Archaeology Notes

Event ID 851763

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/851763

HY21NW 21 2361 1960.

Although 'remains of a large building' were visible in 1795, nothing can now be seen.

Visited by RCAHMS 31 July 1928.

Statistical Account (OSA) 1795; RCAHMS 1946.

The site is on a grassy knoll. Mr Sinclair, Upper Quoy, Quoyloo, stated that he dug into the NW side of the knoll about 1934 and discovered traces of walling, but his excavation was of a minor nature and he filled it in. Nothing can now be seen, although the name was verified locally.

Visited by OS 20 May 1967.

Photography from the air in March 1978 appeared to indicate the presence of a ditch around the base of the mound, and raised the possibility that the mound was artificial. However, subsequent inspection on the ground has apparently failed to support this suggestion (information from P J Ashmore).

C D Morris et al. 1985.

Topographical and geophysical survey; excavation HY 236 196 Research project on building landscape context for

coastal erosive areas in zones affected by significant windblown sand. Previous survey in 2003 and further survey and excavations in 2004 (DES 2004, 95) at the Bay of Skaill was concentrated on North Bay environs, focusing on the mound on the N side of the bay known as the Castle of Snusgar (HY21NW 21; the probable site of the 1858 Skaill Viking silver hoard). Gradiometry showed a dense concentration of magnetic anomalies in the Snusgar mound and neighbouring mounds. The concentration of multi-period 'mound' sites around the N of the bay can now be expanded from one to at

least five foci (excluding Broch of Verron, HY21NW 22).

Two trenches were investigated in July and August 2005, one 5 x 30m radially situated in the SE flank of Snusgar, and one 10 x 5m (later extended by a further 5 x 4m) in a mound 60m to the E which had been the subject of geophysical survey in 2004. An auger transect was carried out at 10m intervals between the two mounds.

The intention was to ground-truth the 2003 and 2004 geophysics results, with the intention of further investigating the 2003 geophysics and establishing a structural/depositional sequence for the mounds, accompanied by a soil micromorphological profile.

The Snusgar trench revealed a complex midden/windblown sand stratigraphic sequence, which was interpreted provisionally on the basis of finds and midden character as ranging in date from Viking period to modern/post-medieval. These were comparable to layers encountered during excavation in 2004, and a deeper and narrower intervention this time allowed a greater measurement and recording opportunity for vertical stratigraphy (the emphasis in 2004 having

been on a more open-area horizontal sample).

The trench on the mound 60m to the E revealed Viking or Norse-period middens stratified over a substantially well-preserved stone building with in situ orthostatic internal divisions or 'furniture'. This had filled with windblown sand (which contributed to a diffuse gradiometer response in 2004) and was only partly cleared in the time available. Bone preservation was good and a range of animal and fish bone was retrieved from both trenches.

Reports to be lodged with Orkney SMR and NMRS.

Sponsors: HS, Orkney Islands Council, University of Oxford.

D Griffiths 2005