Archaeology Notes

Event ID 641168

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/641168

HP50SE 29 5683 0070

(HP 5683 0073) Viking House

Information from Shetland Museum 6" map.

A Viking House 74ft by 22ft, with walls 3ft thick reduced to lower course. On the N side is an outhouse or enclosure, 38ft by 24ft, with rounded corners. At the W end is a plantie-crub.

Information from Shetland Museum Card Index

This is a typical example of a Norse type farmsteading which may be of any date between the Viking period and 150-200 years ago. It is constructed down a slight slope measuring 20.0m by 4.5m internally with walls 0.8m to 1.5m thick. Several large slabs define parts of the inner wall face, and the SE end has rounded corners. It is overlaid in part by a ruined plantie-crub, and the footings of a small modern enclosure lie to the N.

Surveyed at 1/2500.

Visited by OS (AA) 7 May 1969.

Norse Farmstead [NR]

OS 1:10,000 map, 1973.

HP 5683 0070 During July and August investigations on a Norse farmstead were initiated on a slope near Belmont (Wadbister) at the S tip of Unst. A Norse longhouse c 22 x 5m (internally) was uncovered. The house, which is suspected to be of 9 to 10th-century date, had curved walls of c 1m in thickness and was aligned downslope. A smaller Late Norse house with a length of c 12m was later built on top of the Viking structure. There are traces of other buildings in the vicinity and a stone dyke surrounding the farmyard is still preserved. Approximately 100m S another house structure of presumed pre-Norse date was discovered. A number of cup marks assumed to be Bronze Age were recognised in the surface of a rocky outcrop near the Norse site.

Most finds are of stone, especially steatite and schist. They include a number of sherds of steatite vessels, sinkers, spindle whorls, a hanging lamp and a miniature millstone.

Sponsors: Shetland Amenity Trust, Copenhagen University.

A C Larsen 1996.

HU 56 99; HU 57 99; HP 56 00; HP 57 00. The southernmost area of Unst was surveyed in order to provide a context for last year's excavation at Belmont (Larsen 1996). Field systems associated with the site were mapped, together with four other potentially Norse buildings and their fields. Two of the Norse sites lay amongst the crofting settlements of Mulla, Easter and Wester Heogland, for which good documentary evidence survives. Two groups of boat-shaped stone settings were located and may represent Viking boat-graves, but they may be of earlier date. The more obvious sites had been previously recorded but the sheer density of the sites and their inter-relationships had not previously been recognised - over 600 elements being recorded.

In addition, a small area around the excavated site at Soterberg was also mapped in order to identify features potentially related to the site.

Sponsors: Historic Scotland, Shetland Amenity Trust, Shetland Enterprise Company.

V E Turner and M Macleod 1997

One unroofed building is depicted on the 1st edition of the OS 6-inch map (Orkney and Shetland (Shetland) 1881, sheet viii) and on the current edition of the OS 1:10000 map (1973).

Information from RCAHMS (SAH) 6 February 2001

HP 568 007 Belmont

The settlement of which the Norse site is part is located on a W-facing slope consisting of marginal hill grazing at around 60m OD. A small stream runs through the site. The Norse settlement is aligned downslope and is part of a multi-period complex. Excavation of the site began in 1996 (Larsen 1997a, b) as part of an extensive investigation of Viking Age (early Norse) and Late Norse settlement in Unst, initiated in 1994 by the University of Copenhagen (Stummannhansen 1995a, b). Systematic field walking, survey and trial excavations at a number of sites led to a research and training excavation at Belmont. The 1996 investigation led to the removal of a planticrub covering a structure which was partly excavated and preliminarily interpreted as a two-phase Norse longhouse. In the initial excavation report, the site is referred to as Setters (Larsen 1997a, b) after the nearest place-name.

The principal objective for 2006 was to delimit as far as possible the area of Norse settlement in order to determine the construction and character of the different house units, the settlement structure, the economic resource unit and the dating of the different phases of the Norse farm. The excavation area of 10 years ago was extended significantly to the N and S and a little to the W and E in an effort to delimit the Norse farm.

Longhouse

The Norse dwelling house first recorded in 1996 was excavated in sections throughout the floor layer in order to locate any potential signs of the inner house construction and habitation phases. The longhouse was approximately 22m long x 7m wide at the broadest (centre) part of the long wall (external measurements). The walls are curved with a thickness of approximately 1m at the house-ends and 1.5m in the middle of the house. They are constructed with inner and outer shells of dry stones, with cores of turf and smaller stones. The house is orientated approximately E-W. In the E, upslope end, a presumed elongated hearth is centrally placed in the floor and along the inner side of the walls signs of possible benches are recorded. Further evidence of the internal construction is represented by a posthole for a probable roof support. The W, lower-lying end of the house presumably served as a byre. A feature suggestive of a drain from this end runs from the inner to the external wall of the house and then downslope from the gable end. The longhouse has a least one entrance situated near the middle of the northern sidewall. The southern long wall of the longhouse appears to have been straightened in a later building phase.

Extensions

Deturfing in 2006 led to the discovery of two extensions to the N of the longhouse and possibly another to the S. The northerly rectangular extensions were situated on either side of the longhouse entrance.

A later construction

At a later stage the house was rebuilt. A shorter version of similar construction was erected partly re-using the older foundations at the W end of the longhouse. This new house was approximately 13 x 6m (externally) and had a fireplace against the S wall.

Paved areas and drains

Several features connected with the longhouse were recorded and partly excavated during the excavation.

Paved areas were documented inside the house near the entrance and, in a fragmentary nature, at the W end. Outside the house, fragmentary paved areas were recorded mainly around the N part of the E gable end and along the W part of the northern long wall. Paved areas along the southern long wall were found to the S and W. What appeared to be paved steps were uncovered outside the entrance in the middle of the northern long wall leading to the N.

A stone-built drain was revealed outside and along the southern long wall. It was finely paved at its E end and situated very close to the stream which had a bend where the drain began. The drain continued downslope along the long wall and probably also partly inside the house.

Outhouse or enclosure

An oblong structure situated parallel and to the N of the longhouse might be connected with it. This appeared to be of single stone wall construction, with no evidence of turf. This structure was probably either an outhouse or an enclosure for animals.

Stone walls

Two further stone walls were recorded. One was connected to the SW gable end of the house and ran S. The other wall was better preserved and was connected to the NE part of the E extension N of the longhouse. This wall ran N and then W. A smaller circular, stone structure had been incorporated on its southern side. This might have been a grain-drying building.

Norse finds

Around 300 finds have been recorded during the excavations, including artefacts (eg steatite, serpentine or schist lamps, spindle whorls, net sinkers), fragments of household articles, and raw materials, both local and imported.

Preliminary dating

The layout of the structures as well as the finds suggest possible dates for the settlement site. The earliest phase of the longhouse, with its curved walls, its size, the byre and the centrally-placed hearth, has parallels with other sites in Shetland (eg the earliest Norse phase at Jarlshof) and the Faroe Islands, which have been dated to the 9th to 10th centuries AD.

The later phase has parallels with the Norse site at Underhoull. The hearth is placed along the wall and the size of the house is smaller, features which seem characteristic for the medieval or late Norse period. This structure is currently tentatively dated to the 11th to 12th centuries AD.

Rock carvings

A cup-marked area of bedrock to the NW of the longhouse was already known (Larsen 1997a, b). Additional cup-marks were discovered this year in the same area. Meanwhile, the excavations revealed cup-marked exposures in the paved area S of the southern long wall. Another cup-marked stone was found in the NW corner of the gable end.

Field survey

Prior to excavation, detailed survey was carried out at a number of longhouse sites within Unst. Detailed contour survey was carried out in penmap at the longhouses at Hamar (two sites), the Head of Mula, Lund and Stove (Bond et al 2006). Detailed survey of house sites and associated field systems/landscape features were carried out at Belmont, Gardie, Watlie, Stove, Underhoull and Hamar. The results of these surveys have been processed in GIS. They helped inform which sites should be examined by excavation. Augering and more detailed examination of the soils in the vicinity of the sites are continuing. This will provide additional information about the economy and land-use of these, potentially marginal, sites.

Archive to be lodged with NMRS once post-excavation completed.

Sponsor: European Agricultural Guidance and Guarantee Fund, Heritage Lottery Fund, Historic Scotland, Shetland Amenity Trust, Shetland Development Trust, Shetland Enterprise, The Viking Ship Museum in Roskilde, University of Copenhagen

JM Bond, A-C Larsen and VE Turner 2006.