Birsay, Brough Road

HY22NW 16 2466 2807

Below turf and lying on dune sand were deposits of midden material and exposed stone slabs. Preliminary excavation at Easter 1978 revealed that some of the slabs covered a skeleton aligned roughly E-W, with the head to the W. Much of the right hand side of the body had been lost, but a knife was found by the left arm. The grave was found to be lying in the upper layers of a midden, which, from artefacts, would suggest a Norse date: a radiocarbon date of 1140 +/- 65bp (GU-1555) was obtained from the bones (Cutting 2 and Area 2). Further excavation in Summer 1978 revealed a series of midden layers, a flagged surface and an earlier spread of stones, conceivably originally a burial cairn associated with finds of disturbed human bone (Area 2). Erosion has continued, especially at the W end, and by 1982 an extension to the excavated site was clearly visible as an erosion scar in the cliff-face. Carbonised seed from the lower midden area gave a radiocarbon date of 975 +/- 110bp (GU-1667); and mammal bone from sand below the midden gave 1230 +/- 50bp (GU-1955); mammal bone from the upper part of the midden gave 1095 +/- 55bp (GU-1980). Small finds are in Tankerness House Museum, Kirkwall; biological material in RMS, Edinburgh.

C D Morris 1977; 1978a; 1979h; 1979i; 1983; 1989; C Morris, N Emery and N Pearson 1979.