South Uist to Eriskay Causeway Archaeological Survey

Date 1999

Event ID 963659

Category Project

Type Project

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/963659

NF 78 11 – NF 78 14 (area) Babtie Group undertook a staged programme of archaeological investigation in advance of the construction of a causeway linking Eriskay to South Uist, together with associated approach roads, haul road and rock extraction site. A desk-based and walkover survey identified a scatter of pre-crofting settlement and agricultural features spread between Saltavik Bay and South Glendale on South Uist. Some similar individual features were also identified on Eriskay, within and around the settlements of Rhuban and Haun. Although the settlements on Eriskay are recorded on the 1st edition OS map, very few of the features on South Uist are recorded either by the OS or on William Bald’s detailed map of 1805. Other previously unknown features identified include a cairn N of Saltavik Bay.

A detailed topographic survey recorded a total of 254 individual structures or other archaeological features (211 on South Uist and 43 on Eriskay). Features of probable prehistoric date include an aceramic midden and five cairns on Eriskay, and four cairns on South Uist. A sub-peat stone dyke was also recorded in a peat cutting on South Uist, while two possible roundhouses, two possible souterrains and a pair of possible hut platforms were all tentatively identified on South Uist. Six cellular structures scattered around the South Uist survey area could be either Early Historic buildings or later shielings.

The majority of the features on South Uist relate to post-medieval settlement, including at least 70 blackhouses and ancillary structures. While a few of these are isolated, most lie within 11 groups, organised in a pre-crofting bailtean pattern. Associated with these are plots of unenclosed feannagan cultivation. The whole complex is divided by a pattern of slight linear earthworks, with a head dyke running around the lower hillslopes and straight radial dykes running from the head dyke to the sea. These dykes form an organised pattern, not unlike an early crofting arrangement, except that the enclosures are of irregular size and shape and are very large (7–11ha, compared to the average croft size of 3.25ha). Variations in blackhouse design, combined with identifiable cycles of rebuilding or replacement, suggested that some of the bailes were occupied for between 180 and 240 years, while the cartographic evidence suggested that this occupation ended before 1805.

On Eriskay, the cultivation remains identified tend to date to the crofting period. Some of the blackhouses and other structures could be earlier, but the pattern was hard to discern, as the apportioned crofts do not appear to have been defined by dykes or walls, and the area is still well-settled. Following the survey, the design of some elements of the proposed scheme was amended to minimise the impact on archaeological remains, and a programme of evaluation and mitigation works was implemented during the early stages of construction. Mitigation works included detailed survey and sample excavation of two blackhouses, an enclosure defined by a turf bank and several of the linear dykes on South Uist, and two cairns on Eriskay. The latter were confirmed as recent clearance features. Dating evidence for the blackhouses on South Uist was sparse, although a small collection of 18th to 20th-century pottery, glass and lead artefacts was recovered, together with an unfinished millstone which was set into the floor of one blackhouse at NF 7809 1418. This blackhouse appeared to have been occupied in the early to mid-19th century, apparently contradicting the map evidence that the settlement complexes were abandoned before 1805.

D Johnstone and J Dempsey DES 2000, 98