Excavation

Date 5 July 2021 - 16 July 2021

Event ID 1145368

Category Recording

Type Excavation

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1145368

HY 37384 30093 Fieldwork continued, in July 2021, at the Viking/Norse/post-medieval farmstead at Skaill, Westness, Rousay aiming to further investigate the post-medieval farm buildings in the later phases of the settlement mound (See DES Volumes 16–20; Canmore ID: 351514). This followed a year without any fieldwork, during 2020. The Norse hall that was partly exposed in 2019 (Trench 4) was not excavated this season.

Excavations focused on the area around the post-medieval farmhouse, particularly to the E. Buildings in Trench 19 were sample excavated, Trench 22 was reopened, and Test-pit 5 was reopened and extended. Key dating evidence (particularly pottery and clay pipe) was recovered to refine the phasing of the farmstead. Part of Trench 19 was reopened and the internal floor in Room 2 (South) was sample excavated in section at the northern end. Three phases of internal floor were identified. The upper flagstone floor surface sealed a lower floor and stone-built platform. These and the upper floor abutted the blocked doorways to the E and

W. The second floor appears to have been contemporary with a doorway into Room 1 to the N. The secondary floor, supported by a levelling layer of rubble, sealed the remains of a primary flagstone floor. This contained a large stone-capped culvert that flows into the passage below the western door. The primary floor continues below the western door blocking. The drain was unexcavated. Diagnostic pottery recovered from levelling layers below the floor layers indicates that the building could have been in use from as early as the 15th or 16th centuries (detailed analysis pending). No excavation took place in Room 1 (North) this season.

In the passage between the main building ranges in Trench 19, a stone wall blocking the passage and abutting deposits were excavated. This section recovered 17th- to 18th-century pottery and clay pipe.

Excavations in Trench 22 removed the remaining midden enhanced layers that were exposed in the trench base. A significant assemblage of animal bone and diagnostic pottery was recovered, including half a whalebone spindle whorl.

Test-pit 5, within the transect, excavated in 2018 to the W of the domestic farmhouse range, was reopened and extended. This contained midden, rich in shell and animal bone. Late medieval pottery was also recovered. An E/W aligned stone wall was revealed below the midden-enhanced layers. The wall, which appears to have been a boundary rather than a building wall, sealed a lower horizon that was above the glacial till.

Excavations at Skaill are part of the Landscapes of Change and link with NABO and Swandro projects, which are researching long-term environmental and societal change along the western side of Rousay. The excavation is also one of the case studies for the AHRC/DFG-funded LIFTE (Looking in from the Edge) project. Archive: UHI Archaeology Institute

Funder: Orkney Islands Council, UHI Archaeology Institute

Daniel Lee, Ingrid Mainland, Jen Harland, Sarah Jane Gibbon, Chris Gee, Bobby Friel – University of the Highlands and Islands Archaeology Institute

(Source: DES Vol 22)