Excavation

Date 20 June 2011 - 29 July 2011

Event ID 964752

Category Recording

Type Excavation

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/964752

HY 5955 0873 The Brough of Deerness is a sea stack with a Late Viking Age church and approximately 30 associated buildings on its summit. Excavation in the 1970s by Christopher Morris and Norman Emery focused on the church. In 2008 and 2009 three houses in the settlement were partly excavated. One of these, Structure 25 in Area C, was the focus of continued excavation from 20 June–29 July 2011, along with portions of associated outbuildings (Structures 24, 26a, 26b and 29) and middens. Structure 25 was excavated to its primary phase. It was originally a three-aisled dwelling house of semi-subterranean construction, with a central hearth and entryways in the N and S gables. The roof was probably supported on the side walls, unlike Structure 20 which originally had two rows of internal posts. The layout of Structure 25, combined with the discovery of half of a broken glass ‘linen smoother’ embedded in the floor, suggests a Late Viking Age date for its primary occupation.

To the SW of Structure 25 were several small buildings akin to pit houses that could not be excavated in their entirety (Structures 24, 26a and 26b). They appear to have been contemporary with Structure 25 during some of its use phases. All were dug into extensive pre-existing middens that produced bone pins of Pictish style in their upper horizons. The absolute dating of these deposits must await radiocarbon determinations, but an unstratified copper alloy mount of zoomorphic form found this year suggests the possibility of Middle (Roman) Iron Age occupation at the base of the sequence. The 2009 season had produced a fragment of 6th- to 7th-century vessel glass as a residual find (in a fill deposit of Late Viking Age date), implying that the site as a whole may have been occupied for much of the first millennium AD.

To the N of Area C another small building, Structure 29, was built after the northern gable door of Structure 25 had gone out of use. The new structure, perhaps another outbuilding, had a flagstone floor and lacked any significant occupation deposits.

Archive: RCAHMS (intended)

Funder: Higher Education Innovation Fund, Orkney Islands Council, Friends of St Ninian’s and the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research

University of Cambridge, 2011