Excavation

Date 2006

Event ID 550376

Category Recording

Type Excavation

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/550376

NG 594 197 Excavations at High Pasture Cave continued in 2006, resulting in the clearance of the fine, stone-built stairwell discovered in 2005. Excavations within the cave (trench 6) showed that multiple votive deposits (pins, needles, spindle whorls, querns and beads) had been placed at the foot of the stairs. Activity within the cave was shown to be occasional in the ?Neolithic and Bronze Age (pottery and lithics) with increased activity and ritual use from the Later Bronze Age into the Iron Age. Work on the surface included excavation of sections (trenches 5, 9 and 11) across a massive burnt mound which surrounds the cave entrance, sections through landscape features (walls and boundary dykes) and excavation of a major part of the possible round house lying to the NW of the site (trench 7). A series of test pits were dug to evaluate features during extensive geophysical surveys. A fuller description of the 2006 work will be made available through a DSR in April 2007 and through updates of the High Pasture Cave Web Site @ www.high-pasture-cave.org.

Excavation archive held in the Archives of WCAS and AALS c/o Steven Birch and Wildgoose and with the RCAHMS. Finds deposited with the NMS.

Sponsor: Historic Scotland, Highland Council, Skye and Lochalsh Enterprise/Leader+, Highland 2007 Fund, Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.

S A Birch and M Wildgoose 2006