Giving the archaeology buffs a chance to get their hands dirty
By Sigurd Towrie
Story dated: thursday, may 28, 2009

A series of training courses will begin next month, aimed at tempting armchair archaeology buffs out of doors and into the field.

As part of the Scapa Flow Landscape Partnership Scheme, members of the public can now participate in a series of archaeological excavation courses - ending up working on one of two digs in the county.

The courses centre around the ongoing archaeological work at Cantick and the Cairns, Windwick, South Ronaldsay.

Outer Green Hill - the outer revetment wall.

In South Walls, a team, led by Dan Lee, will return to Cantick to investigate Bronze Age features in the landscape, including a barrow mound and associated boundary dykes.

Dan explained: “The Cantick project continues the work of the late Judith Robertson, who undertook an archaeological landscape survey of the area in 2006.”

Archaeological excavations on the mound known as Outer Green Hill, last summer, revealed that it contained a Neolithic chambered cairn — and not, as had long been thought, an Iron Age broch.

“A trench excavated from the top of the mound, down the southern side, revealed two internal corbelled wall faces, just over one metre apart,” said Dan. “They appear to form an internal passage orientated east to west, forming the central passage of a Neolithic chambered tomb.

“Corbelled internal walls, where the walls gradually taper inwards, towards the roof, are more typical of Maeshowe-type tombs. Waterworn beach slabs were also used in the internal wall faces, in the same way as at the Quoyness chambered tomb in Sanday.

“This year’s work, however, is slightly different to last year’s excavations on Outer Green Hill, which we’re not going back to this year.

“Instead, we’re looking at the landscape of Cantick, in particular a Bronze Age barrow mound and associated dykes. To get an understanding of the archaeology present, we’re looking at opening a number of smaller ‘key-hole’ trenches.”

Down in South Ronaldsay, between June 17 and July 12, the focus returns to the large “broch-like” structure at Windwick.

To date, investigations have revealed the remains of an earth-house inside the internal infill of the building and later rectangular structure constructed above.

This year, the archaeologists, lead by Martin Carruthers, will be probing into the internal area of the structure and exploring the entrance passage.

The programme kicks off next Monday evening, June 1, with an archaeology evening in the Cromarty Hall, St Margaret’s Hope.

This will include a talk on the Cairns excavations, so far, archaeological training opportunities and an “archaeological roadshow.”

Martin explained: “The reason for the ‘roadshow’ is to encourage local people to bring along anything they’ve found in the fields so we can take a look, and hopefully identify.”

A similar event will take place in Longhope on Tuesday evening, June 2, at the Longhope YM.

The training begins in earnest on June 6, with a day of talks at Orkney College — covering topics such as excavation techniques, recording and surveying.

“On this day, we’re looking at familiarising people with how we do things,” said Dan. “Generally, we’ll be showing them the Orkney College archaeology department and explaining what we do on a daily basis.”

For those interested in the Windwick Iron Age excavation, there are 12 places available, with training taking place over two weekends - June 20/21 and June 27/28 and again on July 4.

Out at Cantick, ten places are available, with the training running from June 19 -22.

Martin explained: “The reason we’re limiting the numbers is that we’re wanting to provide the participants with a good, personal, excavation experience. We’re still hoping for people to come and volunteer on other dates, but the actual ‘course dates’ are those that we will be concentrating specifically on training.”

This year’s courses are the first part of a wider three-year Scapa Flow Landscape Partnership Scheme project. At the end of the project, participants should have a good solid grounding in archaeological technique - in the field and off.