Excavation

Date 20 June 2011 - 30 June 2011

Event ID 964776

Category Recording

Type Excavation

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/964776

ND 3405 8905 Excavations from 20–30 June 2011 concluded work on this large (c11.5m wide by 1.2m high) burial mound. The established trench was extended to the E, to further investigate the partly excavated central stone-lined cist, and to expose the edge of the large central area to the N that was defined by substantial orthostats. This rubble-filled depression was previously thought to represent a large disturbed central cist.

Excavations this season revealed that the first phase of the monument consisted of a small stalled Neolithic tomb measuring c3 x 2m internally with six large orthostats forming two opposing pairs of stalls. The tomb was aligned NE–SW with an entrance to the NE (unexcavated). The concentric external stone revetment walls exposed during previous seasons formed the outside of the tomb (c10m in diameter). The large central depression that was partly excavated last season (DES 2010, 132–3) turned out to be the robbed remains of the NW cell, although the inner wall had been removed. The tomb was not fully excavated, this stall was the only part to be investigated to floor level, and no human remains were recovered. A possible posthole was discovered below the robbed internal wall line, perhaps representing a construction marker, and charcoal was recovered for dating. Several cists were inserted into the mound when the Neolithic tomb was backfilled. The cists contained cremation burials and probably date to the Bronze Age. A third cist (c0.80 x 0.49 x 0.62m), which had been inserted into the top of the backfilled tomb entrance, was discovered this season. The cist had previously been disturbed and there was no evidence of a cremation burial. Unburnt human bone was found within the loose backfill, but this could have been incorporated during disturbance.

The key discovery this season was the remains of an inhumation burial in the central cist. This relates to the substantial stone constructed square barrow that was built into the mound (DES 2009, 2010). The insertion of this cist involved removing and breaking several large orthostats and cutting into the backfilled Neolithic tomb. The central inhumation had been disturbed, most likely by antiquarians, and only the hands and feet remained in situ. The body was crouched and laid on the left side. The remains of a ?juvenile inhumation, also crouched and placed on the left side, was found outside the central cist to the NE, within a layer of rubble. The unburnt human bone found across the mound, especially in the N cist and around the central cist, was probably derived from these disturbed burials. The remains of the neonate burials found in 2009 to the SW of the central cist could also date to this phase (DES 2009, 141–2). These burial rites and the square barrow architecture suggest that this phase of the monument dates to the Iron Age and possibly the first few centuries AD. The 2011 excavations have confirmed the long history of construction and burial at Roeberry Barrow from the Neolithic to Iron Age, and portray the monument as a significant place for the communities at Cantick for several millennia.

Archive: ORCA (currently)

Funder: Orkney Islands Council, Scapa Flow Landscape Partnership (HLF) and ORCA

ORCA, 2011