Excavation

Date 17 June 2013 - 12 July 2013

Event ID 994105

Category Recording

Type Excavation

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/994105

ND 4542 8688 Excavation work continued, 17 June – 12 July 2013, as part of ongoing research on the Orcadian Iron Age. The main open area trench, c25 x 25m, was the focus of work with an extension on the S side. The principal aims were to extend understanding of a massive Atlantic roundhouse or broch-like building (Structure A) that makes up a large part of the mound, and to continue to investigate the area immediately above a well preserved souterrain (Structure F).

Structure A, a monumental thick-walled roundhouse, c22m in diameter, was further defined and explored. A trench extension on the S side was dug to characterise the outer wall face and the nature of deposits resting against it. This section was designed to be contiguous with one made immediately to the W in 2012. The 2013 trench recorded very substantial walling composed of massive blocks, very neatly constructed. Attempts to reach the base of this wall were abandoned when part of a possible new structure were encountered. This was well constructed using evenly coursed masonry, and the presence of substantial uprights, radial to its inner wall face seem to indicate internal partitions within a building. The new structure was itself sealed by material banked against the broch wall that is known to predate the establishment of the Late Iron Age settlement on top of the broch. While this structure therefore post-dates the construction of the broch in stratigraphic terms, it is a very good candidate for an extramural building associated with the period of the broch and is certainly the earliest building so far identified on site, after the broch itself.

Archive: Orkney HER and Orkney Museums Service (intended)

Martin Carruthers, Orkney College, UHI, 2013

(Source: DES)