Archaeology Notes

Event ID 847377

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/847377

HP60SW 71 6195 0217

HP 6195 0217 Further excavation was carried out in August 2006 of an eroding cellular building, producing more information about its sequence of use. The southern cell appears to have had corbelled, clay-bonded stone walls, with a roughly paved floor and a stone and clay hearth set against an orthostatic partition wall. A thick dump of hearth waste and pot sherds had built up inside the cell, and a steatite tuyere fragment was found in it. Midden was dumped into the cell before its roof collapsed. The central and northern cells had been modified with the addition of partition walls and paved and clay floors. Two painted pebbles were recovered from the floor levels. The central cell contained a large anvil or chopping block and several stone tools. Thick deposits of what may be rubble and burnt deposits lie beneath the central and northern cells (visible in the eroded section), suggesting they were built upon earlier occupation levels or the collapsed remains of an earlier building. Radiocarbon dating of an inhumation burial cut through windblown sands sealing the site shows the building was finally abandoned before AD 130-390 (SUERC-10745).

Archive to be deposited in NMRS. Report lodged with Shetland Amenity Trust SMR and NMRS.

Sponsor: The SCAPE Trust/Historic Scotland/Heritage Lottery Fund.

O Lelong and I Shearer, 2006.