occupation horizon that lay beyond the limits of the original trench. Both of these cultural deposits were present in a second trench opened up towards the centre of Sliding Cave, showing that extensive archaeological deposits fortuitously survive in one of the less accessible of the Wemyss Caves.

Archive: NRHE

Funder: Historic Environment Scotland

J Hambly, M Arrowsmith and G Noble - SCAPE Trust, Save the Wemyss Ancient Caves Society (SWACS) and University of Aberdeen

(Source: DES Vol 20)

OASIS ID: thescape1-504522