Excavation

Date 1976

Event ID 606781

Category Recording

Type Excavation

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/606781

Located in 1976 below turf and in dune sand, when Mrs M Hughes of the Orkney Field Centre, Links House, Birsay, noted human bone projecting from the cliff section. Small scale excavations then revealed a long cist grave containing parts of two skeletons lying roughly N-S, separated by a flagstone. The lower skeleton had a number of beach pebbles around it (Cutting 1). Further excavations in 1978 showed the cist probably to be associated with an eroded cairn, on top of which was a later skeleton, aligned roughly E-W (Area 1).

Radiocarbon dates of 1640+/-70bp (GU-1550) were obtained from skeleton 1 in the cist; 1600+/-70bp (GU-1551) from skeleton 2; and 1040+/-60bp (GU-1552) from the skeleton on top of the cairn. Small finds are in Tankerness House Museum, Kirkwall; biological material in RMS, Edinburgh.

C D Morris 1978a, 1979h, 1979i, 1989.