Excavation

Date 10 July 2006 - 30 July 2006

Event ID 558292

Category Recording

Type Excavation

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/558292

ND 4542 8688 Excavation was undertaken at the Cairns, Windwick Bay, from 10–30 July 2006 as part of the contributor’s research investigating Orcadian souterrains and their contexts. The site comprises a low mound with an overall extent of some 40m, which itself rests upon a larger, presumed natural, rise. A trench 15 x 15m in area was opened over the centre of the mound in order to confirm the presence of a souterrain described in 1903.

Massive roundhouse. Evidence for a very substantial, thickwalled roundhouse was uncovered. This structure has an internal diameter of 11.8m and is estimated to possess a total diameter of c22m. The wall of the structure is over 5m thick and the height is over 1m in the few areas tested. Although no definite traces of intramural galleries or staircases were detected it remains possible that such features remain to be discovered and that this very substantial building represents a broch-type structure. A gap in the masonry on the SW of the roundhouse may be an entrance but could equally be an opening into an intramural chamber. Finds included many sherds of pottery, stone tools and animal bones from the upper rubble layers and the wall heads. Of particular note was the discovery of a cache or hoard of 12 long-handled ‘weaving-combs’ present in a burnt deposit resting upon the deliberately reduced wall head of the roundhouse on the eastern side. Half of these combs are beautifully decorated with saltires and other geometric designs. The combs appear to have been part of a depositional event that occurred at the end of, at least one period of, the use of the structure, perhaps as part of a decommissioning episode.

Sunken feature/possible souterrain. In the centre of this roundhouse a rectangular chamber was partially revealed. This is almost certainly the feature briefly uncovered in the early 1900s. The removal of early 20th-century backfill revealed that the excavated portion was rectangular in shape, 2.6m long and 1.6m wide, and oriented approximately NW to SE. On the S the structure is furnished with a pair of parallel upright partitions,

or stalls, that partly rest against the wall faces but are not integrated in the stonework. These indicate that the chamber continues beyond to the S. On the N of the chamber three large orthostats placed end to end appear to form a screen and this may be the end of the chamber here or a later blocking off of a more extensive structure beyond. On the W side coursed side-walling gives way to an area of rubble 0.8m wide framed by two uprights, which may well represent a doorway framing an entrance passage leading into the chamber and blocked in antiquity.

Relatively high up in the disturbed soils within the sunken feature several large cracked slabs tipping into the chamber, and capped with clay, are likely to be remains of the roofing arrangements. Finds from the fills within the possible souterrain chamber included a saddle quern and three upper stones for saddle quern grinding; animal bone and shell. Initial work indicates that this subterranean chamber is stratigraphically later than the roundhouse, although further planned work will be required to confirm this.

Later activity inside the remains of the roundhouse. The interior of the massive roundhouse is choked with rubble. On the NW this rubble has been dug into, apparently during the late Iron Age, and a very well laid out set of stalls or boxes was set into it. The presence of a rectangular or oblong building dating to the early part of the Late Iron Age (based on preliminary pottery examination) is suggested as occupying much of the interior of the earlier roundhouse. Part of a very substantial flag floor associated with this building was uncovered. Finds

from these layers included pot-lids, a steatite spindle whorl and animal bone.

Part of the E sector of the massive roundhouse wall has been removed in antiquity and against the massive truncation front that resulted from this has been laid a revetment wall built in small, separate, non-integrated sections that hold back the mass of rubble. Floor deposits associated with this wall contained items such as a carefully made sandstone spindle whorl and an iron knife blade/small spearhead.

Structures E of the roundhouse/possible Iron Age settlement. A narrow extension trench, 25m in length, and 1.5m wide, on the eastern side of the main trench revealed that archaeological remains extended beyond the obviously artificial part of the mound and down the slope of the ‘natural’ rise at least as far as the eastern end of the trench, and these almost certainly extend beyond this, indicating a very substantial settlement. Geophysics indicates this could be as much as 70m in diameter. This trench contained a series of deposits and stone features stepping down the rise. These remains may be the upper elements or secondary phases of extramural buildings associated with a central roundhouse or broch. However, the presence of possible early Iron Age carinated pottery from these deposits and structures may indicate the presence of an early settlement pre-dating the roundhouse, or indeed that the origins of the roundhouse itself lie within the early part of the Iron Age. Towards the eastern end of the trench a midden area between two areas of walling was found to be very rich in animal bone, and this may be first indications of the upper fill of a surrounding ditch system.

Archive to be deposited with Orkney SMR and Orkney Museums.

Funder: Orkney Islands Council, Orkney Archaeological Trust, Glasgow University and Manchester University.