Archaeology Notes

Event ID 645461

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/645461

HY43SW 20 4398 3224

For comparable settlements at Skara Brae (Mainland), Barnhouse (Mainland) and Pool (Sanday), see HY21NW 12.00, HY31SW 61-2 and HY63NW 17 respectively.

(HY 440 321) This Neolithic settlement, type site for the Rinyo-Clacton Culture, was excavated in 1938 and again in 1946 by Professor V G Childe and W G Grant. It was found to be very similar to Skara Brae (HY21NW 12.00), 15 miles away to the SW. The finds consisted of numerous pot-sherds, including some of beaker ware, 250 flint implements including a polished knife; stone axes and balls, an 'ovoid B' stone mace-head, a mortar and potlids, most of which were presented to the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland (NMAS).

V G Childe 1939; RCAHMS 1946, visited 1936; V G Childe 1949; R W Feachem 1963.

The Beaker sherd held from Rinyo is held in the NMAS under accession number HDA 99. It is assigned to Clarke's N3 ('Late Northern British') group.

[Illustrated: chronological significance discussed].

D L Clarke 1970.

The Rinyo settlement at HY 4398 3224 has been filled in and only a few slabs on edge and some fragments of drystone walling protrude to mark the site.

Surveyed at 1/2500.

Visited by OS (ISS) 18 October 1972.