Excavation

Date August 2007

Event ID 558929

Category Recording

Type Excavation

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/558929

NF 7823 6085 A site on the W coast of the island of Baile Sear was uncovered and partially damaged in the storm of January 2005. The site had been monitored and recorded by the Access Archaeology group of North Uist, with the support of the SCAPE Trust’s Shorewatch Project. An excavation was undertaken in August 2007. Two trenches were opened on the beach in front of the site, in order to further investigate structures and deposits revealed during an evaluation in 2006.

Trench 1 was at the northern end of mound, and contained the western half of wheelhouse. This had been constructed within a large pit, which was lined by a single skin of undressed stonework, followed by an inner skin of coursed blocks. The wall was corbelled inwards, and was preserved to a maximum height of 1m. A crushed pot was found beneath the portion of the wall that was excavated to its foundations. Floor deposits and

two freestanding masonry piers survived in the northern part of the wheelhouse. The southern part of the structure had been modified by removing the piers to their footings and dismantling the exterior wall. This was then rebuilt half a metre to the N, thus slightly reducing the interior dimensions of the dwelling. The trench that had contained the primary wall was left open for a time, filling with midden deposits. An arc of stonework was also built inside the wheelhouse, concentric to the outer wall. After the structure had been abandoned, it filled with windblown sand. Several deep pits were then dug through these deposits from above. These penetrated the Iron Age floor in the centre of the wheelhouse, and truncated the two surviving piers. Finds, which are typical of later prehistoric domestic sites in the Western Isles, included quantities of animal and cetacean bone, worked antler, coarse stone tools, and Middle Iron Age pottery. Fragments of saddle and rotary querns, and a copper alloy ring, were also recovered.

Trench 2 was positioned at the southern end of the exposed features and was c25 x 10m in size, the main axis parallel to the beach. It was positioned in order to gain a cross-section of an eroding mound with walls, midden, bone and pottery spilling out onto the beach, as well as to investigate underlying deposits below the shingle. Within it a series of adjoining sections of dry stone walling were found which did not readily conform

to any known typological form, other than one corbelled cell which looked typically Iron Age. These parts of structures were all physically related and built into each other in a succession, the earliest of which seems to have been the orthostat-based curving wall to the N of the trench, long noted at the site by local people.

Various occupation deposits were excavated from within these walls, although nothing which could be confidently described as a floor layer. Midden material surrounded the structures to a depth of c0.40m. All other deposits consisted mainly of sand. At the southern extent a cist-like bowl (c1m wide and deep, orthostatic sides with overlying horizontal courses, all covered by large flagstones) was below the level of the other structures but was cut in from a contemporary context. It had been converted by secondary walling into a structure of unknown use, resembling something like a corn drying kiln in plan, with an adjoining stone

built flu- like feature which confusingly sloped downward into the bowl (unlike that required for a kiln).

Underneath these structures there was at least 1.5m of archaeological deposits. Many features were investigated, such as postholes, stone sockets, dog and other, mixed animal burials (pig, dog, sheep/goat), and large flat-bottomed pits of unknown use. Some of these were cut from the level of layers of peat ash and charcoal which were as much as1.2m below the uppermost structures, while others may have been cut from the occupation level of the structures, now lost due to the eroding profile of the beach.

Hammer/course stone tools were found in abundance all over the trench, as was worked, butchered and unworked bone, IA pottery and a small quantity of craggan ware. Many (c12) saddle querns have been found over the years in the immediate vicinity, including one noted by Beveridge (1911, 229) and four broken examples were found this year, together with a fragment of rotary quern. A beautiful polished ring-shaped bone bead, three bone needles and a bone spout or possibly mouthpiece were amongst the most eye-catching finds.

Archive to be deposited with RCAHMS upon completion of fieldwork.

Funder: Historic Scotland, the SCAPE Trust.