Excavation

Date 4 July 2022 - 22 July 2022

Event ID 1163408

Category Recording

Type Excavation

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1163408

HY 37384 30093 Fieldwork continued at the Norse/post-medieval farmstead at Skaill, Westness, Rousay aiming to further investigate the post-medieval farm buildings that make up the later phases of the settlement mound. This followed a year with limited fieldwork during 2021. The Norse hall that was partly exposed in 2019 (Trench 4) was not excavated this season. A series of radiocarbon dates has been obtained for the site.

Excavations continued to focus on the area to the E of the extant

post-medieval farmhouse. Trench 19 was extended to the N and S (total 16.1m long, 7.4m wide) to further expose the former building range and Trench 22 was reopened (6 x 2m). Trench 29 (5 x 2m) was opened beyond a boundary wall into the neighbouring field, continuing the line of Trench 22 to the E. A small evaluation trench (Trench 30, 4 x 1m) was opened within the enclosure to the W of the farmhouse to explore an earthwork and potential continuation of the wall encountered last season in Trench 5.

Substantial built remains were exposed in the northern and southern extensions in Trench 19. Rooms 1 and 2 were near fully exposed and several phases of construction were evident. The earliest apparent phase included the large rectangular wall encompassing Room 1 at the northern end, which had subsequently been subdivided with an internal wall containing a vent for a likely square corn-drying kiln at the northern end. There was a hearth stone abutting the internal northern wall of the kiln and it is this structure that is likely depicted on an 1840 estate map (before being demolished prior to the 1880 OS map). The eastern wall of this room had been replaced and was built above later floor horizons along with the internal kiln wall. The upper surviving floor surface was uneven with stone structures protruding from below, along with significant height differences externally, indicating significant build-up of floor levels throughout the history of the building. A section excavated externally to the N of the building exposed the external wallface (>1.05m high) and additional walls at a lower depth.

To the S, Room 2 had been extended at least twice, with a series of additions abutting the southern end to create a single long room.

The upper stone floor surface was exposed with a central hearth stone above the remains of a former gable end wall (now forming a step in the floor level). Numerous doorways were added during the extensions and then later blocked. The southern end of the building range was observed just outside the trench. Room 2 was later mass filled with stone rubble, containing high frequencies of 19th-century pottery, into which a small stone-built store was constructed on the western side, contemporary with the later path along the front of the extant farmhouse range. The store was built following the demolition of the southern end of the range/Room 2, and later filled in itself.

Further excavations in the infilled passage to the W of Room 1 (below the stone path) recovered a finely moulded red sandstone fragment (stylistically 13th-century), with similar decoration and dimensions to the finial section recovered nearby at The Wirk by Clouston in the 1920s and the crockets of both are comparable to a choir arcade cap in St Magnus Cathedral, Kirkwall. The recovery of this high-status architectural fragment from sealed contexts adds weight to the presence of high-status medieval ecclesiastical buildings nearby.

Excavations in Trench 22 removed the remaining midden enhanced layers that were exposed in the trench base revealing a stone capped drain cut into the subsoil. Radiocarbon dates indicate a Norse date for the drain and midden layers above (see below).

Trench 29 (5 x 2m) revealed a rough stone surface, which contained some structural stones features suggesting it might have been a wall foundation. This overlay a sequence of layers containing some cultural material, but not the rich midden layers exposed in neighbouring Trench 22. No further excavation will be undertaken.

Trench 30 contained a sequence of topsoil rich layers, forming an earthwork boundary, the lower of which contained medieval material. Excavations were limited and did not expose any potential continuation of the wall from Trench 5 to the E (exposed in 2021).

A series of radiocarbon dates have been obtained from faunal remains recovered from multiple trenches. The upper occupation derived deposit inside the hall (Trench 4) indicates it is probably at least 11th-century AD and potentially earlier (mid-11th- to early 12th-century AD). Of note, the earliest middens excavated so far were found in test-pits to the N and S of the hall and early farm (early 11th- to mid/late 12th-century AD, Test-Pits 5 and 11 respectively). Later middens were found to the E of the hall and farm (late 13th- to late-14th-century AD; Trench 22). In two locations, middens dating to the 13th–14th-century were overlain by later midden horizons dating to the early 14th-to early 15th- century (Test-Pit 5) and mid-15th to mid-17th century AD (Trench 22). Full details of the radiocarbon dates are available in the site report. The dates indicate that the farmstead to the E of the hall is likely to have been built soon after the decommissioning of the Norse Hall and may even contain some structures that were contemporary with the later stages of its occupation (perhaps subsequently incorporated into the range of buildings in Trench

19). It is possible that the early phases of the buildings in the

northern end of Trench 19 are contemporary with the early middens in Trench 22. Future excavations will attempt to establish the stratigraphic relationship between the two.

Excavations at Skaill are part of the Landscapes of Change: Archaeologies of the Rousay Clearances and the Westness Estate project is also one of the case studies for the AHRC/DFG- funded LIFTE (Looking in from the Edge) project. It links with NABO and Swandro projects, which are researching long-term environmental and societal change along the western side of Rousay.

Archive: NRHE and Orkney HER (intended)

Funder: Orkney Islands Council and UHI Archaeology Institute

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

(Source: DES Volume 23)